Whenever Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline were afterwards alone, they could think and speak of nothing but Lady Adelina. The misfortunes in which an unhappy marriage had involved her, her friendless youth, her lovely figure, the settled sorrow and deep regret that she seemed to feel for the error into which her too great sensibility of heart had betrayed her, engaged their tenderest pity, and made them both anxious to give her all the consolation and assistance she was now capable of receiving.
When they considered the uncertainty of her remaining long concealed where she was, and the probability that Fitz-Edward himself might discover her, they saw the necessity of her removal from Woodbury Forest. But it was a proposal they could not yet make—nor had they yet recollected any place where she might be more secure.
Emmeline, who felt herself particularly interested by her misfortunes, and who was more pleased with her conversation the oftener she conversed with her, seldom failed of seeing her every day: but Mrs. Stafford, more apprehensive of observation, could not so frequently visit her; and the precaution of both redoubled, when Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton, and the two Miss Ashwood's, arrived at Woodfield, where they declared an intention of staying the months of June and July.
Thither also, soon after, came the younger Mr. Crofts, who had made an acquaintance with Mr. Stafford in London with the hope of obtaining an invitation, which he eagerly accepted.
Sir Richard Crofts, in the ambition of making a family, had determined to give every advantage to his eldest son, which might authorise him to look up to those alliances that would, he hoped, make his own obscurity forgotten. From the first dawn of his fortune, he had considered Mr. Crofts as it's general heir; and had very plainly told his younger son, that a place under government, which he had procured for him, of about three hundred a year, must be his only dependance; till he should possess two thousand pounds, all the provision he intended making for him at his death—as he meant not to diminish, by a more equal division, the patrimony of his brother. He recommended to him therefore to remedy this deficiency of fortune, by looking out for an affluent wife.
Nature had not eminently qualified him for success in such a project; for his person was short, thick, and ill made, and his face composed of large broad features, two dim grey eyes, and a complexion of a dull sallow white. A vain attempt to look like a gentleman, served only to render the meanness of his figure more remarkable; and the qualities of his heart and understanding were but little calculated to make his personal imperfections forgotten. His heart was selfish, narrow, unfeeling, and at once mean and proud; his understanding beneath mediocrity; and his conversation consisted of quaint scraps of something that he supposed was wit, or at least very like it. And even such attempts to be entertaining, poor as they were, he retailed from the office where he passed the greatest part of his time, and for a subaltern employment in which, his education had been barely such as fitted him. But ignorant as he was, and devoid of every estimable accomplishment, he had an infinite deal of that inferior kind of policy called cunning; and being accustomed to consider his establishment as depending wholly on himself, he had acquired a habit of sacrificing every sentiment and every passion to that one purpose; and would adopt the opinions, and submit to the caprices of others, whenever he thought they could promote it. He had learned the obsequious attention, the indefatigable industry, the humble adulation which is necessary for the under departments of political business: and while such acquisitions gave him hopes of rising in that line, they failed not to contribute to his success in another. He would walk from the extremity of Westminster to Wapping, to smuggle a set of china or of quadrille boxes, for the mother or aunt of an heiress; and would, with great temper, suffer the old ladies to take advantage of him at cards, while he ogled the young ones. Which, together with his being always ready to perform for them petty services, and to flatter them without scruple, had obtained for him the character of 'one of the best creatures breathing.' But whatever favour these various recommendations obtained for him for a time, from the elderly ladies, he lost his ground when his views were discovered; and tho' he had received what he fancied encouragement from two or three young women of fortune on their first emerging from the nursery, yet they had no sooner acquired an handsomer or richer lover, than 'the best creature breathing' was discarded.
He was not however discouraged; and meeting with Mrs. Ashwood at a rout at Lady Montreville's, he was told by Miss Delamere, who was extremely diverted with her airs of elegance, that she was a rich widow who wanted a husband. He enquired into the circumstances of her fortune; and being assured she possessed such an income as would make him easy, he thought some little advantage she had over him in point of age no diminution of her attractions, and found it convenient to fall immediately in love. She listened to him with complaisance; and soon discovered 'that he was not so plain as at first he appeared to be'—soon afterwards, 'that he was rather handsome, and vastly sensible and agreeable.' After which, he made a rapid progress in her heart; and it was concerted between them that he should follow her to Woodfield.
Emmeline and Mrs. Stafford were wearied to death with the party. But the former forbore to complain, and the latter was forced to submit, and to smile, while anguish was frequently at her heart.
Mrs. Ashwood talked of nothing but fashionable parties and fashionable people, to whom her acquaintance with Lord Montreville's family had introduced her; and she now seldom deigned to name an untitled acquaintance—while Crofts hung on her long narratives with affected admiration; and the two elder of her three daughters, who were all in training to be beauties, aped their mother in vanity and impertinence.
The eldest Miss Ashwood, now about fourteen, was an insupportable torment to Emmeline, as she had taken it into her head to form, with her, a sentimental friendship. She had learned all the cant of sentiment from novels; and her mama's lovers had extremely edified her in teaching her to express it. She talked perpetually of delicate embarrassments and exquisite sensibilities, and had probably a lover, as she extremely wanted a confidant; a post which Emmeline with some difficulty declined.—Of 'the sweet novels' she had read, she just understood as much as made her long to become the heroine of such an history herself, and she wanted somebody to listen to her hopes of being so. But Emmeline shrunk from her advances, and repaid her fondness with general and cool civility; tho' Mrs. Ashwood, who loved rather to listen to Crofts than to attend to her daughters, continually promoted the intimacy, in hopes that she would take them off her own hands, and allow them to be the companions of her walks.
This, Emmeline was obliged studiously to evade, as such companions would entirely have prevented her seeing Lady Adelina; and by repeated excuses she not only irritated the curiosity of Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton, but gave the former an additional cause of dislike to that which she had already conceived; inasmuch as she was younger, handsomer, and more admired than herself.
Emmeline received frequent letters from Delamere, as warm and passionate as his personal professions. He told her, that as his mother's health was greatly amended, he intended soon to visit those parts of France with which he was yet unacquainted; and should pass some time in the Northern Provinces, from whence he entreated her to allow him to come only for a few days to England to see her—an indulgence which he said would enable him to bear with more tranquillity the remaining months of his exile.
Tho' now accustomed to consider him as her husband, Emmeline resolutely refused to consent to this breach of his engagement to his father. She had lately seen in her friends, Mrs. Stafford and Lady Adelina, two melancholy instances of the frequent unhappiness of very early marriages; and she had no inclination to hazard her own happiness in hopes of proving an exception. She wished, therefore, rather to delay her union with Delamere two or three years; but to him she never dared hint at such a delay. A clandestine interview it was, however, in her power to decline; and she answered his request by entreating him not to think of such a journey; and represented to him that he could not expect Lord Montreville would finally adhere to his promises, if he himself was careless of fulfilling the conditions on which his Lordship had insisted. Having thus, as she supposed, prevented Delamere from offending his father, and without any immediate uneasiness on her own account, she gave up her mind to the solicitude she could not help feeling for Lady Adelina. This occupied almost all her time when she was alone; and gave her, when in company, an air of absence and reserve.
Tho' Mrs. Ashwood so much encouraged the attention of James Crofts, she had not forgotten Fitz-Edward, whom she had vainly sought at Lady Montreville's, in hopes of renewing an acquaintance which had in it's commencement offered her so much satisfaction. Fitz-Edward had been amused with her absurdity at the moment, but had never thought of her afterwards; nor would he then have bestowed so much time on a woman to him entirely indifferent, had not he been thrown in her way by his desire to befriend Delamere with Emmeline, on one of those days when Lady Adelina insisted on his leaving her, to avoid the appearance of his passing with her all his time. Happy in successful love, his gaiety then knew no bounds; and his agreeable flattery, his lively conversation, his fashionable manners, and his handsome person, had not since been absent from the memory of Mrs. Ashwood. His being sometimes at the house he had borrowed of Delamere, near Woodfield, was one of the principal inducements to her to go thither. She indulged sanguine hopes of securing such a conquest; and evaded giving to Crofts a positive answer, till she had made another essay on the heart of the Colonel.
He came, however, so seldom to Woodfield, that Mrs. Stafford had seen him there only once since her meeting Lady Adelina; and then he appeared to be under encreased dejection, for which she knew now, how to account.
Emmeline had given Mrs. Stafford so indifferent an account of Lady Adelina one evening, that she determined the next morning to see her. She therefore went immediately after breakfast, on pretence of visiting a poor family who had applied to her for assistance; when as Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton and Emmeline, were sitting together, Colonel Fitz-Edward was announced.
He came down to Tylehurst only the evening before; and not knowing there was company at Woodfield, rode over to pass an hour with the two friends, to whom he had frequently been tempted to communicate the source of his melancholy.
Whether it was owing to the consciousness of Lady Adelina's mournful story that arose in the mind of Emmeline, or whether seeing Fitz-Edward again in company with Mrs. Ashwood renewed the memory of what had befallen her when they last met, she blushed deeply the moment she beheld him, and arose from her chair in confusion; then sat down and took out her work, which she had hastily put up; and trying to recover herself, grew still more confused, and trembled and blushed again.
Mrs. Ashwood was in the mean time overwhelming Fitz-Edward with compliments and kind looks, which he answered with the distant civility of a slight acquaintance; and taking a chair close to Emmeline, enquired if she was not well?
She answered that she was perfectly well; and attempted to introduce general conversation. But Fitz-Edward was attentive only to her; and Mrs. Ashwood, extremely piqued at his distant manner, meditated an excuse to get Emmeline out of the room, in hopes of obtaining more notice.
Fitz-Edward, however, having talked apart with Miss Mowbray a short time, arose and took leave, having by his manner convinced Mrs. Ashwood of what she reluctantly believed, that some later attachment had obliterated the impression she had made at their first interview.
'I never saw such a figure in my life,' cried she, 'as Mr. Fitz-Edward. Mercy on me!—he is grown so thin, and so sallow!'
'And so stupid,'interrupted Miss Galton. 'He is in love I fancy.'
Emmeline blushed again; and Mrs. Ashwood casting a malicious look at her, said—'Oh! yes—he doubtless is in love. To men of his gay turn you know it makes no difference, whether a person be actually married or engaged.'
Emmeline, uncertain of the meaning of this sarcasm, and unwilling to be provoked to make a tart reply, which she felt herself ready to do, put up her work and left the room.
While she went in search of Mrs. Stafford, to enquire after Lady Adelina, and to relate the conversation that had passed between her and Fitz-Edward, Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton were indulging their natural malignity. Tho' well apprized of Emmeline's engagement to Delamere, yet they hesitated not to impute her confusion, and Fitz-Edward's behaviour, to a passion between them. They believed, that while her elopement with Delamere had beyond retreat entangled her with him, and while his fortune and future title tempted her to marry him, her heart was in possession of Fitz-Edward; and that Delamere was the dupe of his mistress and his friend.
This idea, which could not have occurred to a woman who was not herself capable of all the perfidy it implied, grew immediately familiar with the imagination of Mrs. Ashwood, and embittered the sense of her own disappointment.
Miss Galton, who hated Emmeline more if possible than Mrs. Ashwood, irritated her suspicions by remarks of her own. She observed 'that it was very extraordinary Miss Mowbray should walk out so early in a morning, and so studiously avoid taking any body with her—and that unless she had appointments to which she desired no witness, it was very singular she should chuse to ramble about by herself.'
From these observations, and her evident confusion on seeing him, they concluded that she had daily assignations with Fitz-Edward. They agreed, that it would be no more than common justice to inform Mr. Delamere of their discovery; and this they determined to do as soon as they had certain proofs to produce, with which they concluded a very little trouble and attention would furnish them.
James Crofts, whose success was now indisputable, since of the handsome Colonel there were no hopes, was let into the secret of their suspicions; and readily undertook to assist in detecting the intrigue, for which he assured them he had particular talents. While, therefore, Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton, and James Crofts, were preparing to undermine the peace and character of the innocent, ingenuous Emmeline, she and Mrs. Stafford were meditating how to be useful to the unhappy Lady Adelina. They became every day more interested and more apprehensive for the fate of that devoted young woman, whose health seemed to be such as made it very improbable she should survive the birth of her child. Her spirits, too, were so depressed, that they could not prevail on her to think of her own safety, or to allow them to make any overtures to her family; but, in calm and hopeless languor, she seemed resigned to the horrors of her destiny, and determined to die unlamented and unknown.
Her elder brother, Lord Westhaven, had returned from abroad almost immediately after her concealment. His enquiries on his first arrival in England had only informed him of the embarrassment of Trelawny's affairs, and the inconvenience to which his sister had consequently been exposed; and that after staying some time in England, to settle things as well as she could, she had disappeared, and every body believed was gone to her husband. His Lordship's acquaintance and marriage with Augusta Delamere, almost immediately succeeded; but while it was depending, he was astonished to hear from Lord and Lady Clancarryl that Lady Adelina had never written to them before her departure. He went in search of Fitz-Edward; but could never meet him at home or obtain from his servants any direction where to find him. Fitz-Edward, indeed, purposely avoided him, and had left no address at his lodgings in town, or at Tylehurst.
Lord Westhaven then wrote to Trelawny, but obtained no answer; and growing daily more alarmed at the uncertainty he was in about Lady Adelina, he determined to go, as soon as he was married, to Switzerland; being persuaded that tho' some accident had prevented his receiving her letters, she had found an asylum there, amongst his mother's relations.
Fitz-Edward, with anxiety even more poignant, had sought her with as little success. After the morning when she discharged her lodgings, and left them in an hackney coach with her maid, he could never, with all his unwearied researches, discover any traces of her.
He knew she was not gone to Trelawny; and dreading every thing from her determined sorrow, he passed his whole time between painful and fruitless conjectures, and the tormenting apprehension of hearing of some fatal event. Incessantly reproaching himself for being the betrayer of his trust, and the ruin of a lovely and amiable woman, he gave himself up to regret and despondence. The gay Fitz-Edward, so lately the envy and admiration of the fashionable world, was lost to society, his friends, and himself.
He passed much of his time at Tylehurst; because he could there indulge, without interruption, his melancholy reflections, and only saw Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline, in whose soft and sensible conversation he found a transient alleviation of his sorrow—sorrow which now grew too severe to be longer concealed, and which he resolved to take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging, in hopes of engaging the pity of his fair friends—perhaps their assistance in discovering the unhappy fugitive who caused it.
From Lady Adelina, they had most carefully concealed, that his residence was so near the obscure abode she had chosen. Fatal as he had been to her peace, and conscientiously as she had abstained from naming him after their first conversation, they knew that she still fondly loved him, and that her fears for his safety had assisted her sense of rectitude when she determined to tear herself from him. But were she again to meet him, they feared she would either relapse into her former fatal affection, or conquer it by an effort, which in her precarious state of health might prove immediately fatal.
The request which Fitz-Edward had made to Emmeline, that he might be allowed to see her and Mrs. Stafford together, without any other person being present, they both wished to evade; dreading least they should by their countenances betray the knowledge they had of his unhappy story, and the interest they took in it's catastrophe.
They hoped, therefore, to escape hearing his confession till Lady Adelina should be removed—and to remove her became indispensibly necessary, as Emmeline was convinced she was watched in her visits to the cottage.
Twice she had met James Crofts within half a quarter of a mile of the cottage; and at another time discovered, just as she was about to enter it, that the Miss Ashwoods had followed her almost to the door; which she therefore forbore to enter. These circumstances made both her and Mrs. Stafford solicitous to have Lady Adelina placed in greater security; and, added to Emmeline's uneasiness for her, was the unpleasant situation in which she found herself.
Observed with malicious vigilance by Mrs. Ashwood, James Crofts, Miss Galton, and the two Misses, she felt as awkward as if she really had some secret of her own to hide; and with all the purity and even heroism of virtue, learned the uneasy sensation which ever attends mystery and concealment. The hours which used to pass tranquilly and rationally with Mrs. Stafford, were now dedicated to people whose conversation made her no amends; and if she retired to her own room, it failed not to excite sneers and suspicions. She saw Mrs. Stafford struggling with dejection which she had no power to dissipate or relieve, and obliged to enter into frequent parties of what is called pleasure, tho' to her it gave only fatigue and disgust, to gratify Mrs. Ashwood, who hated all society but a crowd. James Crofts, indeed, helped to keep her in good humour by his excessive adulation; and chiefly by assuring her, that by any man of the least taste, the baby face of Emmeline could be considered only as a foil to her more mature charms, and that her fine dark eyes eclipsed all the eyes in the world. He protested too against Emmeline for affecting knowledge—'It is,' said he, 'a maxim of my father's—and my father is no bad judge—that for a woman to affect literature is the most horrid of all absurdities; and for a woman to know any thing of business, is detestable!'
Mrs. Ashwood laid by her dictionary, determined for the future to spell her own way without it.
Besides the powerful intervention of flattery, James Crofts had another not less successful method of winning the lady's favour. He told her that his brother, who had long cherished a passion in which he was at length likely to be disappointed, was in that case determined never to marry; that he was in an ill state of health; and if he died without posterity, the estate and title of his father would descend to himself.
The elder Crofts, very desirous of seeing a brother established who might otherwise be burthensome or inconvenient to him, suggested this finesse; and secured it's belief by writing frequent and melancholy accounts of his own ill health—an artifice by which he promoted at once his brother's views and his own. He affected the valetudinarian so happily, and complained so much of the ill effect that constant application to business had on his constitution, that nobody doubted of the reality of his sickness. He took care that Miss Delamere should receive an account of it, which he knew she would consider as the consequence of his despairing love; and when he had interested her vanity and of course her compassion, he contrived to obtain leave of absence for three months from the duties of his office, in order to go abroad for the recovery of his health. He hastened to Barege; and soon found means to re-establish himself in the favour of Miss Delamere; from which, absence, and large draughts of flattery dispensed with French adroitness, had a little displaced him. This stratagem put his brother James on so fair a footing with the widow, that he thought her fortune would be secured before she could discover it to be only a stratagem, and that her lover was still likely to continue a younger brother.
James Crofts seeing the necessity of dispatch, became so importunate, that Mrs. Ashwood, despairing of Fitz-Edward, and believing she might not again meet with a man so near a title, for which she had a violent inclination, was prevailed on to promise she would make him happy as soon as she returned to her own house.
It was now the end of June; and Lady Adelina, whose situation grew very critical, had at length yielded to the entreaties of her two friends, and agreed to go wherever they thought she could obtain assistance and concealment in the approaching hour.
Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline, after long and frequent reflections and consultations on the subject, concluded that no situation would be so proper as Bath. In a place resorted to by all sorts of people, less enquiry is excited than in a provincial town, where strangers are objects of curiosity to it's idle inhabitants. To Bath, therefore, it was determined Lady Adelina should go. But when the time of her journey, and her arrangements there, came to be discussed, she expressed so much terror least she should be known, so much anguish at leaving those to whose tender pity she was so greatly indebted, and such melancholy conviction that she should not survive, that the sensible heart of Emmeline could not behold without sharing her agonies; nor was Mrs. Stafford less affected. When they returned home after this interview, Emmeline was pursued by the image of the poor unhappy Adelina. But to give, to the wretched, only barren sympathy, was not in her nature, where more effectual relief was in her power. She thought, that if by her presence she could alleviate the anguish, and soothe the sorrows of the fair mourner, perhaps save her character and her life, and be the means of restoring her to her family, she should perform an action gratifying to her own heart, and acceptable to heaven. The more she reflected on it, the more anxious she became to execute it—and she at length named it to Mrs. Stafford.
Mrs. Stafford, tho' aware of the numberless objections which might have been made to such a plan, could not resolve strenuously to oppose it. She felt infinite compassion for Lady Adelina; but could herself do little to assist her, as her time was not her own and her absence must have been accounted for: but Emmeline was liable to no restraint; and would not only be meritoriously employed in befriending the unhappy, but would escape from the society at Woodfield, which became every day more disagreeable to her. These considerations, particularly the benevolent one of saving an unhappy young woman, over-balanced, in the mind of Mrs. Stafford, the objection that might be made to her accompanying a person under the unfortunate and discreditable circumstances of Lady Adelina; and her heart, too expansive to be closed by the cold hand of prudery against the sighs of weakness or misfortune, assured her that she was right. She knew that Emmeline was of a character to pity, but not to imitate, the erroneous conduct of her friend; and she believed that the reputation of Lady Adelina Trelawny might be rescued from reproach, without communicating any part of it's blemish to the spotless purity of Emmeline Mowbray.
CHAPTER II
As soon as Emmeline had persuaded herself of the propriety of this plan and obtained Mrs. Stafford's concurrence, she hinted her intentions to Lady Adelina; who received the intimation with such transports of gratitude and delight, that Emmeline, confirmed in her resolution, no longer suffered a doubt of it's propriety to arise; and, with the participation of Mrs. Stafford only, prepared for her journey, which was to take place in ten days.
Mrs. Stafford also employed a person on whom she could rely, to receive the money due to Lady Adelina from her husband's estate. But of this her Ladyship demanded only half, leaving the rest for Trelawny. The attorney in whose hands Trelawny's affairs were placed by Lord Westhaven, was extremely anxious to discover, from the person employed by Mrs. Stafford, from whence he obtained the order signed by Lady Adelina; and obliged him to attend several days before he would pay it, in hopes, by persuasions or artful questions, to draw the secret from him. He met, at the attorney's chambers, an officer who had made of him the same enquiry, and had followed him home, and since frequently importuned him—intelligence, which convinced Mrs. Stafford that Lady Adelina must soon be discovered, (as they concluded the officer was Fitz-Edward,) and made both her and Emmeline hasten the day of her departure.
About a quarter of a mile from Woodfield, and at the extremity of the lawn which surrounded it, was a copse in which the accumulated waters of a trout stream formed a beautiful tho' not extensive piece of water, shaded on every side by a natural wood. Mrs. Stafford, who had particular pleasure in the place, had planted flowering shrubs and caused walks to be cut through it; and on the edge of the water built a seat of reeds and thatch, which was furnished with a table and a few garden chairs. Thither Emmeline repaired whenever she could disengage herself from company. Solitude was to her always a luxury; and particularly desirable now, when her anxiety for Lady Adelina, and preparations for their approaching departure, made her wish to avoid the malicious observations of Mrs. Ashwood, the forward intrusion of her daughters, and the inquisitive civilities of James Crofts. She had now only one day to remain at Woodfield, before that fixed for their setting out; and being altogether unwilling to encounter the fatigue of such an engagement so immediately previous to her journey, she declined being of the party to dine at the house of a neighbouring gentleman; who, on the occasion of his son's coming of age, was to give a ball and fÊte champÊtre to a very large company.
Mrs. Ashwood, seeing Emmeline averse, took it into her head to press her extremely to go with them; and finding she still refused, said—'it was monstrous rude, and that she was sure no young person would decline partaking such an entertainment if she had not some very particular reason.'
Emmeline, teized and provoked out of her usual calmness, answered—'That whatever might be her reasons, she was fortunately accountable to nobody for them.'
Mrs. Ashwood, provoked in her turn, made some very rude replies, which Emmeline, not to irritate her farther, left the room without answering; and as soon as the carriages drove from the door, she dined alone, and then desiring one of the servants to carry her harp into the summer-house in the copse, she walked thither with her music books, and soon lost the little chagrin which Mrs. Ashwood's ill-breeding had given her.
Fitz-Edward, who arrived in the country the preceding evening, after another fruitless search for Lady Adelina, walked over to Woodfield, in hopes, as it was early in the afternoon, that he might obtain, in the course of it, some conversation with Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline. On arriving, he met the servant who had attended Emmeline to the copse, and was by him directed thither. As he approached the seat, he heard her singing a plaintive air, which seemed in unison with his heart. She started at the sight of him—Mrs. Ashwood's suspicions immediately occurred to her, and at the same moment the real motive which had made him seek this interview. She blushed, and looked uneasy; but the innocence and integrity of her heart presently restored her composure, and when Fitz-Edward asked if she would allow him half an hour of her time, she answered—'certainly.'
He sat down by her, dejectedly and in silence. She was about to put aside her harp, but he desired her to repeat the air she was singing.
'It is sweetly soothing,' said he, 'and reminds me of happier days when I first heard it; while you sing it, I may perhaps acquire resolution to tell you what may oblige you to discard me from your acquaintance. It does indeed require resolution to hazard such a misfortune.'
Emmeline, not knowing how to answer, immediately began the air. The thoughts which agitated her bosom while she sung, made her voice yet more tender and pathetic. She saw the eyes of Fitz-Edward fill with tears; and as soon as she ceased he said—
'Tell me, Miss Mowbray—what does the man deserve, who being entrusted with the confidence of a young and beautiful woman—beautiful, even as Emmeline herself, and as highly accomplished—has betrayed the sacred trust; and has been the occasion—oh God!—of what misery may I not have been the occasion!
'Pardon me,' continued he—'I am afraid my despair frightens you—I will endeavour to command myself.'
Emmeline found she could not escape hearing the story, and endeavoured not to betray by her countenance that she already knew it.
Fitz-Edward went on—
'When first I knew you, I was a decided libertine. Yourself and Mrs. Stafford, lovely as I thought you both, would have been equally the object of my designs, if Delamere's passion for you, and the reserved conduct of Mrs. Stafford, had not made me doubt succeeding with either. But for your charming friend my heart long retained it's partiality; nor would it ever have felt for her that pure and disinterested friendship which is now in regard to her it's only sentiment, had not the object of my present regret and anguish been thrown in my way.
'To you, Miss Mowbray, I scruple not to speak of this beloved and lamented woman; tho' her name is sacred with me, and has never yet been mentioned united with dishonour.
'The connection between our families first introduced me to her acquaintance. In her person she was exquisitely lovely, and her manners were as enchanting as her form. The sprightly gaiety of unsuspecting inexperience, was, I thought, sometimes checked by an involuntary sentiment of regret at the sacrifice she had made, by marrying a man every way unworthy of her; except by that fortune to which she was indifferent, and of which he was hastening to divest himself.
'I had never seen Mr. Trelawny; and knew him for some time only from report. But when he came to Lough Carryl, my pity for her, encreased in proportion to the envy and indignation with which I beheld the insensible and intemperate husband—incapable of feeling for her, any other sentiment, than what she might equally have inspired in the lowest of mankind.
'Her unaffected simplicity; her gentle confidence in my protection during a voyage in which her ill-assorted mate left her entirely to my care; made me rather consider her as my sister than as an object of seduction. I resolved to be the guardian rather than the betrayer of her honour—and I long kept my resolution.'
Fitz-Edward then proceeded to relate the circumstances that attended the ruin of Trelawny's fortune; and that Lady Adelina was left to struggle with innumerable difficulties, unassisted but by himself, to whom Lord Clancarryl had delegated the task of treating with Trelawny's sister and creditors.
'Her gratitude,' continued he, 'for the little assistance I was able to give her, was boundless; and as pity had already taught me to love her with more ardour than her beauty only, captivating as it is, would have inspired; gratitude led her too easily into tender sentiments for me. I am not a presuming coxcomb; but she was infinitely too artless to conceal her partiality; and neither her misfortunes, or her being the sister of my friend Godolphin, protected her against the libertinism of my principles.'
He went on to relate the deep melancholy that seized Lady Adelina; and his own terror and remorse when he found her one morning gone from her lodgings, where she had left no direction; and from her proceeding it was evident she designed to conceal herself from his enquiries.
'God knows,' pursued he, 'what is now become of her!—perhaps, when most in need of tenderness and attention, she is thrown destitute and friendless among strangers, and will perish in indigence and obscurity. Unused to encounter the slightest hardship, her delicate frame, and still more sensible mind, will sink under those to which her situation will expose her—perhaps I shall be doubly a murderer!'
He stopped, from inability to proceed—Emmeline, in tears, continued silent.
Struggling to conquer his emotion and recover his voice, Fitz-Edward at length continued—
'While I was suffering all the misery which my apprehension for her fate inflicted, her younger brother, William Godolphin, returned from the West Indies, where he has been three years stationed. I was the first person he visited in town; but I was not at my lodgings there. Before I returned from Tylehurst, he had informed himself of all the circumstances of Trelawny's embarrassments, and his sister's absence. He found letters from Lord Westhaven, and from my brother, Lord Clancarryl; who knowing he would about that time return to England, conjured him to assist in the attempt of discovering Lady Adelina; of whose motives for concealing herself from her family they were entirely ignorant, while it filled them with uneasiness and astonishment. As soon as I went back to London, Godolphin, of whose arrival I was ignorant, came to me. He embraced me, and thanked me for my friendship and attention to his unfortunate Adelina—I think if he had held his sword to my heart it would have hurt me less!
'He implored me to help his search after his lost sister, and again said how greatly he was obliged to me—while I, conscious how little I deserved his gratitude, felt like a coward and an assassin, and shrunk from the manly confidence of my friend.
'Since our first meeting, I have seen him several times, and ever with new anguish. I have loved Godolphin from my earliest remembrance; and have known him from a boy to have the best heart and the noblest spirit under heaven. Equally incapable of deserving or bearing dishonour, Godolphin will behold me with contempt; which tho' I deserve, I cannot endure. He must call me to an account; and the hope of perishing by his hand is the only one I now cherish. Yet unable to shock him by divulging the fatal secret, I have hitherto concealed it, and my concealment he must impute to motives base, infamous, and pusillanimous. I can bear such reflections no longer—I will go to town to-morrow, explain his sister's situation to him, and let him take the only reparation I can now make him.'
Emmeline, shuddering at this resolution, could not conceal how greatly it affected her.
'Generous and lovely Miss Mowbray! pardon me for having thus moved your gentle nature; and allow me, since I see you pity me, to request of you and Mrs. Stafford a favour which will probably be the last trouble the unhappy Fitz-Edward will give you.
'It may happen that Lady Adelina may hereafter be discovered—tho' I know not how to hope it. But if your generous pity should interest you in the fate of that unhappy, forlorn young woman, your's and Mrs. Stafford's protection might yet perhaps save her; and such interposition would be worthy of hearts like yours. As the event of a meeting between me and Godolphin is uncertain, shall I entreat you, my lovely friend, to take charge of this paper. It contains a will, by which the child of Lady Adelina will be entitled to all I die possessed of. It is enough, if the unfortunate infant survives, to place it above indigence. Lord Clancarryl will not dispute the disposition of my fortune; and to your care, and that of Mrs. Stafford, I have left it in trust, and I have entreated you to befriend the poor little one, who will probably be an orphan—but desolate and abandoned it will not be, if it's innocence and unhappiness interest you to grant my request. Delamere will not object to your goodness being so exerted; and you will not teach it, generous, gentle as you are! to hold in abhorrence the memory of it's father. This is all I can now do. Farewell! dearest Miss Mowbray!—Heaven give you happiness, ma douce amie! Farewell!'
These last words, in which Fitz-Edward repeated the name by which he was accustomed to address Emmeline, quite overcame her. He was hastening away, while, hardly able to speak, she yet made an effort to stop him. The interview he was about to seek was what Lady Adelina so greatly dreaded. Yet Emmeline dared not urge to him how fatal it would be to her; she knew not what to say, least he should discover the secret with which she was entrusted; but in breathless agitation caught his hand as he turned to leave her, crying—
'Hear me, Fitz-Edward! One moment hear me! Do not go to meet Captain Godolphin. I conjure, I implore you do not!'
She found it impossible to proceed. Her eyes were still eagerly fixed on his face; she still held his hand; while he, supposing her extreme emotion arose from the compassionate tenderness of her nature, found the steadiness of his despair softened by the soothing voice of pity, and throwing himself on his knees, he laid his head on one of the chairs, and wept like a woman.
Emmeline, who now hoped to persuade him not to execute the resolution he had formed, said—'I will take the paper you have given me, Fitz-Edward, and will most religiously fulfil all your request in it to the utmost extent of my power. But in return for my giving you this promise, I must insist'——
At this moment James Crofts stood before them.
Emmeline, shocked and amazed at his appearance, roused Fitz-Edward by a sudden exclamation.
He started up, and said fiercely to Crofts—'Well, Sir!—have you any commands here?'
'Commands, Sir,' answered Crofts, somewhat alarmed by the tone in which this question was put—'I have no commands to be sure Sir—but, but, I came Sir, just to enquire after Miss Mowbray. I did not mean to intrude.'
'Then, Sir,' returned the Colonel, 'I beg you will leave us.'
'Oh! certainly, Sir,' cried Crofts, trying to regain his courage and assume an air of raillery—'certainly—I would not for the world interrupt you. My business indeed is not at all material—only a compliment to Miss Mowbray—your's,' added he sneeringly, 'is, I see, of more consequence.'
'Look ye, Mr. Crofts,' sharply answered Fitz-Edward—'You are to make no impertinent comments. Miss Mowbray is mistress of her actions. She is in my particular protection on behalf of my friend Delamere, and I shall consider the slightest failure of respect to her as an insult to me. Sir, if you have nothing more to say you will be so good as to leave us.'
There was something so hostile in the manner in which Fitz-Edward delivered this speech, that James Crofts, more at home in the cabinet than the field, thought he might as well avoid another injunction to depart; and quietly submit to the present, rather than provoke farther resentment from the formidable soldier. He therefore, looking most cadaverously, made one of his jerking bows, and said, with something he intended for a smile—
'Well, well, good folks, I'll leave you to your tÊte a tÊte, and hasten back to my engagement. Every body regrets Miss Mowbray's absence from the ball; and the partner that was provided for her is ready to hang himself.'
An impatient look, darted from Fitz-Edward, stopped farther effusion of impertinence, and he only added—'Servant! servant!' and walked away.
Fitz-Edward, then turning towards Emmeline, saw her pale and faint.
'Why, my dear Miss Mowbray, do you suffer this man's folly to affect you? Your looks really terrify me!'
'Oh! he was sent on purpose,' cried Emmeline.—'Mrs. Ashwood has lately often hinted to me, that whatever are my engagements to Delamere I was much more partial to you. She has watched me for some time; and now, on my refusing to accompany them to the ball, concluded I had an appointment, and sent Crofts back to see.'
'If I thought so,' sternly answered Fitz-Edward, 'I would instantly overtake him, and I believe I could oblige him to secresy.'
'No, for heaven's sake don't!' said Emmeline—'for heaven's sake do not think of it! I care not what they conjecture—leave them to their malice—Crofts is not worth your anger. But Fitz-Edward, let us return to what we were talking of. Will you promise me to delay going to London—to delay seeing Mr. Godolphin until—in short, will you give me your honour to remain at Tylehurst a week, without taking any measures to inform Godolphin of what you have told me. I will, at the end of that time, either release you from your promise, or give you unanswerable reasons why you should relinquish the design of meeting him at all.'
Fitz-Edward, however amazed at the earnestness she expressed to obtain this promise, gave it. He had no suspicion of Emmeline's having any knowledge of Lady Adelina; and accounted for the deep interest she seemed to take in preventing an interview, by recollecting the universal tenderness and humanity of her character. He assured her he would not leave Tylehurst 'till the expiration of the time she had named. He conjured her not to suffer any impertinence from Crofts on the subject of their being seen together, but to awe him into silence by resentment. Emmeline now desired him to leave her. But she still seemed under such an hurry of spirits, that he insisted on being allowed to attend her to the door of the house, where, renewing his thanks for the compassionate attention she had afforded him, and entreating her to compose herself, he left her.
Emmeline intending to go to her own room, went first into the drawing room to deposit her music book. She had hardly done so, when she heard a man's step, and turning, beheld Crofts open the door, which he immediately shut after him.
'I thought, Sir,' said Emmeline, 'you had been gone back to your company.'
'No, not yet, my fair Emmeline. I wanted first to beg your pardon for having disturbed so snug a party. Ah! sly little prude—who would think that you, who always seem so cold and so cruel, made an excuse only to stay at home to meet Fitz-Edward? But it is not fair, little dear, that all your kindness should be for him, while you will scarce give any other body a civil look. Now I have met with you I swear I'll have a kiss too.'
Emmeline, terrified to death at his approaching her with this speech, flew to the bell, which she rang with so much violence that the rope broke from the crank.
'Now,' cried Crofts, 'if nobody hears, you are more than ever in my power.'
'Heaven forbid!' shrieked Emmeline, in an agony of fear. 'Let me go, Mr. Crofts, this moment.'
She would have rushed towards the door but he stood with his arms extended before it.
'You did not run thus—you did not scream thus, when Fitz-Edward, the fortunate Fitz-Edward, was on his knees before you. Then, you could weep and sigh too, and look so sweetly on him. But come—you see I know so much that it will be your interest, little dear, to make me your friend.'
'Rather let me apply to fiends and furies for friendship! hateful, detestable wretch! by what right do you insult and detain me?'
'Oh! these theatricals are really very sublime!' cried he, seizing both her hands, which he violently grasped.
She shrieked aloud, and fruitlessly struggled to break from him, when the footsteps of somebody near the door obliged him to let her go. She darted instantly away, and in the hall met one of the maids.
'Lord, Miss,' cried the servant, 'did you ring? I've been all over the house to see what bell it was.'
Emmeline, without answering, flew to her own room. The maid followed her: but desirous of being left alone, she assured the girl that nothing was the matter; that she was merely tired by a long walk; and desiring a glass of water, tried to compose and recollect herself; while Crofts unobserved returned to the house where the fÊte was given time enough to dress and dance with Mrs. Ashwood.
It was at her desire, that immediately after dinner Crofts had left the company under pretence of executing a commission with which she easily furnished him; but his real orders were to discover the motives of Emmeline's refusal to be of the party. This he executed beyond his expectation. It was no longer to be doubted that very good intelligence subsisted between Emmeline and Fitz-Edward, since he had been found on his knees before her; while she, earnestly yet kindly speaking, hung over him with tears in her eyes. Knowing that Emmeline was absolutely engaged to Delamere, he was persuaded that Fitz-Edward was master of her heart; and that the tears and emotion to which he had been witness, were occasioned by the impossibility of her giving him her hand. He knew Fitz-Edward's character too well to suppose he could be insensible of the lady's kindness; and possessing himself a mind gross and depraved, he did not hesitate to believe all the ill his own base and illiberal spirit suggested.
Tho', interested hypocrite as he was, he made every other passion subservient to the gratification of his avarice, Crofts had not coldly beheld the youth and beauty of Emmeline; he had, however, carefully forborne to shew that he admired her, and would probably never have betrayed what must ruin him for ever with Mrs. Ashwood, had not the conviction of her partiality to Fitz-Edward inspired him with the infamous hope of frightening her into some kindness for himself, by threatening to betray her stolen interview with her supposed lover.
The scorn and horror with which Emmeline repulsed him served only to mortify his self love, and provoke his hatred towards her and the man whom he believed she favoured; and with the inveterate and cowardly malignity of which his heart was particularly susceptible, he determined to do all in his power to ruin them both.
CHAPTER III
Such was the horror and detestation which Emmeline felt for Crofts, that she could not bear the thoughts of seeing him again. But as she feared Mrs. Stafford might resent his behaviour, and by that means embroil herself with the vain and insolent Mrs. Ashwood, with whom she knew Stafford was obliged to keep on a fair footing, she determined to say as little as she could of his impertinence to Mrs. Stafford, but to withdraw from the house without again exposing herself to meet him. As soon as she saw her the next morning, she related all that had passed between Fitz-Edward and herself; and after a long consultation they agreed that to prevent his seeing Godolphin was absolutely necessary; and that no other means of doing so offered, but Mrs. Stafford's relating to him the real circumstances and situation of Lady Adelina, as soon as she could be removed from her present abode and precautions taken to prevent his discovering her. This, Mrs. Stafford undertook to do immediately after their departure. It was to take place on the next day; and Emmeline, with the concurrence of her friend, determined that she would take no leave of the party at Woodfield: for tho' the appearance of mystery was extremely disagreeable and distressing to Emmeline, she knew that notice of her intentions would excite enquiries and awaken curiosity very difficult to satisfy; and that it was extremely probable James Crofts might be employed to watch her, and by that means render abortive all her endeavours to preserve the unhappy Lady Adelina.
Relying therefore on the generosity and innocence of her intentions, she chose rather to leave her own actions open to censure which they did not deserve, than to risk an investigation which might be fatal to the interest of her poor friend. She took nothing with her, Mrs. Stafford undertaking every necessary arrangement about her cloaths—and having at night taken a tender leave of this beloved and valuable woman, and promised to write to her constantly and to return as soon as the destiny of Lady Adelina should be decided, they parted.
And Emmeline, arising before the dawn of the following morning, set out alone to Woodbury Forest—a precaution absolutely necessary, to evade the inquisitive watchfulness of James Crofts. She stole softly down stairs, before even the servants were stirring, and opening the door cautiously, felt some degree of terror at being obliged to undertake so long a walk alone at such an hour. But innocence gave her courage, and friendly zeal lent her strength. As she walked on, her fears subsided. She saw the sun rise above the horizon, and her apprehensions were at an end.
As no carriage could approach within three quarters of a mile of the house where Lady Adelina was concealed, they were obliged to walk to the road where Mrs. Stafford had directed a post chaise to wait for them, which she had hired at a distant town, where it was unlikely any enquiry would be made.
Long disuse, as she had hardly ever left the cottage from the moment of her entering it, and the extreme weakness to which she was reduced, made Emmeline greatly fear that Lady Adelina would never be able to reach the place. With her assistance, and that of her Ladyship's woman, slowly and faintly she walked thither; and Emmeline saw her happily placed in the chaise. Every thing had been before settled as to the conveyance of the servant and baggage, and to engage the secresy of the woman with whom she had dwelt, by making her silence sufficiently advantageous; and as they hoped that no traces were left by which they might be followed, the spirits of the fair travellers seemed somewhat to improve as they proceeded on their journey.—Emmeline felt her heart elated with the consciousness of doing good; and from the tender affection and assistance of such a friend, which could be considered only as the benevolence of heaven itself, Lady Adelina drew a favourable omen, and dared entertain a faint hope that her penitence had been accepted.
They arrived without any accident at Bath, the following day; and Emmeline, leaving Lady Adelina at the inn, went out immediately to secure lodgings in a retired part of the town. As soon as it was dark, Lady Adelina removed thither in a chair; and was announced by Emmeline to be the wife of a Swiss officer, to be herself of Switzerland, and to bear the name of Mrs. St. Laure—while she herself, as she was very little known, continued to pass by her own name in the few transactions which in their very private way of living required her name to be repeated.
When Mrs. Ashwood found that Emmeline had left Woodfield clandestinely and alone, and that Mrs. Stafford evaded giving any account whither she was gone, by saying coldly that she was gone to visit a friend in Surrey whom she formerly knew in Wales, all the suspicions she had herself harboured, and Miss Galton encouraged, seemed confirmed. James Crofts had related, not without exaggerations, what he had been witness to in the copse; and it was no longer doubted but that she was gone with Fitz-Edward, which at once accounted for her departure and the sudden and mysterious manner in which it was accomplished. James Crofts had suspicions that his behaviour had hastened it; but he failed not to confirm Mrs. Ashwood in her prepossession that her entanglement with Fitz-Edward was now at a period when it could be no longer concealed—intelligence which was to be conveyed to Delamere.
The elder Crofts, who had been some time with Lady Montreville and her daughter, had named Delamere from time to time in his letters to his brother. The last, mentioned that he was now with his mother and sister, who were at Nice, and who purposed returning to England in about three months. Crofts represented Delamere as still devoted to Emmeline; and as existing only in the hope of being no longer opposed in his intention of marrying her in March, when the year which he had promised his father to wait expired; but that Lady Montreville, as time wore away, grew more averse to the match, and more desirous of some event which might break it off. Crofts gave his brother a very favourable account of his progress with Miss Delamere; and hinted that if he could be fortunate enough to put an end to Delamere's intended connection, it would so greatly conciliate the favour of Lady Montreville, that he dared hope she would no longer oppose his union with her daughter: and when once they were married, and the prejudices of the mother to an inferior alliance conquered, he had very little doubt of Lord Montreville's forgiveness, and of soon regaining his countenance and friendship.
This account from his brother added another motive to those which already influenced the malignant and illiberal mind of James Crofts to injure the lovely orphan, and he determined to give all his assistance to Mrs. Ashwood in the cruel project of depriving her at once of her character and her lover. In a consultation which he held on this subject with his promised bride and Miss Galton, the ladies agreed that it was perfectly shocking that such a fine young man as Mr. Delamere should be attached to a woman so little sensible of his value as Emmeline; that it had long been evident she was to him indifferent, and it was now too clear that she was partial to another; and that therefore it would be a meritorious action to acquaint him of her intimacy with Fitz-Edward; and it could not be doubted but his knowledge of it would, high spirited as he was, cure him effectually of his ill-placed passion, and restore the tranquillity of his respectable family. Hiding thus the inveterate envy and malice of their hearts under this hypocritical pretence, they next considered how to give the information which was so meritorious. Anonymous letters were expedients to which Miss Galton had before had recourse, and to an anonymous letter they determined to commit the secret of Emmeline's infidelity—while James Crofts, in his letters to his brother, was to corroborate the intelligence it contained, by relating as mere matter of news what had actually and evidently happened, Emmeline's sudden departure from Woodfield.
Delamere, when he saw his mother out of danger at Barege, had returned to the neighbourhood of Paris, where he had lingered some time, in hopes that Emmeline would accede to his request of being allowed to cross the channel for a few days; but her answer, in which she strongly urged the hazard he would incur of giving his father a pretence to withdraw his promise, by violating his own, had obliged him, tho' with infinite reluctance, to give up the scheme; and being quite indifferent where he was, if he was still at a distance from her, he had yielded to the solicitations of Lady Montreville, and rejoined her at Nice. There, he now remained; while every thing in England seemed to contribute to assist the designs of those who wished to disengage him from his passion for Emmeline.
The day after Emmeline's departure with Lady Adelina, Fitz-Edward went to Woodfield; and hearing that Miss Mowbray had suddenly left it, was thrown into the utmost astonishment—astonishment which Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton observed to each other was the finest piece of acting they had ever seen.
The whole party were together when he was introduced—a circumstance Mrs. Stafford would willingly have avoided, as it was absolutely necessary for her to speak to him alone; and determined to do so, whatever construction the malignity of her sister-in-law might put upon it, she said—
'I have long promised you, Colonel, a sight of the two pieces of drawing which Miss Mowbray and I have finished as companions. They are now framed; and if you will come with me into my dressing-room you shall see them.'
As the rest of the company had frequently seen these drawings, there was no pretence for their following Mrs. Stafford; who, accompanied by the Colonel, went to her dressing room.
A conference thus evidently sought by Mrs. Stafford, excited the eager and painful curiosity of the party in the parlour.
'Now would I give the world,' cried Mrs. Ashwood, 'to know what is going forward.'
'Is it not possible to listen?' enquired Crofts, equal to any meanness that might gratify the malevolence of another or his own.
'Yes,' replied Mrs. Ashwood, 'if one could get into the closet next the dressing-room without being perceived, which can only be done by passing thro' the nursery. If indeed the nursery maids and children are out, it is easy enough.'
'They are out, mama, I assure you,' cried Miss Ashwood, 'for I saw them myself go across the lawn since I've been at breakfast. Do, pray let us go and listen—I long of all things to know what my aunt Stafford can have to say to that sly-looking Colonel.'
'No, no, child,' said her mother, 'I shall not send you, indeed—but Crofts, do you think we should be able to make it out?'
'Egad,' answered he, 'I'll try—for depend upon it the mischief will out. It will be rare, to have such a pretty tale to tell Mr. Delamere of his demure-looking little dear.—I'll venture.'
Mrs. Ashwood then shewing him the way, he went on tip toe up stairs, and concealing himself in a light closet which was divided from the dressing room only by lath and plaister, he lent an attentive ear to the dialogue that was passing.
It happened, however, that the window near which Mrs. Stafford and Fitz-Edward were sitting was exactly opposite to that side of the room to which Crofts' hiding-place communicated; and tho' the room was not large, yet the distance, the partition, and the low voice in which both parties spoke, made it impossible for him to distinguish more than broken sentences. From Mrs. Stafford he heard—'Could not longer be concealed—in all probability may now remain unknown—the child, I will myself attend to.' From Fitz-Edward, he could only catch indistinct sounds; his voice appearing to be lost in his emotion. But he seemed to be thanking Mrs. Stafford, and lamenting his own unhappiness. His last speech, in which his powers of utterance were returned, was—'Nothing can ever erase the impression of your angelic goodness, best and loveliest of friends!—oh, continue it, I beseech you, to those for whom only I am solicitous, and forgive all the trouble I have given you!'
He then hurried away. Mrs. Stafford, after remaining alone a moment as if to compose herself, went back to the parlour; and Crofts, who thought he had heard enough, tho' he wished to have heard all, slunk from his closet and walked into the garden; where being soon afterwards joined by Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton, he, by relating the broken and disjointed discourse he had been witness to, left not a doubt remaining of the cause of Emmeline's precipitate retreat from Woodfield.
And perhaps minds more candid than their's—minds untainted with the odious and hateful envy which ulcerated their's, might, from the circumstances that attended her going and Fitz-Edward's behaviour, have conceived disadvantageous ideas of her conduct. But such was the uneasiness with which Mrs. Ashwood ever beheld superior merit, and such the universal delight which Miss Galton took in defamation, that had none of those circumstances existed, they would with equal malignity have studied to ruin the reputation of Emmeline; and probably with equal success—for against such attacks, innocence, however it may console it's possessor, is too frequently a feeble and inadequate defence!
While the confederates, exulting in the certainty of Emmeline's ruin, were manufacturing the letter which was to alarm the jealous and irascible spirit of Delamere, Fitz-Edward, (from whom Mrs. Stafford, before she would tell him any thing, had extorted a promise that he would enquire no farther than what she chose to relate to him,) was relieved from insupportable anguish by hearing that Lady Adelina was in safe hands; but he lamented in bitterness of soul the despondency and affliction to which Mrs. Stafford had told him she entirely resigned herself. He knew not that Emmeline was with her, whatever he might suspect; and Mrs. Stafford had protested to him, that if he made any attempt to discover the residence of Lady Adelina, or persisted in meeting her brother, she would immediately relinquish all concern in the affair, and no longer interest herself in what his rashness would inevitably render desperate.
He solemnly assured her he would take no measures without her knowledge; and remained at Tylehurst, secluded from every body, and waiting in fearful and anxious solicitude to hear of Lady Adelina by Mrs. Stafford.
Delamere, (still at Nice with his mother,) who with different sources of uneasiness thought the days and weeks insupportably long in which he lived only in the hope of seeing Emmeline at the end of six months, was roused from his involuntary resignation by the following letter, written in a hand perfectly unknown to him.
'Sir,
'A friend to your worthy and noble family writes this; which is meant to serve you, and to undeceive you in regard to Miss Mowbray—who, without any gratitude for the high honour you intend her, is certainly too partial to another person. She is now gone from Woodfield to escape observation; and none but Mrs. Stafford is let into the secret of where she is. You will judge what end it is to answer; but certainly none that bodes you good. One would have supposed that the Colonel's being very often her attendant at Woodfield might have made her stay there agreeable enough; but perhaps (for I do not aver it) the young lady has some particular reasons for wishing to have private lodgings. No doubt the Colonel is a man of gallantry; but his friendship to you is rather more questionable. The writer of this having very little knowledge of the parties, can have no other motive than the love of justice, and being sorry to see deceit and falsehood practised on a young gentleman who deserves better, and who has a respectful tho' unknown friend in
Y. Z.'
London, July 22, 17—.
This infamous scroll had no sooner been perused by Delamere, than fury flashed from his eyes, and anguish seized his heart. But the moment the suddenness of his passion gave way to reflection, the tumult of his mind subsided, and he thought it must be an artifice of his mother's to separate him from Emmeline. The longer he considered her inveterate antipathy to his marriage, the more he was convinced that this artifice, unworthy as it was, she was capable of conceiving, and, by means of the Crofts, executing, if she hoped by it to put an eternal conclusion to his affection. He at length so entirely adopted this idea, that determining 'to be revenged and love her better for it,' and to settle the matter very peremptorily with the Crofts' if they had been found to interfere, he obtained a tolerable command over his temper and his features, and joined Lady Montreville and Miss Delamere, whom he found reading letters which they also had received from England. His mother asked slightly after his; and, in a few moments, Mr. Crofts arrived, asking, with his usual assiduity, after the health of Lord Montreville and that of such friends as usually wrote to her Ladyship? She answered his enquiries—and then desired to hear what news Sir Richard or his other correspondents had sent him?
'My father's letters,' said he, 'contain little more than an order to purchase some particular sort of wine which he is very circumstantial, as usual, in telling me how to forward safely. He adds, indeed, that he can allow my absence no longer than until the 20th of September.'—He sighed, and looked tenderly at Miss Delamere.
'I have no other letters,' continued he, 'but one from James.'
'And does he tell you no news,' asked Lady Montreville?
'Nothing,' answered Crofts, carelessly, 'but gossip, which I believe would not entertain your Ladyship.'
'Oh, why should you fancy that,' returned she—'you know I love to hear news, tho' about people I never saw or ever wish to see.'
'James has been at Mr. Stafford's at Woodfield,' said he, 'where your Ladyship has certainly no acquaintance.'
'At Woodfield, Sir?' cried Delamere, unable to express his anxiety—'at Woodfield!—And what does he say of Woodfield?'
'I don't recollect any thing very particular,' answered Crofts, carelessly—'I believe I put the letter into my pocket.' He took it out.
'Read it to us Crofts'—said Miss Delamere.
----'I have lately passed a very agreeable month at Woodfield. We were a large party in the house. Among other pleasant circumstances, during my stay there, was a ball and fÊte champÊtre, given by Mr. Conway on his son's coming of age. It was elegant, and well conducted beyond any entertainment of the sort I ever saw. There were forty couple, and a great number of very pretty women; but it was agreed on all hands that Miss Mowbray would have eclipsed them all, who unluckily declined going. She left Woodfield a day or two afterwards.'
Delamere's countenance changed.—Crofts, as if looking for some other news in his letter, hesitated, then smiled, and went on.—
'The gossip Fame has made a match for me with Mrs. Ashwood. I wish she may be right. In some other of her stories I really think her wrong, so I will not be the means of their circulation.'
'The rest,' said Crofts, putting up the letter, 'is only about my father's new purchases and other family affairs.'
Delamere, who, in spite of his suspicions of Crofts' treachery, could not hear this corroboration of his anonymous letter without a renewal of all his fears, left the room in doubt, suspence and wretchedness.
The seeds of jealousy and mistrust thus skilfully sown, could hardly fail of taking root in an heart so full of sensibility, and a temper so irritable as his. Again he read over his anonymous letter, and compared it with the intelligence which seemed accidentally communicated by Crofts; and with a fearful kind of enquiry compared the date and circumstances. He dared hardly trust his mind with the import of this investigation; and found nothing on which to rest his hope, but that it might be a concerted plan between his mother and Crofts.
His heart alternately swelling between the indignation such a supposition created and shrinking with horror from the idea of perfidy on the part of Emmeline, kept him in such a state of mind that he could hardly be said to possess his reason. But when he remembered how often his extreme vivacity had betrayed him into error, and hazarded his losing for ever all he held valuable on earth, he tried to subdue the acuteness of his feelings, and to support at least without betraying it, the anguish which oppressed him, till the next pacquet from England, when it was possible a letter from Emmeline herself might dissipate his doubts. Resolutely however resolving to call Crofts to a serious account, if he found him accessory to a calumny so dark and diabolical.
When the next post from England arrived, he saw, among the letters which were delivered to him, one directed by the hand of Emmeline. He flew to his own room, and with trembling hands broke the seal.
It was short, and he fancied unusually cold. Towards it's close, she mentioned that she was going to Bath for a few weeks with a friend, and as she did not know where she should lodge, thought he had better not write till she was again fixed at Woodfield.
That she should go to Bath in July, with a nameless friend, and quit so abruptly her beloved Mrs. Stafford—that she should apparently wish to evade his letters, and make her actual residence a secret—were a cloud of circumstances calculated to persuade him that some mystery involved her conduct; a mystery which the fatal letter served too evidently to explain.
As if fire had been laid to the train of combustibles which had, since the receipt of it, been accumulating in the bosom of Delamere, his furious and uncontroulable spirit now burst forth. A temporary delirium seized him; he stamped round the room, and ran to his pistols, which fortunately were not charged. The noise he made brought Millefleur into the room, whom he instantly caught by the collar, and shaking him violently, cried—
'Scoundrel!—why are not these pistols loaded?'
'Eh! eh! Monsieur!' exclaimed Millefleur, almost strangled-'que voudriez vous?—vos pistolets!—Mon Dieu! que voudriez vous avec vos pistolets?'
'Shoot you perhaps, you blockhead!' raved Delamere, pushing furiously from him the trembling valet—then snatching up the pistols, he half kicked, half pushed him out of the room, and throwing them after him, ordered him to clean and load them: after which he locked the door, and threw himself upon the bed.
The resolution he had made in his cooler moments, never again to yield to such impetuous transports of passion, was now forgotten. He could not conquer, he could not even mitigate the tumultuous anguish which had seized him; but seemed rather to call to his remembrance all that might justify it's excess.
He remembered how positively Emmeline had forbidden his returning to England, tho' all he asked was to be allowed to see her for a few hours. He recollected her long and invincible coldness; her resolute adherence to the promise she need not have given; and forgetting all the symptoms which he had before fondly believed he had discovered of her returning his affection, he exaggerated every circumstance that indicated indifference, and magnified them into signs of absolute aversion.
Tho' he could not forget that Fitz-Edward had assisted him in carrying Emmeline away, and had on all occasions promoted his interest with her, that recollection did not at all weaken the probability of his present attachment; for such was Delamere's opinion of Fitz-Edward's principles, that he believed he was capable of the most dishonourable views on the mistress, or even on the wife of his friend. He tortured his imagination almost to madness, by remembering numberless little incidents, which, tho' almost unattended to at the time, now seemed to bring the cruellest conviction of their intelligence—particularly that on the night he had taken Emmeline from Clapham, Fitz-Edward was found there; tho' neither his father or himself, who had repeatedly sent to his lodgings, could either find him at home or get any direction where to meet with him. Almost all his late letters too had been dated from Tylehurst, where it was certain he had passed the greatest part of the summer.—Fitz-Edward, fond of society, and courted by the most brilliant circles, shut himself up in a country house, distant from all his connections. And to what could such an extraordinary change be owing, if not to his attachment to Emmeline Mowbray?
Irritated by these recollections, he gave himself up to all the dreadful torments of jealousy—jealousy even to madness; and he felt this corrosive passion in all it's extravagance. It was violent in proportion to his love and his pride, and more insupportably painful in proportion to it's novelty; for except once at Swansea, when he fancied that Emmeline in her flight was accompanied by Fitz-Edward, he had never felt it before; however they might serve him as a pretence, Rochely and Elkerton were both too contemptible to excite it.
The night approached; and without having regained any share of composure, he had at length determined to quit Nice the next day, that his mother and Crofts might not be gratified with the sight of his despair, and triumph in the detected perfidy of Emmeline.
Lady Montreville and her daughter were out when the letters arrived; and he now apprehended that when they returned Millefleur might alarm them by an account of his frantic behaviour, and that they would guess it to have been occasioned by his letters from England. Starting up, therefore, he called the poor fellow to him, who was not yet recovered from his former terrifying menaces; and who approached, trembling, the table where Delamere sat; his dress disordered, his eyes flashing fire, and his lips pale and quivering.
'Come here, Sir!' sternly cried he.
Millefleur sprung close to the table.
'Have you cleaned and loaded my pistols?'
'Monsieur—je, je m'occupais—je, je—Monsieur, ils sont——'
'Fool, of what are you afraid?—what does the confounded poltron tremble for?'
'Mais Monsieur—c'est que—que—mais Monsieur,je ne scais!'
'Tenez, Mr. Millefleur!' said Delamere sharply—'Remember what I am going to say. Something has happened to vex me, and I shall go out to-morrow for a few days, or perhaps I may go to England. My mother is to know nothing of it, but what I shall myself tell her; therefore at your peril speak of what has happened this evening, or of my intentions for to-morrow. Come up immediately, and put my things into my portmanteaus, and put my fire arms in order. I shall take you with me. David need not be prepared till to-morrow. I shall go on horseback and shall want him also. The least failure on your part of executing these orders, you will find very inconvenient—you know I will not be trifled with.'
Millefleur, frightened to death at the looks and voice of his master, dared not disobey; and Delamere employing him in putting up his cloaths till after Lady Montreville came in, was, he thought, secure of his secresy. He then made an effort, tho' a successless one, to hide the anguish that devoured him; and went down to supper. He found, that besides their constant attendant Crofts, his mother and sister were accompanied by two other English gentlemen, and a French man of fashion and his sister, who full of the vivacity and gaiety of their country, kept up a lively conversation with Miss Delamere and the Englishmen. But Delamere hardly spoke—his eyes were wild and inflamed—his cheeks flushed—and deep sighs seemed involuntarily to burst from his heart. Lady Montreville observed him, and then said—
'Surely, Frederic, you are not well?'
'Not very well,' said he; 'but I am otherwise, merely from the intolerable heat. I have had the head-ache all day.'
'The head-ache!' exclaimed his mother—'Why then do you not go to bed?'
'No,' answered he, 'I am better up. Since the heat is abated, I am in less pain. I will take a walk by the fine moon that I see is rising, and be back again presently—and to-morrow,' continued he—'to-morrow, I shall go northward for a month. I cannot stay under this burning atmosphere.'
Then desiring the company not to move on his account, he arose from table and hastened away.
'Do, my good Crofts,' said Lady Montreville—'do follow Frederic—he frightens me to death—he is certainly very ill.'
Crofts hesitated a moment, being in truth afraid to interfere with Delamere's ramble while he was in a humour so gloomy; but on her Ladyship's repeating her request, dared not shew his reluctance. He went out therefore under pretence of following him; while the party present, seeing Lady Montreville's distress, almost immediately departed.
Crofts walked on without much desire to fulfill his commission; for Delamere, whenever he was obliged to associate with him, treated him generally with coldness, and sometimes rudely. There was, however, very little probability of his overtaking him; for Delamere had walked or rather run to a considerable distance from the street where his mother lived, and then wandering farther into the fields, had thrown himself upon the grass, and had forgotten every thing but Emmeline—'Emmeline and Fitz-Edward gone together!—the mistress on whom he had so fondly doated!—the friend whom he had so implicitly trusted!' These cruel images, drest in every form most fatal to his peace, tormented him, and the agony of disappointed passion seemed to have affected his brain. Deep groans forced their way from his oppressed heart—he cursed his existence, and seemed resolutely bent, in the gloominess of his despair, to shake it off and free himself from sufferings so intolerable.
To the first effusions of his phrenzy, a sullen calm, more alarming, succeeded. He fixed his eyes on the moon which shone above him, but had no idea of what he saw, or where he was; his breath was short, his hands clenched; he seemed as if, having lost the power of complaint, he was unable to express the pain that convulsed his whole frame.
While he continued in this situation, a favourite little spaniel of his mother's, of which he had from a boy been fond, ran up to him and licked his hands and face. The caresses of an animal he had so long remembered, touched some chord of the heart that vibrated to softer emotions than those which had for the last three hours possessed him—he burst into tears.
'Felix!' said he, sobbing, 'poor Felix!'
The dog, rejoicing to be noticed, ran barking round him; and presently afterwards, with hurried steps, came Miss Delamere, leaning on the arm of Crofts.
'My God!' exclaimed she, almost screaming, 'here he is! Oh Frederic, you have so terrified my mother! and Mr. Crofts has been two hours in search of you. Had it not been for the dog, we should not now have found you. Mr. Crofts has returned twice to the house without you.'
'Mr. Crofts may return then a third time,' said Delamere, 'and cease to give himself such unnecessary trouble.'
'But you will come with us, brother?—Surely you will now come home?'
'At my leisure,' replied he, sternly—'Lady Montreville need be under no apprehensions about me. I shall be at home presently. But I will not be importuned! I will not be watched and followed! and above all, I will not have a governor!'
So saying, he turned from them and walked another way; while they, seeing him so impracticable, could only return to report what they had seen to Lady Montreville. Delamere, however, who had taken another way, entered the house at the same moment.
Lady Montreville had strictly questioned Millefleur as to the cause of his master's disorder; and the poor fellow, who dared not relate the furious passion into which he had fallen on reading his letter, trembled, prevaricated, stammered, and looked so white, that her Ladyship, more alarmed, fancied she knew not what; and full of terror, had sent out Crofts a second time, and the servants different ways, in search of her son. At length Crofts returning the second time without success, Miss Delamere went with him herself; and the dog following her, led her to her brother. But before their return, Lady Montreville's apprehensions had arisen to such an height, that a return of her fits seemed to threaten her, and with difficulty was she brought to her senses when she saw him before her; and when he, moved by the keenness of her sorrow at his imaginary danger, assured her, in answer to her repeated enquiries, that he was merely affected by the heat; that he had no material complaint, and should be quite well and in his usual spirits when he returned from the excursion he proposed going upon the next day. Then, being somewhat appeased, his mother suffered him to retire; and called her counsellor, Mr. Crofts, to debate whether in such a frame of mind she ought to allow the absence of Delamere? Crofts advised her by all means to let him go. He suspected indeed that the anonymous letter had occasioned all the wild behaviour he had been witness to, and thought it very likely that Delamere might be going to England. But he knew that James Crofts and his fair associates were prepared for the completion of their project if he did; and his absence was, on account of Crofts' own affairs, particularly desirable.
For these reasons, he represented to Lady Montreville that opposition would only irritate and inflame her son, without inducing him to stay. He departed, therefore, the next morning, without any impediment on the part of his mother; but was yet undecided whither to go. While Crofts, no longer thwarted by his observation, or humbled by his haughty disdain, managed matters so well, that in spite of the pride of noble blood, in spite of her reluctance to marry a commoner, he conquered and silenced all the scruples and objections of Miss Delamere; and a young English clergyman, a friend of his, coming to Nice, as both he and Crofts declared, by the meerest accident in the world, just about that time, Crofts obtained her consent to a private marriage; and his friend took especial care that no form might be wanting, to enable him legally to claim his bride, on their return to England.
CHAPTER IV
Emmeline had now been near a month at Bath, whence she had not written to Delamere. She had seldom done so oftener than once in six or eight weeks; and no reason subsisted at present for a more frequent correspondence.
Far from having any idea that he would think her temporary removal extraordinary, she had not attempted to conceal it from him; and of his jealousy of Fitz-Edward she had not the remotest suspicion. For tho' Mrs. Ashwood's hints, and the behaviour of James Crofts, had left no doubt of their ill opinion of her, yet she never supposed them capable of an attempt to impress the same idea on the mind of Delamere; and had no notion of the variety of motives which made the whole family of the Crofts, with which Mrs. Ashwood was now connected, solicitous to perpetuate the evil by propagating the scandalous story they had themselves invented.
Unconscious therefore of the anguish which preyed upon the heart of her unhappy lover, Emmeline gave her whole attention to Lady Adelina, and she saw with infinite concern the encreasing weakness of her frame; with still greater pain she observed, that by suffering her mind to dwell continually on her unhappy situation, it was no longer able to exert the powers it possessed; and that, sunk in hopeless despondence, her intellects were frequently deranged. Amid these alienations of reason, she was still gentle, amiable and interesting; and as they were yet short and slight, Emmeline flattered herself, that the opiates which her physician (in consequence of the restless and anxious nights Lady Adelina had for some time passed) found it absolutely necessary to administer, might have partly if not entirely occasioned this alarming symptom.
Still, however, the busy imagination of Emmeline perpetually represented to her impending sorrow, and her terror hourly encreased. She figured to herself the decided phrenzy, or the death of her poor friend; and unable to conquer apprehensions which she was yet compelled to conceal, she lived in a continual effort to appear chearful, and to soothe the wounded mind of the sufferer, by consolatory conversation; while she watched her with an attention so sedulous and so painful, that only the excellence of her heart, which persuaded her she was engaged in a task truly laudable, could have supported her thro' such anxiety and fatigue.
She was, however, very desirous that as Mr. Godolphin was now in England he might be acquainted with his sister's calamitous and precarious situation; and she gently hinted to Lady Adelina, how great a probability she thought there was, that such a man as her brother was represented to be, would in her sorrow and her suffering forget her error.
But by the most distant idea of such an interview, she found Lady Adelina so violently affected, that she dared not again urge it; and was compelled, in fearful apprehension, to await the hour which would probably give the fair penitent to that grave, where she seemed to wish her disgrace and affliction might be forgotten.
To describe the anxiety of Emmeline when that period arrived, is impossible; or the mingled emotions of sorrow and satisfaction, pleasure and pity, with which she beheld the lovely and unfortunate infant whose birth she had so long desired, yet so greatly dreaded.
Lady Adelina had, till then, wished to die. She saw her child—and wished to live.—The physical people who attended her, gave hopes that she might.—Supported by the tender friendship of Emmeline, and animated by maternal fondness, she determined to attempt it.
Emmeline, now full of apprehension, now indulging feeble hopes, prayed fervently for her recovery; and zealously and indefatigably attended her with more than her former solicitude. For three days, her hopes gradually grew stronger; when on the evening of the third, as she was sitting alone by the side of the bed where Lady Adelina had fallen into a quiet sleep, she suddenly heard a sort of bustle in the next room; and before she could rise to put an end to it, a gentleman to whom she was a stranger, walked hastily into that where she was. On seeing her, he started and said—
'I beg your pardon, Madam—but I was informed that here I might find Lady Adelina Trelawny.'
The name of Trelawny, thus suddenly and loudly pronounced, awakened Lady Adelina. She started up—undrew the curtain—and fixing her eyes with a look of terrified astonishment on the stranger, she exclaimed, faintly—'Oh! my brother!—my brother William!' then sunk back on her pillow, to all appearance lifeless.
Mr. Godolphin now springing forward, caught the cold and insensible hand which had opened the curtain; and throwing himself on his knees, cried—
'Adelina! my love! are you ill?—have I then terrified and alarmed you? Speak to me—dear Adelina—speak to me!'
Emmeline, whose immediate astonishment at his presence had been lost in terror for his sister, had flown out of the room for the attendants, and now returning, cried—
'You have killed her, Sir!—She is certainly dead!—Oh, my God! the sudden alarm, the sudden sight of you, has destroyed her!'
'I am afraid it has!' exclaimed Godolphin wildly, and hardly knowing what he said—'I am indeed afraid it has! My poor sister—my unhappy, devoted Adelina!—have I then found you only to destroy you? But perhaps,' continued he, after a moment's pause, during which Emmeline and the nurse were chafing the hands and temples of the dying patient—'perhaps she may recover. Send instantly for advice—run—fly—let me go myself for assistance.'
He would now have run out of the room; but Emmeline, whose admirable presence of mind this sudden scene of terror had not conquered, stopped him.
'Stay, Sir,' said she, 'I beseech you, stay. You know not whither to go. I will instantly send those who do.'
She then left the room, and ordered a servant to fetch the physician; for she dreaded least Mr. Godolphin should discover the real name and quality of the patient to those to whom he might apply; and on returning to the bed side, where Lady Adelina still lay without any signs of existence, and by which her brother still knelt in speechless agony, her fears were again alive, least when the medical gentlemen arrived, his grief and desperation should betray the secret to them. While her first apprehension was for the life of her friend, these secondary considerations were yet extremely alarming—for she knew, that should Lady Adelina recover, her life would be for ever embittered, if not again endangered, by the discovery which seemed impending and almost inevitable.
The women who were about her having now applied every remedy they could think of without success, began loudly to lament themselves. Emmeline, commanding her own anguish, besought them to stifle their's, and not to give way to fruitless exclamations while there was yet hope, but to continue their endeavours to recover their lady. Then addressing herself to Mr. Godolphin, she roused him from the stupor of grief in which he had fallen, while he gazed with an impassioned and agonizing look on the pale countenance of his sister.
'Pardon me, Sir,' said she, 'if I entreat you to go down stairs and await the arrival of the advice I have sent for. Should my poor friend recover, your presence may renew and encrease the alarm of her spirits, and embarrass her returning recollection; and should she not recover, you had better hear such mournful tidings in any place rather than this.'
'Oh! if I do hear them,' answered he, wildly, 'it matters little where. But I will withdraw, Madam, since you seem to desire it.'
He had hardly seen Emmeline before. He now turned his eyes mournfully upon her—'It is, I presume, Miss Mowbray,' said he, 'who thus, with an angel's tenderness in an angel's form, would spare the sorrows of a stranger?'
Emmeline, unable to speak, led the way down to the parlour, and Godolphin silently followed her.
'Go back,' said he, tremulously, as soon as they reached the room—'go back to my sister; your tender assiduity may do more for her than the people about her. Your voice, your looks, will soothe and tranquillize her, should she awaken from her long insensibility. Ah! tell her, her brother came only to rescue her from the misery of her unworthy lot—Tell her his affection, his brotherly affection, hopes to give her consolation; and restore her—if it may yet be—to her repose. But go, dearest Miss Mowbray go!—somebody comes in—perhaps the physician.'
Emmeline now opening the parlour door, found it to be indeed the physician she expected; and with a fearful heart she followed him, informing him, as they went up stairs, that the sudden appearance of Mrs. St. Laure's brother, whom she had not seen for two or three years, had thrown her into a fainting fit, from which not all their endeavours had recovered her.
He remonstrated vehemently against the extreme indiscretion of such an interview. Emmeline, who knew not by what strange chain of circumstances it had been brought about, had nothing to reply.
So feeble were the appearances of remaining life, that the physician could pronounce nothing certainly in regard to his patient. He gave, however, directions to her attendants; but after every application had been used, all that could be said was, that she was not actually dead. As soon as the physician had written his prescription and retired, Emmeline recollected the painful state of suspense in which she had left Mr. Godolphin, and trying to recover courage to go thro' the painful scene before her, she went down to him.
As she opened the door, he met her.
'I have seen the doctor,' said he, in a broken and hurried voice—'and from his account I am convinced Adelina is dying.'
'I hope not,' faintly answered Emmeline. 'There is yet a possibility, tho' I fear no great probability of her recovery.'
'My Adelina!' resumed he, walking about the room—'my Adelina! for whose sake I so anxiously wished to return to England—Gracious God! I am come too late to assist her! Some strange mystery surely hangs over her! Long lost to all her friends, I find her here dying! The sight of me, instead of relieving her sorrow seems to have accelerated her dissolution! And you, Madam, to whose goodness she appears to be so greatly indebted—may I ask by what fortunate circumstance, lost and obscure as she has been, she has acquired such a friend?'
Emmeline, shuddering at the apprehension of enquiries she found it impossible to answer, was wholly at a loss how to reply to this. She knew not of what Mr. Godolphin was informed—of what he was ignorant; and dreaded to say too much, or to be detected in a false representation. She therefore, agitated and hesitating, gravely said—
'It is not now a time, Sir, to ask any thing relative to Lady Adelina. I am myself too ill to enter into conversation; and wish, as you have been yourself greatly affected, that you would now retire, and endeavour to make yourself as easy as you can. To-morrow may, perhaps, afford us more chearful prospects—or at least this cruel suspense will be over, and the dear sufferer at peace.'
She sobbed, and turned away. Godolphin rising, said in a faultering voice—
'Yes, I will go! since my stay can only encrease the pain of that generous and sensible heart. I will go—but not to rest!—I cannot rest! But do you try, most amiable creature! to obtain some repose—Try, I beseech you, to recover your spirits, which have been so greatly hurried.'
He knew not what he said; and was hastening out of the room, when Emmeline, recollecting how ardently Lady Adelina had desired the concealment of her name and family, stopped him as he was quitting her.
'Yet one thing, Captain Godolphin, allow me to entreat of you?'
'What can I refuse you?' answered he, returning.
'Only—are you known at Bath?'
'Probably I may. It is above three years since I was in England, and much longer since I have been here. But undoubtedly some one or other will know me.'
'Then do indulge me in one request. See as few people as you can; and if you accidentally meet any of your friends, do not say that Lady Adelina is here.'
'Not meet any one if I can avoid it!—and if I do, not speak of my sister! And why is all this?—why this concealment, this mystery?—why—'
Emmeline, absolutely overcome, sat down without speaking. Godolphin, seeing her uneasiness, said—
'But I will not distress you, Madam, by farther questions. Your commands shall be sufficient. I will stifle my anxiety and obey you.' Then bowing respectfully, he added—'To-morrow, at as early an hour as I dare hope for admittance, I shall be at the door. Heaven bless and reward the fair and gentle Miss Mowbray—and may it have mercy on my poor Adelina!'—He sighed deeply, and left the house.
Lady Adelina, tho' not so entirely insensible, was yet but little amended. But as what alteration there was, was for the better, Emmeline endeavoured to recall her own agitated and dissipated spirits. The extraordinary scene which had just passed, was still present to her imagination; the last words of Godolphin, still vibrated in her ears. 'Fair and gentle Miss Mowbray!' repeated she. 'He knows my name; yet seems ignorant of every thing that relates to his sister!'
Her astonishment at this circumstance was succeeded by reflecting on the unpleasant task she must have if Mr. Godolphin should again enquire into her first acquaintance with his sister. To relate to him the melancholy story she had heard, would, she found, be an undertaking to which she was wholly unequal; and she was equally averse to the invention of a plausible falsehood. From this painful apprehension she meditated how to extricate herself; but the longer she thought of it, the more she despaired of it. The terrors of such a conversation hourly augmented; and wholly and for ever to escape from it, she sometimes determined to write. But from executing that design, was withheld by considering that if Godolphin was of a fiery and impetuous temper, he would probably, without reflection or delay, fly to vengeance, and precipitate every evil which Lady Adelina dreaded.
After having exhausted every idea on the subject, she could think of nothing on which her imagination could rest, but to send to Mrs. Stafford, acquaint her with the danger of Lady Adelina, and conjure her if possible to come to her. This she knew she would do unless some singular circumstance in her own family prevented her attention to her friends.
Resolved to embrace therefore this hope, she dispatched an hasty billet by an express to Woodfield; and then betook herself to a bed on the floor, which she had ordered to be placed by the side of that where Lady Adelina, in happy tho' dangerous insensibility, still seemed to repose almost in the arms of death.
Emmeline could not, however, obtain even a momentary forgetfulness. Tho' she could not repent her attention to the unhappy Lady Adelina, she was yet sensible of her indiscretion in having put herself into the situation she was now in; the cruel, unfeeling world would, she feared, condemn her; and of it's reflections she could not think without pain. But her heart, her generous sympathizing heart, more than acquitted—it repaid her.
Towards the middle of the night, Lady Adelina, who had made two or three faint efforts to speak, sighed, and again in faint murmurs attempted to explain herself. Emmeline started up and eagerly listened; and in a low whisper heard her ask for her child.
Emmeline ordered it instantly to be brought; and those eyes which had so lately seemed closed for ever, were opened in search of this beloved object: then, as if satisfied in beholding it living and well, they closed again, while she imprinted a kiss on it's little hand. She then asked for Emmeline; who, delighted with this apparent amendment, prevailed on her to take what had been ordered for her. She appeared still better in a few moments, but was yet extremely languid.
'I have had a dreadful dream, my Emmeline,' said she, at length—'a long and dreadful dream! But it is gone—you are here; my poor little boy too is well; and this alarming vision will I hope haunt me no more.'
Emmeline, who feared that the dream was indeed a reality, exhorted her to think only of her recovery; of which, added she cheerfully, we have no longer any doubt.
'Comfortable and consoling angel!' sighed Lady Adelina—'your presence is surely safety. Do not leave me!'
Emmeline promised not to quit the room; and elate with hopes of her friend's speedy restoration to health, fell herself into a tranquil and refreshing slumber.
On awakening the next morning, she found Lady Adelina much better; but still, whenever she spoke, dwelling on her supposed dream, and sometimes talking with that incoherence which had for some weeks before so greatly alarmed her. Her own dread of meeting Godolphin was by no means lessened; and to prevent an immediate interview, she dispatched to him a note.
'Sir,
'I am happy in having it in my power to assure you that our dear patient is much better. But as uninterrupted tranquillity is absolutely necessary, that, and other considerations, induce me to beg you will forbear coming hither to day. You may depend on having hourly intelligence, and that we shall be desirous of the pleasure of seeing you when the safety of my friend admits it.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
your most humble servant,
Emmeline Mowbray.'
Sept. 20,17—.
To this note, Mr. Godolphin answered—
'If Miss Mowbray will only allow me to wait on her for one moment in the parlour, I will not again trespass on her time till I have her own permission.
W. G.'
This request, Emmeline was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to comply with. She therefore sent a verbal acquiescence; and repaired to the bed-side of Lady Adelina, who had asked for her.
'Will you pardon my folly, my dear Emmeline,' said she languidly—'but I cannot be easy till I have told you what a strange idea has seized me. I seemed, last night, I know not at what time, to be suddenly awakened by a voice which loudly repeated the name of Trelawny. Startled by the sound, I thought I undrew the curtain, and saw my brother William, who stood looking angrily on me. I felt greatly terrified; and growing extremely sick, I lost the vision. But now again it's recollection harrasses my imagination; and the image of my brother, sterner, and with a ruder aspect than he was wont to wear, still seems present before me. Oh! he was accustomed to be all goodness and gentleness, and to love his poor Adelina. But now he too will throw me from him—he too will detest and despise me—Or perhaps,' continued she, after a short pause—'perhaps he is dead. I am not superstitious—but this dream pursues me.'
Emmeline, who had hoped that the very terror of this sudden interview had obliterated it's remembrance, said every thing she thought likely to quiet her mind, and to persuade her that the uneasy images represented in her imperfect slumbers were merely the effect of her weakness and perturbed spirits.
The impression, however, was too strong to be effaced by arguments. It still hung heavy on her heart, irritated the fever which had before been only slight, and deprived her almost entirely of sleep; or if she slept, she again fancied herself awakened by her brother, angrily repeating the name of Trelawny.
Sometimes, starting in terror from these feverish dreams, she called on her brother to pardon and pity her; sometimes in piercing accents deplored his death, and sometimes besought him to spare Fitz-Edward. These incoherences were particularly distressing; as names were often heard by the attendants which Emmeline hoped to have concealed; and it was hardly possible longer to deceive the physician and apothecary who attended her.
With an uneasy heart, and a countenance pensively expressive of it's feelings, she went down to receive Captain Godolphin in the parlour.
'I fear, Miss Mowbray,' said he, as soon as they were seated, 'you will think me too ready to take advantage of your goodness. But there is that appearance of candour and compassion about you, that I determined rather to trust to your goodness for pardon, than to remain longer in a state of suspense about my sister, which I have already found most insupportable. In the note you honoured me with to day you say she is better. Is she then out of danger? Has she proper advice?'
'She has the best advice, Sir. I cannot, however, say that she is out of danger, but'—She hesitated, and knew not how to proceed.
'But—you hope, rather than believe, she will recover,' cried Godolphin eagerly.
'I both hope it and believe it. Mr. Godolphin, you yesterday did me the honour to suppose I had been fortunate enough to be of some service to Lady Adelina; suffer me to take advantage of a supposition so flattering, and to claim a sort of right to ask in my turn a favour.'
'Surely I shall consider it as an honour to receive, and as happiness to obey, any command of Miss Mowbray's.'
'Promise me then to observe the same silence in regard to your sister as I asked of you last night. Trust me with her safety, and believe it will not be neglected. But you must neither speak of her to others, or question me about her.'
'Good God! from whence can arise the necessity for these precautions! What dreadful obscurity surrounds her! What am I to fear? What am I to suppose?'
'You will not, then,' said Emmeline, gravely—'you will not oblige me, by desisting from all questions 'till this trifling restraint can be taken off?'
'I will, I do promise to be guided wholly by you; and to bear, however difficult it may be, the suspense, the frightful suspense in which I must remain. Tell me, however, that Adelina is not in immediate danger. But, but' added he, as if recollecting himself, 'may I not apply for information on that head to her physician?'
'Not for the world!' answered Emmeline, with unguarded quickness—'not for the world!'
'Not for the world!'—repeated Godolphin, with an accent of astonishment. 'Heaven and earth! But I have promised to ask nothing—I must obey—and will now release you, Madam.'
Godolphin then took his leave; and Emmeline, whose heart had throbbed violently throughout this dialogue, sat down alone to compose and recollect herself. She saw, that to keep Godolphin many days ignorant of the truth would be impossible: and from the eager anxiety of his questions, she feared that all the horrors Lady Adelina's troubled imagination had represented would be realized—apprehensions, which seemed armed with new terror since she had seen and conversed with this William Godolphin, of whose excellent heart and noble spirit she had before heard so much both from Lady Adelina and Fitz-Edward, and whose appearance seemed to confirm the favourable impression those accounts had given her.
Godolphin, who was now about five and twenty, had passed the greatest part of his life at sea. The various climates he had visited had deprived his complexion of much of it's English freshness; but his face was animated by dark eyes full of intelligence and spirit; his hair, generally carelessly dressed, was remarkably fine, and his person tall, light, and graceful, yet so commanding, that whoever saw him immediately and involuntarily felt their admiration mingled with respect. His whole figure was such as brought to the mind ideas of the race of heroes from which he was descended; his voice was particularly grateful to the ear, and his address appeared to Emmeline to be a fortunate compound of the insinuating softness of Fitz-Edward with the fire and vivacity of Delamere. Of this, however, she could inadequately judge, as he was now under such depression of spirits: and however pleasing he appeared, Emmeline, who conceived herself absolutely engaged to Delamere, thought of him only as the brother of Lady Adelina; yet insensibly she felt herself more than ever interested for the event of his hearing how little Fitz-Edward had deserved the warm friendship he had felt for him. And her thoughts dwelling perpetually on that subject, magnified the painful circumstances of the approaching Éclaircissemen; while her fears for Lady Adelina's life, who continued to languish in a low fever with frequent delirium, so harrassed and oppressed her, that her own health was visibly affected. But without attending to it, she passed all her hours in anxiously watching the turns of Lady Adelina's disorder; or, when she could for a moment escape, in giving vent to her full heart by weeping over the little infant, whose birth, so similar to her own, seemed to render it to her a more interesting and affecting object. She lamented the evils to which it might be exposed; tho' of a sex which would prevent it's encountering the same species of sorrow as that which had embittered her own life. Of her friendless and desolate situation, she was never more sensible than now. She felt herself more unhappy than she had ever yet been; and would probably have sunk under her extreme uneasiness, had not the arrival of Mrs. Stafford, at the end of three days, relieved her from many of her fears and apprehensions.
CHAPTER V
Mrs. Stafford no sooner heard from Emmeline that Godolphin was yet ignorant of the true reason of Lady Adelina's concealment, than she saw the necessity of immediately explaining it; and this task, however painful, she without hesitation undertook.
He was therefore summoned to their lodgings by a note from Emmeline, who on his arrival introduced him to Mrs. Stafford, and left them together; when, with as much tenderness as possible, and mingling with the mortifying detail many representations of the necessity there was for his conquering his resentment, she at length concluded it; watching anxiously the changes in Godolphin's countenance, which sometimes expressed only pity and affection for his sister, sometimes rage and indignation against Fitz-Edward.
Both the brothers of Lady Adelina had been accustomed to consider her with peculiar fondness. The unfortunate circumstance of her losing her mother immediately after her birth, seemed to have given her a melancholy title to their tenderness; and the resemblance she bore to that dear mother, whom they both remembered, and on whose memory their father dwelt with undiminished regret, endeared her to them still more. To these united claims on the heart and the protection of William Godolphin, another was added equally forcible, in a letter written by his father with the trembling hand of anxious solicitude, when he felt himself dying, and when, looking back with lingering affection on the children of her whom he hoped soon to rejoin, he saw with anguish his youngest daughter liable from her situation to deviate into indiscretion, and surrounded by the numberless dangers which attend on a young and beautiful woman, whose husband has neither talents to attach her affections or judgment to direct her actions. Lord Westhaven, conscious of her hazardous circumstances, and feeling in his last moments the keenest anguish, in knowing that his mistaken care had exposed her to them, hoped, by interesting both her brothers to watch over her, that he should obviate the dangers he apprehended. He had therefore, in all their conversations, recommended her to his eldest son; and as he was not happy enough to embrace the younger before he died, had addressed to him a last letter on the same subject.
Such were the powerful ties that bound Mr. Godolphin to love and defend Lady Adelina with more than a brother's fondness. Hastening therefore to obey the dying injunctions of his father, and in the hope of rendering the life of this beloved sister, if not happy, at least honourable and contented, he had heard, that she had clandestinely absented herself from her family, and after a long search had found her abandoned to remorse and despair; her reputation blasted; her health ruined; her intellects disordered; and all by the perfidy of a man, in whom he, from long friendship, and his sister, from family connection, had placed unbounded confidence.
Tho' Godolphin had one of the best tempers in the world—a temper which the roughness of those among whom he lived had only served to soften and humanize, and which was immovable by the usual accidents that ruffle others, yet he had also in a great excess all those keen feelings, which fill a heart of extreme sensibility; added to a courage, that in the hour of danger had been proved to be as cool as it was undaunted. Of him might be said what was the glorious praise of immortal Bayard—that he was 'sans peur et sans reproche;'[1] and educated with a high sense of honour himself, as well as possessing a heart calculated to enjoy, and a hand to defend, the unblemished dignity of his family, all his passions were roused and awakened by the injury it had sustained from Fitz-Edward, and he beheld him as a monster whom it was infamy to forgive. Hardly therefore had Mrs. Stafford concluded her distressing recital, than, as if commanding himself by a violent effort, he thanked her warmly yet incoherently for her unexampled goodness to his sister, recommended her still to her generous care, and the friendship of Miss Mowbray, and without any threat against Fitz-Edward, or even a comment on what he had heard, arose to depart. But Mrs. Stafford, more alarmed by this determined tho' quiet resentment and by the expression of his countenance than if he had burst into exclamations and menaces, perceived that the crisis was now come when he must either be persuaded to conquer his just resentment, or by giving it way destroy, while he attempted to revenge, the fame of his sister.
She besought him therefore to sit down a moment; and when he had done so, she told him, that if he really thought himself under any obligations to Miss Mowbray or to her for the services they had been so fortunate as to render Lady Adelina, his making all they had been doing ineffectual, would be a most mortifying return; and such must be the case, if he rashly flew to seek vengeance on Fitz-Edward: 'for that you have such a design,' continued she, 'I have no doubt; allow me, however, to suppose that I have, by doing your sister some good offices, acquired a right to speak of her affairs.'
'Surely,' answered Mr. Godolphin, 'you have; and surely I must hear with respect and attention, tho' possibly not with conviction, every opinion with which you may honour me.'
She then represented to him, with all the force of reason, how little he could remedy the evil by hazarding his own life or by taking that of Fitz-Edward.
'At present,' continued she, 'the secret is known only to me, Miss Mowbray, and Lady Adelina's woman; if it is farther exposed, the heirs of Mr. Trelawny, who are so deeply interested, will undoubtedly take measures to prove that the infant has no just claim to the estate they so eagerly expect. Mr. Trelawny's sister has already entertained suspicions, which the least additional information would give her grounds to pursue, and the whole affair must then inevitably become public. Surely this consideration alone should determine you—why then need I urge others equally evident and equally forcible.'
Godolphin acknowledged that there was much of truth in the arguments she used; but denied that any consideration should influence him to forgive the man who had thus basely and ungenerously betrayed the confidence of his family.
'However,' added he again, checking the heat into which he feared a longer conversation on this subject might betray him—'I have not yet, Madam, absolutely formed the resolution of which you seem so apprehensive; and am indeed too cruelly hurt to be able to talk longer on the subject. Suffer me therefore once more to bid you a good day!'
But the encreasing gloom of his countenance, and forced calm of his manner, appeared to be symptoms so unfavourable, that Mrs. Stafford thought there was no hope of being able to prevent an immediate and fatal meeting between him and Fitz-Edward but by engaging him in a promise at least to delay it; this she attempted by the most earnest arguments, and the most pressing persuasions; but all she could obtain was an assurance that he would remain at Bath 'till the next day, and see her again in the evening.
In the mean time the delirium of Lady Adelina, (which had recurred at intervals ever since the transient sight she had of her brother) more frequently, and with more alarming symptoms, returned; and the fever which had at first threatened the loss of her life, now seemed to be fixing on her brain, and to menace, by a total deprivation of reason, reducing her to a condition to which death itself must be preferable. She still, even in her wildest wanderings, knew Emmeline, and still caressed her little boy; but much of her time passed in incoherent and rambling discourse; in which she talked of Fitz-Edward and her brother William, and held with them both imaginary dialogues. Sometimes she deprecated the wrath of her elder brother: and then her disordered fancy ran to the younger; to him from whom she had, in her early life, found pity and protection in all her little sorrows.
Mrs. Stafford thought it too hazardous to let her again see her brother, while her intellects were thus disarranged; as she trembled lest she should start into actual madness. But it was absolutely necessary to do something; not only because Mr. Godolphin's impatience made every delay dangerous, but because it was hardly possible to keep the secret from the physicians and attendants, who had already heard much more than they ought to have known.
She determined, therefore, after consulting with Emmeline, to introduce Godolphin into the room adjoining to that where Lady Adelina now sat some hours every day in an easy chair. The affecting insanity of his unhappy sister, and the mournful and pathetic entreaties she frequently used, were likely, in the opinion of the fair friends, to effectuate more than their most earnest persuasions; and prevail on him to drop all thoughts of that resentment, which could not cure but might encrease her calamities.
Mrs. Stafford had heard from him, that he gained information as to the place of his sister's residence from the mother of Lady Adelina's woman; who being the reduced widow of a clergyman, resided in the Bishop's alms-houses at Bromley, where her daughter frequently sent her such assistance as her own oeconomy, or the bounty of her lady, enabled her to supply. A few weeks before, she had sent her a note for ten pounds; and not apprehending that an enquiry would be made of her, had desired her to acknowledge the receipt of it, and direct to her at Bath, where she said her lady was with a Miss Mowbray.
Lady Clancarryl, among many expedients to recover traces of her sister, had at length recollected this widow, and had desired Mr. Godolphin to make immediate enquiry of her.
He had hastened therefore to Bromley, and easily found the poor woman, who was paralytic and almost childish. Her letters were read for her by one of her neighbours; a person, who, being present at the arrival of Mr. Godolphin, immediately found that something was to be got; and busily put into his hands the very letter which had enclosed the note, and which contained the direction.
He eagerly copied the address; and leaving a handsome present for the use of the old widow, he delayed not a moment to set out for Bath, where he soon found the house, and where he had enquired for Lady Adelina Trelawny.
The servant of the house who opened the door assured him no such person was there. He supposed that for some reason or other she was denied; and insisting on being allowed to go up stairs, had entered the room in the abrupt manner which had so greatly alarmed his sister.
In hopes of counteracting the fatal effects of the discovery which had unavoidably followed this interview, Godolphin was, on his return in the afternoon, introduced into the dining-room, which opened into Lady Adelina's bed-chamber. The door was a-jar; the partition thin; and Mrs. Stafford was pretty well assured that the poor patient would be heard distinctly. Godolphin came in, pale from the conflict of his mind; and all his features expressed anger and sorrow, with which he seemed vainly struggling. He bowed, and sat down in silence.
Mrs. Stafford only was in the room; and as soon as he was seated, said, in a low voice, yet with forced chearfulness—
'Well, Sir, I hope that Miss Mowbray and myself have prevailed on you to drop at present every other design than the truly generous one of healing the wounded heart of our fair unfortunate friend.'
'And shall he who has wounded it,' slowly and sternly replied Godolphin—'shall he who has wounded it so basely, escape me?'
At this instant Lady Adelina, who had been some time silent, exclaimed hastily—'Oh! spare him! my dear brother! and spare your poor Adelina! who will not trouble—who will not disgrace you long!'
'Where is she?' said Godolphin, starting—'Good God! what is it I hear?'
'Your unhappy sister,' answered Mrs. Stafford; 'whom the idea of your determined vengeance has already driven to distraction.'
Again Lady Adelina spoke. Her brother listened in breathless anguish.
'Ah! William!—and are you grown cruel? You, on whom I depended for pity and protection?'
'Surely,' said he, 'surely she knows I am here?'
'No,' answered Mrs. Stafford, 'she knows nothing. But this fear has incessantly pursued her; and since she saw you she dwells more frequently on it, tho' her erring memory sometimes wanders to other objects.'
'It is very true, my Lord!' cried Lady Adelina, with affected calmness, her thoughts wavering again towards Lord Westhaven—'It is all very true! I have deserved all your reproaches! I am ready to make all the atonement I can! Then you will both of you, my brothers, be satisfied—for William has told me that if I died he should be content, for then all might be forgotten.' She ended with a deep sigh; and Godolphin, wildly starting from his seat, said—
'This is too much! you cannot expect me to bear this!—let me go to her!'
'Would you go then,' answered Mrs. Stafford, 'to confirm her fears and to drive her to deeper desperation? If you see her, it must be to soothe and comfort her; to assure her of your forgiveness, and that you will bury your resentment against——'
'Accursed! doubly accursed be the infamous villain who has driven her to this! And must I bear it tamely! Oh! injured memory of my father!—oh! my poor, undone sister!' He walked about the room; the tears ran from his eyes; and Mrs. Stafford, fearing that his hurried step and deep sobs would be heard by Lady Adelina, determined to bring the scene to a crisis and not to lose the influence she hoped she had gained on his mind. She therefore went into the other room, and shutting the door, advanced with a smile towards the lovely lunatic.
'What will you say, my dear Adelina, if I bring you the best news you can possibly hear?'
'News!' repeated Lady Adelina, looking at her with eyes which too plainly denoted her unsettled mind—'News!—Ah! dear Madam! I know very well that all the world is happy but me; and if you are happy, I am very glad; but as to me—Do you indeed think it is reasonable I should part with him?'
'With whom?' said Mrs. Stafford.
'Why, one condition which they insist upon is, that I should give up my poor little one to them, and never ask to see him again. William was the most urgent for this—William, who used to be so good, so gentle, so compassionate to every body! Alas! he is now more cruel and relentless than the rest!'
'So far from it,' said Mrs. Stafford, 'your brother William loves you as much as ever; he will come and tell you so himself if you will only be composed, and talk less strangely.'
'To see me!' exclaimed she, as if suddenly recovering her recollection—'Oh! when?—where?—how?'
But again it forsook her; and she continued—
'Ah! he comes perhaps to tell me of the blood he has spilt, and to load me with reproaches for having obliged him to destroy a friend whom he once loved. If that is indeed so, why let him come and plunge another dagger in this poor heart, which has always loved him!'
She was silent a moment, and then languidly went on—
'I thought some time since that I saw him, and Miss Mowbray was with him; but it was only a dream, for I know he is in Jamaica: and when he does come home, he will harden his heart against me—he will be my judge, and sternly will he judge me—he will forget that he is my brother!'
'Never! my poor Adelina,' cried Godolphin, rushing into the room, 'never can I forget that I am your brother—never can I cease to feel for you compassion and tenderness.'
He would have taken her in his arms; but struck by the dreadful alteration that appeared in her face and figure, he stopt short, and looking at her with silent horror, seemed incapable of uttering what he felt.
She knew him; but could neither speak or shed a tear for some moments. At length, she held out to him her emaciated hand.
'It is indeed William!' said she. 'He seems, too, very sorry for me. My dear brother, do you then pardon and pity the poor Adelina?'
'Both! both!' answered Godolphin, sobbing, and seating himself by her. He threw his arms round her, and her pale cheek rested on his bosom, while her eyes were fixed on his face.
'Stay!' exclaimed she, after a momentary pause, and disengaging herself suddenly from him—'Stay! I have yet another question, if I dared ask it! Do you know all? and have you no blood to answer for, on my account? Will you assure me you will not seek it?'
'For mercy's sake!' said Mrs. Stafford, 'satisfy her, Mr. Godolphin—satisfy her at once—you see to what is owing this alienation of her reason.'
'No,' reassumed the afflicted Adelina, 'you need not answer me; I see you cannot—will not forgive——'
'Name him not, Adelina!' sternly and quickly answered he—'my soul recoils at his idea! I cannot, I will not promise any thing!'
At this period, Emmeline, who was unwilling to trust the servants in such a moment, entered with the infant of Lady Adelina sleeping in her arms.
'See,' said Mrs. Stafford, 'a little unfortunate creature, whose innocence must surely plead forcibly to you: he comes to join our intreaties to you to spare his mother!'
Emmeline laid the infant in the lap of Lady Adelina, who was yet unable to shed a tear. Godolphin beheld it with mingled horror and pity; but the latter sentiment seemed to predominate; and Emmeline, whose voice was calculated to go to the heart, began to try it's influence; and imploring him to be calm, and to promise his sister an eternal oblivion of the past, she urged every argument that should convince him of it's necessity, and every motive that could affect his reason or his compassion.
He gazed on her with reverence and admiration while she spoke, and seemed greatly affected by what she said. Animated by the hope of success, her eyes were lightened up with new brilliancy, and her glowing cheeks and expressive features became more than ever attractive. A convulsive laugh from Lady Adelina interrupted her, and drew the attention of Godolphin entirely to his sister. Emmeline, who saw her reason again forsaking her, took the sleeping baby from her lap. She had hardly done so, before, trying to rise from her chair, she shrieked aloud—for again the image of Fitz-Edward, dying by the hand of her brother, was before her.
'See!' cried she, 'see! there he lies!—he is already expiring! yet William forgives him not! What? would you strike him again? now! while he is dying?—Go! cruel, cruel brother!' attempting to put Godolphin from her—'Go!—Oh! touch me not with those polluted hands, they are stained with human blood!' A convulsive shudder and a deep sigh seemed to exhaust all her remaining strength, and she fell back in her chair, pale and faint; and with fixed, unmeaning eyes, appeared no longer conscious even of the terrors which pursued her.
But the look of incurable anguish which her features wore; the wild import of her words; and the sight of the unfortunate child, who seemed born only to share her wretchedness; could not long be beheld unmoved by a heart like Godolphin's, which possessed all that tenderness that distinguishes the truly brave. Again he threw his arms round his sister, and sobbing, said—
'Hear me, Adelina—hear me and be tranquil! I will promise to be guided by your excellent friends—I will do nothing that shall give pain to them or to you!'
'Thank God!' exclaimed Emmeline, 'that you at last hear reason! Remember this promise is given to us all.'
'It is,' answered Godolphin; 'but try to make poor Adelina sensible of it.' She no longer understood any thing; but with her eyes shut, and her hands clasped in each other, was at least quiet.
'I cannot bear it!' continued Godolphin—'I must go for a few moments to recover myself!' He then left the room, desiring Emmeline to comfort and compose his sister, who soon afterwards asked hastily what was become of him?
Emmeline, pleased to find she had a clear recollection of his having been with her, now told her that he had most solemnly assured them he would think no more of seeking Fitz-Edward on account of this unhappy affair. As she seemed still, in fearful apprehension, to doubt the reality of this promise, Godolphin, who was only in the next room with Mrs. Stafford, returned, and assured her of his pity, his forbearance and his forgiveness.
After some farther efforts on the part of Emmeline, and protestations on that of Godolphin, tears, which had been long denied to Lady Adelina, came to her relief. She wept, caressed her infant, and blessed and thanked her brother and her friends. When capable of recollection, she knew that towards those whom he had once pardoned, he was incapable of reproach or unkindness; and her mind, eased of the fears which had so long harrassed it, seemed to be recovering it's tone. Still, however, the sense of her own incurable unhappiness, her own irretrievable unworthiness, and the disgrace of having sullied the honour of her family, and given pain to such a brother, overwhelmed her with grief and confusion; while her reason, as it at intervals returned, served only to shew her the abyss into which she had fallen: and she sometimes even regretted those hours of forgetfulness, when she possessed not the power of steady reflection, and when the sad reality was obliterated by wild and imaginary horrors.
[1] Without fear and without reproach.
CHAPTER VI
Some few days elapsed before there was any great alteration for the better in Lady Adelina. But the incessant attention of her friends, the soothing pity of her brother, and the skill of her physician, slowly conquered the lurking fever which had so long hung about her; and her intellects, tho' still disordered at times, were more collected, and gave reason to hope that she would soon entirely recover.
In the mean time Captain Godolphin communicated to Mrs. Stafford the resolution he had taken about his sister. He said that she should renounce for ever all claim on the Trelawny estate, except only the stipend settled on her as a consideration for the fortune she was to receive at the death of the dowager Lady Westhaven, and which was only three hundred a year; a sum which he thought made her but a paltry and inadequate compensation for having passed two years in the society of such a man as Trelawny.
He added, that he had a house in the Isle of Wight (almost all the patrimony his father had been able to give him,) where, as his ship was now out of commission, he proposed residing himself; and whither he should insist upon Lady Adelina's retiring, without any future attempt to see or correspond with Fitz-Edward.
As to the child, he asked if Mrs. Stafford would have the goodness to see that it was taken care of at some cottage in her neighbourhood, 'till he could adjust matters with the Trelawny family, and put an end to all those fears which might tempt them to enquire into it's birth; after which he said he would take it to his own house, and call it a son of his own; a precaution that would throw an obscurity over the truth which would hardly ever be removed, when none were particularly interested to remove it.
These designs he desired Mrs. Stafford to communicate to Lady Adelina; and as she was obliged to return home in two days, she took the earliest opportunity of doing so.
To the conditions her brother offered, Lady Adelina thought herself most happy to consent. The little boy was immediately baptized by the name of William Godolphin, and his unfortunate mother now began to flatter herself that her disastrous history might be concealed even from her elder brother, Lord Westhaven; of whose indignation and resentment she had ever the most alarming apprehensions. But while the hope of escaping them by her brother William's generous compassion, gave to her heavy sorrows some alleviation, they were renewed with extreme poignancy, by the approaching separation from her inestimable friends. Mrs. Stafford could no longer delay her return to her family; and Emmeline, who now saw Lady Adelina out of danger and in the protection of her brother, was desirous of accompanying her back to Woodfield.
Lady Adelina ineffectually tried to bear this early departure with some degree of fortitude and resolution. Nor was it her heart alone that felt desolate and unhappy at it's approach—That of her brother, had received an impression from the mental and personal perfections of Emmeline, which being at first deep, had soon become indelible; and ignorant of her engagement, he had indulged it till he found it no longer possible for him to forbear making her the first object of his life, and that the value of his existence depended wholly on her.
Emmeline was yet quite unconscious of this: but Mrs. Stafford had seen it almost from the first moment of her seeing Godolphin. In their frequent conversation, she observed that the very name of Emmeline had the power of fascination; that he was never weary of hearing her praises; that whenever he thought himself unobserved, his eyes were in pursuit of her; while fondly gazing on her face, he seemed to drink deep draughts of intoxicating passion.
Mrs. Stafford, who knew what ardent and fatal love, such excellence of person and understanding might produce in a heart susceptible of all their power, was alarmed for the happiness of this amiable man; and with regret saw him nourishing an affection which she thought must be entirely hopeless.
These apprehensions, every hour's observation encreased. Yet Mrs. Stafford determined not to communicate them to Emmeline; but to put an end to the flattering delusion which led on Godolphin to indulge his passion, by telling him, as soon as possible, of the engagement Emmeline had formed with Mr. Delamere.
Accident soon furnished her with an opportunity. While they were all sitting together after dinner, a packet of letters was brought in, and among others which were forwarded to Mrs. Stafford from Woodfield, was one for Emmeline.
Mrs. Stafford gave it to her, saying—'From France, by the post mark?'
Emmeline replied that it was. She changed colour as she opened it.
'From Mr. Delamere?' enquired Mrs. Stafford.
'No,' answered she, 'it is from Lady Westhaven. Your brother and her Ladyship are well,' continued she, addressing herself to Mr. Godolphin, 'and are at Paris; where they propose staying 'till Lady Montreville and Miss Delamere join them as they come to England.'
'And when are they expected?' said Godolphin.
'In about a month,' replied Emmeline. 'But Lord and Lady Westhaven do not propose to return 'till next spring—they only pass a few days all together at Paris.'
'And where is Mr. Delamere wandering to?' significantly and smilingly asked Mrs. Stafford.
'Lady Westhaven says only,' answered Emmeline, blushing and casting down her eyes, 'that he has left Lady Montreville, and is, they believe, gone to Geneva.'
'However,' reassumed Mrs. Stafford, 'we shall undoubtedly see him in England in March.'
Emmeline, in still greater embarrassment, answered two or three other questions which Godolphin asked her about his brother, and soon after left the room.
Godolphin, who saw there was something relative to Delamere with which he was unacquainted, had a confused idea immediately occur to him of his attachment: and the pain it gave him was so acute, that he wished at once to know whether it was well founded.
'Why does Mr. Delamere certainly return in March?' said he, addressing himself to Mrs. Stafford, 'rather than with his mother?'
'To fulfil his engagement,' gravely and coldly replied she.
'Of what nature is it?' asked he.
Mrs. Stafford then related the history of Delamere's long and violent passion for Emmeline; and the reluctant consent he had wrung from Lord and Lady Montreville, together with the promise obtained from Miss Mowbray.
While Mrs. Stafford was making this recital, she saw, by the variations of Godolphin's countenance, that she had too truly guessed the state of his heart. Expressive as his features were, it was not in his power to conceal what he felt in being convinced that he had irrecoverably fixed his affections on a woman who was the destined wife of another: and awaking from the soft visions which Hope had offered, to certain despondence, he found himself too cruelly hurt to be able to continue the conversation; and after a few faint efforts, which only betrayed his internal anguish, he hurried away.
Such, however, was the opinion Mrs. Stafford conceived of his honour and his understanding, that she had no apprehension that he would attempt imparting to the heart of Emmeline any portion of that pain with which his own was penetrated; and she hoped that absence and reflection, together with the conviction of it's being hopeless, would conquer this infant passion before it could gather strength wholly to ruin his repose.
She was glad that their departure was so near; and hastened it as much as possible. The short interval was passed in mournful silence on the part of Godolphin—on that of Lady Adelina, in tears and regret; while Emmeline, who was herself sensible of great pain in the approaching parting, struggled to appear chearful; and Mrs. Stafford attempted, tho' without much success, to reconcile them all to a separation which was become as necessary as it was inevitable.
At length the hired coach in which they were to return to Woodfield was at the door.
Lady Adelina, unable to speak to either of them, brought her little boy in her arms, and passionately kissing him, gave him into those of Emmeline. Then taking a hand of each of her friends, she pressed them to her throbbing heart, and hastened to conceal the violence of her sorrow in her own room.
Godolphin approached to take leave. He kissed the hand of Mrs. Stafford, and inarticulately expressed his thanks for her goodness to his sister.
'I know,' continued he, 'I need not recommend to you this poor infant: the same generosity which prompted you to save his mother, will effectually plead for him, and secure for him your protection 'till I can take him to that of his own family. And you, Miss Mowbray,' said he, turning to Emmeline and taking her hand—'most amiable, loveliest of human creatures! where shall I find words to thank you as I ought?'
His emotion was too great for utterance. Emmeline felt it but too sensibly; and hastening into the coach to hide how much she was herself affected, she could only say—
'All happiness attend you, Sir! Remind Lady Adelina of my hopes of soon hearing from her.'
Mrs. Stafford being then seated, and the servant who had been hired to attend the infant following her, the coach drove from the door. Godolphin pursued it with his eyes to the end of the street; and then, as if deprived of all that made life desirable, he gave himself up to languor and despondence, afraid of examining his own heart, least his reason should condemn an inclination, which, however hopeless, he could not resolve to conquer.
But while he found charms in the indulgence of his unhappy love, he determined never to disturb the peace of it's object. But rather to suffer in silence, than to give pain to a heart so generous and sensible as her's, merely for the melancholy pleasure of knowing that she pitied him.
As soon as Lady Adelina could bear the journey, they departed together to his house in the Isle of Wight; where he left her, and went in search of Mrs. Bancraft, the sister of Trelawny, of whom he enquired where Trelawny himself might be found.
This woman, apprehensive that he meditated a reconciliation between her brother and his wife, which it was so much her interest to prevent, refused for some time to give him the information he desired. Having however at length convinced her that he had no wish to renew a union which had been productive only of misery to his sister, she told him that Mr. Trelawny was returned to England, and lived at a house hired in the name of her husband, a few miles from London.
There Godolphin sought him; and found the unhappy man sunk into a state of perpetual and unconscious intoxication; in which Bancraft, the husband of his sister, encouraged him, foreseeing that it must soon end in his son's being possessed of an income, to which the meanness of his own origin, and former condition, made him look forward with anxious avidity.
It was difficult to make Trelawny, sinking into idiotism, comprehend either who Godolphin was, or the purport of his business. But Bancraft, more alive to his own interest, presently understood, that on condition of his entering into bonds of separation, Lady Adelina would relinquish the greater part of her claim on the Trelawny estate; and he undertook to have the deeds signed as soon as they could be drawn up. In a few days therefore Godolphin saw Trelawny's part of them compleated; and returned to Lady Adelina, satisfied in having released her from an engagement, which, since he had seen Trelawny, had rendered her in his eyes an object of tenderer pity; and in having acquitted himself according to his strict sense of honour, by causing her to relinquish all the advantages Trelawny's fortune offered, except those to which she had an absolute right.
This affair being adjusted, he again resigned himself to the mournful but pleasing contemplations which had occupied him ever since he had heard of Emmeline's engagement. While Lady Adelina, whose intellects were now restored, but who was lost in profound melancholy, saw too evidently the state of her brother's heart; and could not but lament that his tenderness for her had been the means of involving him in a passion, which the great merit of it's object, and his own sensibility, convinced her must be incurable.
The letters of Emmeline were the only consolation she was capable of receiving. They gave her favourable accounts of her child, and of the continued affection of her inestimable friends. Whenever one of these letters was brought, Godolphin eagerly watched her while she was reading it; and then, faultering and impatient, asked if all were well; and if Mr. Delamere was yet returned? She sometimes gave him the letters to peruse; after which he generally fell into long absence, broken only by deep drawn and involuntary sighs—symptoms which Lady Adelina knew too well to doubt of the cause.
In the mean time Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline visited every day their innocent charge, who passed for the child of one of Emmeline's friends gone to the West Indies. Emmeline insensibly grew so fond of him, that she was uneasy if any accident prevented her daily visit; and her friend sometimes laughingly reproached her with the robbery little William committed on her time.
When they were alone, their conversation frequently turned on Lady Adelina and her brother. The subject, tho' melancholy, was ever a favourite with them both; and perhaps the more so because it led them to mournful reflections—for Mrs. Stafford was unhappy, and Emmeline was not gay; nor were her spirits greatly heightened by finding that in spite of herself she thought as much of the brother as the sister, and with a degree of softness and complacency which could not be favourable to her happiness.
When she first discovered in Godolphin those admirable qualities of heart and understanding which he so eminently possessed, she asked herself whether she might indulge the admiration they excited without prejudice to him whom she considered as her husband? And she fancied that she might safely give him that esteem which his tenderness to his unhappy sister, the softness of his manners, the elegance of his mind, and the generosity of his heart, could hardly fail of extorting from the most indifferent observer.
But insensibly his idea obtruded itself more frequently on her imagination; and she determined to attempt to forget him, and no longer to allow any partiality to rob Delamere of that pure and sincere attachment with which he would expect her to meet him at the altar. It was now long since she had heard from him; but she accounted for it by supposing that he was rambling about, and she knew that letters were frequently lost.
It was at this time something more than two years since they had first met at Mowbray Castle, and in a few weeks Delamere would complete his twenty-first year—a period to which Lord Montreville had long looked forward with anxious solicitude. And now he could not but think with bitterness that his son would not be present to animate the joy of his dependants at this period; but was kept in another country, in the vain hope of extinguishing a passion which could not be indulged without rendering abortive all the pains his Lordship had taken to restore his family to the eminent rank it had formerly borne in his country.
To Sir Richard Crofts, his sons had communicated the success of those plans, by which they had sown, in the irritable mind of Delamere, jealousy and mistrust of Emmeline; and he failed not to animate and encourage their endeavours, while he used his power over the mind of Lord Montreville to limit the bounty and lessen the affection his Lordship was disposed to shew her as the daughter of his brother.
She received regularly her quarterly payment, but she received no more; and instead of hearing, on those occasions, from Lord Montreville himself, she had twice only a methodical letter from Maddox, the London steward.
This might, however, be merely accidental; and Emmeline was far from supposing that her uncle was estranged from her; nor could she guess that the malice of Mrs. Ashwood, and the artifices of the Crofts', had occasioned that estrangement.
Lord Montreville rather connived at than participated in their ungenerous proceedings; and as if fearful of trusting his own ideas of integrity with a plan which so evidently militated against them, he was determined to take advantage of their endeavours, without enquiring too minutely into their justice or candour. Sir Richard had assured him that Mr. Delamere was in a great measure weaned from his attachment; and that Mr. Crofts was almost sure, that if their meeting could be prevented for a few months longer, there would be nothing more to fear from this long and unfortunate prepossession.
Crofts himself, who had at length torn himself from his bride to pave the way for his being received by her family as her husband, soon appeared, and confirmed all this. He told Lord Montreville that Delamere had conceived suspicions of Emmeline's conduct, (tho' he knew not from what cause) that had at first excited the most uneasy jealousy, but which had at length subsided with his love; that he had regained his spirits; and, when he left his mother and sister, seemed resolved to make a vigorous effort to expel from his mind a passion he was ashamed of having so long indulged.
In saying all this, Crofts rather attended to what his Lordship wished to hear, than to what was really the truth. He knew that a meeting between Delamere and Emmeline would probably at once explain all the unworthy artifices which had been used to divide them, and render those artifices abortive. He therefore told Lord Montreville, that to prevent all probability of a relapse, it would be advisable to remove Emmeline to some place where Delamere could not meet her: and his Lordship, forgetting at once all the obligations he owed her, thought only of following this advice.
Embarrassed, however, himself with public business, he was unable to give to these domestic politics all the attention which they demanded. He threw himself more than ever into the power of the Crofts', to whose policy he left it to contrive the means, between the months of November and March, of raising an invincible barrier between his son and his niece.
Tho' Delamere's being of age encreased the difficulties of this undertaking, Crofts having no scruples about the methods he was to pursue, had no doubt of accomplishing his end: and to stimulate his endeavours, he needed only the particular advantages which would accrue to himself from the pardon and reception which he hoped to obtain from Lord Montreville and his family.
Every engine therefore that ambition, avarice, malice and cunning could employ, was now put in motion against the character and the peace of the unprotected and unsuspicious Emmeline.
In conscious innocence and unsullied purity, she dreamed not that she had an enemy on earth; for of Mrs. Ashwood, now Mrs. James Crofts, she only remembered that she had once been obliged to her. The little, malicious envy which had given her some pain at the time it was shewn, she now no longer recollected; and tho' she always continued to dislike James Crofts, yet his impertinence she had forgiven, and had written in the usual form to congratulate them both on their marriage.
Of Delamere, she heard nothing; but imputing his silence to his frequent change of place, she conceived no anger against him on that account; and still felt herself bound to keep from her mind, as much as possible, the intrusive image of Godolphin.
CHAPTER VII
Whatever resolution Emmeline might form to drive from her heart those dangerous partialities which would be fatal to her repose, she found it impossible to be accomplished while Lady Adelina's frequent letters spoke only of the generous tenderness and excellent qualities of her brother. Of what else, indeed, could she speak, in a solitude where his goodness made all her consolation and his conversation all her pleasure? where he dedicated to her all his time, and thought of procuring for her every alleviation to her retirement which books and domestic amusements afforded? while he taught her still to respect herself; and by his unwearied friendship convincing her that she had still much to lose, made her life receive in her own eyes a value it would otherwise have lost; and prevented her relapsing into that unhappy state of self-condemnation which makes the sufferer careless of the future. He thought, that situated as she was, solitude was her only choice; but to render it as happy as her circumstances allowed, was his continual care: and tho' oppressive sorrow still lay heavy on her heart; tho' it still ached with tenderness and regret towards an object whom she had sworn to think of, to speak of no more; her gratitude and affection towards her brother were as lively, as if its acute feelings had never felt the benumbing hand of despair.
In the total sequestration from the world in which she lived, she had no other topic to dwell upon than her brother, and she gave it all its force. Perfectly acquainted, however, with Emmeline's engagements, she never ventured to mention the passion which she was too well assured Godolphin felt; but she still, almost unknown to herself, cherished a lurking hope that her connection with Delamere might be dissolved, and that her lovely friend was destined to bless her beloved brother.
This distant hope was warm enough to animate her pen in his praise; and Emmeline, tho' every letter she received made on her mind a deeper impression of the merit of Godolphin, yet found such painful pleasure in reading them, that she was unhappy if at the usual periods they did not regularly arrive.
She tried to persuade herself, that the satisfaction she felt in reading these letters arose purely from the delight natural to every uncorrupted mind in contemplating a character honourable to human nature. But accustomed to examine narrowly her own heart, she could not long impose upon herself; and notwithstanding all her endeavours to stifle it, she still found the idea of Godolphin mixing itself with all her thoughts, and embittering the prospect of her certain marriage with Delamere.
In the answers Emmeline gave her friend, she related whatever she thought likely to amuse the fair recluse; gave a regular account of her little charge; but avoided punctiliously the least mention of Fitz-Edward.
Fitz-Edward had received from Mrs. Stafford an account of all that had passed at Bath, except the pains which had been taken to prevent any meeting between him and Godolphin. But notwithstanding her cautious silence on that head, Fitz-Edward, who knew Godolphin well, could hardly be persuaded not to insist on his taking his chance of depriving him of a life which he said he had deserved to lose, and could little brook being supposed to hold on courtesy. Nothing but his consideration for the unhappy Lady Adelina prevented his pursuing the sanguinary projects that agitated his mind. To her peace he owed it to conquer them; and while he was yet struggling against that sense of honour which impelled him to give Godolphin imaginary reparation, by allowing him an opportunity of putting an end to his existence or losing his own, his brother, Lord Clancarryl, wrote to desire his attendance in Ireland on some family business of importance; a summons, which after some hesitation, Mrs. Stafford and Miss Mowbray prevailed with him to obey.
Before he went, his eager and affecting entreaties prevailed on Mrs. Stafford to let him see his son, whom he embraced with an ardour of affection of which the fair friends believed so gay and fashionable a man incapable.
The errors of Fitz-Edward, however, were not those of the heart. Among the dissipation of fashion and the indulgences of libertinism, his heart was still sensible, and his integrity retrievable. He felt, therefore, with great keenness, the injury he had done Lady Adelina; and desirous of making all the reparation he could to the infant, he again placed in the hands of Emmeline, a will by which he made it his heir, and recommended it to the protection of Godolphin, whom he besought to consider as his nephew, the son of a man whom he had once loved, and who had dearly paid for having forfeited all claim to his friendship. When he was departed, nothing seemed likely to interrupt the tranquillity of Emmeline but her encreasing apprehensions for Mrs. Stafford and her children. The derangement of Stafford's affairs, and his wife's unavailing efforts to ward off the ruin which he seemed obstinately bent on incurring, were every day more visible: while his capricious and unreasonable temper, and a strange opinion of his own sagacity, which would never allow him to own himself in the wrong, made him seek to load his wife with the blame of those misfortunes which he had voluntarily sought, and now as obdurately refused to avoid while it was yet in his power.
Mrs. Stafford, who saw too plainly that the destruction of their fortune which she had so long dreaded was now with hasty strides advancing, yet endeavoured to convince him of his infatuation; but he still improved his house and garden, still schemed away all the money he could raise or gain credit for, and still repaid with rudeness and insult her anxious solicitude to save him.
In Emmeline, she ever found pity and tenderness; but pity and tenderness was all she had to bestow. The affairs of Stafford required interest and money; and Emmeline could command neither. Lord Montreville now took no other notice of her, than to remit her quarterly stipend by the hands of his steward; and tho' he had promised to double it, that promise yet remained unfulfilled.
It was at this time near the end of November, and the mornings were cold and gloomy: but Emmeline, however delicate in her frame, had a constitution which had not, by early and false indulgences, been unfitted for the duties of life; and to personal inconvenience she was always indifferent when the service of those she loved engaged her to brave fatigue or cold. She therefore still continued her morning visit to Woodbury Forest, where she generally past an hour with little William; and in his improving features and interesting smiles, loved to trace his resemblance to his mother. Lady Adelina was very like her brother; and the little boy was not the less tenderly caressed for the similitude she saw to them both.
The appearance of rain had one morning detained her at home later than usual. She went, however, about eleven o'clock; and was busied in playing with the infant, who began now to know her, and was therefore more attractive, when, while she yet held him in her arms, she heard the woman of the house, who was in the outward room, suddenly exclaim—'Indeed Sir you cannot go in—pray—I beg your honour!' There was hardly time for Emmeline to feel surprise at this bustle, before the door opened, and Delamere stood before her! In his countenance was an expression compounded of rage, fierceness and despair, which extorted from Emmeline an involuntary shriek! Unable to arise, she remained motionless in her chair, clasping the baby to her bosom: Delamere seemed trying to stifle his anger in contempt; vengeance, disdain, and pride, were struggling for superiority: while with his eyes sternly turned upon Emmeline, and smiling indignantly, he exclaimed—'Till I saw this——' inarticulately and tremulously he spoke—'till I saw this, all the evidence they brought me was insufficient to cure my blind attachment. But now—oh! infamy—madness—damnation! It is then possible—It is then true! But what is it to me? Torn—torn for ever from this outraged heart—never, never shall this sight blast me again!—But what?' continued he, speaking with more quickness, 'what? for Fitz-Edward! for the infamous plunderer of his friend's happiness! However, Madam, on you I intrude no longer. Oh! lost—lost—wretched!'—He could not go on; but in the speechless agony of contending passions he leaned his head against the frame of the door near which he stood, and gazed wildly on Emmeline; who, pale as death, and trembling like a leaf, still sat before him unable to recall her scattered spirits.
He waited a moment, gasping for breath, and as if he had still some feeble expectation of hearing her speak. But the child which she held in her arms was like a basilisk to his sight, and made in his opinion all vindication impossible. Again conviction appeared to drive him to desperation; and looking in a frantic manner round the room, as if entirely bereft of reason, he dashed his hands furiously against his head, and running, or rather flying out of the house, he immediately disappeared.
In terror and astonishment, Emmeline remained immovable and speechless. She almost doubted whether this was any other than a fearful dream, 'till the woman of the house, and the maid who attended on the child, ran into the room frightened—'Lord! Madam,' cried the woman, 'what is the matter with the young gentleman?'
'I know not,' answered Emmeline, faintly—'I know not! Where is he now?'
'He's run away into the wood again like any mad,' answered the woman.
'And from whence,' enquired Emmeline, 'did he come?'
'Why, Miss,' said she, 'I was a going out cross our garden to hang out my cloaths; so up a comes to the hedge side, an a says—Good woman, pray be'nt here a lady here as comes from Woodfield? one Miss Mowbray?—I thought how he looked oddish as 'twere about the eyes; but howsever thinking no harm, I says yes. So he runs up to the door, and I called to un, to say as I'd come in and let you know; but before I could get thro' the wicket, whisk he was in the kitchen; then I tried agin to stop un, but I were as good try to stop the wind.'
The agitation and uneasiness of Emmeline encreased rather than subsided. She looked so pale, and with so much difficulty drew her breath, that the women were alarmed least she should faint: and one of them persuaded her to swallow something, while the other ran out to see if the person who had so terrified her was yet in sight. But no traces of him were visible: and after a few moments, Emmeline recalling her presence of mind, and feeling proudly conscious of her own innocence and integrity, recovered in some degree her spirits and resolution.
That Delamere should be in England did not greatly astonish tho' it grieved her; but that he should have conceived such strange suspicions of her and Fitz-Edward, equally surprised and distressed her; since, had she an opportunity of undeceiving him, which he did not seem willing to allow her, she could not relate the truth but by betraying the confidence of her unfortunate friend, and embittering that life she had incurred such hazards to preserve. As soon as she had apparently recovered from the shock of this abrupt intrusion, she was desirous of returning to Woodfield; anxious to know if Delamere had been there, or by what means he had been enabled to find her at the cottage in the forest. The women, who fancied the gentleman they had seen was a lunatic who might lay in wait to hurt her on her way home, would not suffer her to set out 'till they had called a woodcutter from the forest to accompany her. Then, slowly and with difficulty, she returned home; where she heard from Mrs. Stafford that Delamere had neither been there or sent thither. This information encreased her wonder and her disquiet. She related to Mrs. Stafford the distressing interview of the morning; who, having seen frequent instances of those excesses of which Delamere was capable, heard the relation with concern and apprehension.
CHAPTER VIII
Some days were passed by Emmeline in painful conjectures on what measures Delamere would take, and in uncertainty what she ought to do herself. Sometimes she thought of writing to Lord Montreville: but against that Mrs. Stafford remonstrated; representing, that as she was undoubtedly the injured person, in having been insulted by suspicions so unworthy, she should leave it wholly to Delamere to discover and recant his error; which, if he refused on cooler reflection to do, she would be fortunate in escaping from an engagement with a man who had so little command of his own temper, so little reliance on her principles, as to be driven on a mere suspicion into rudeness and insult.
Greatly mortified at finding it possible for Delamere to think so injuriously of her, and depressed by a thousand uneasy apprehensions, she yielded implicitly to the counsel of her friend. But of her counsel and consolation she was now on the point of being deprived: Stafford, who had been some time in London, sent an express to fetch his wife thither a few days after the interview between Emmeline and Delamere. His affairs were now growing desperate: James Crofts demanded immediate payment of a sum of money belonging to his wife, that was left her by her father, and which she had 'till now suffered to remain in the hands of her brother. Stafford had made no provision to pay it: his boundless profusion had dissipated all the ready money he could command; and this claim of his sister's, which James Crofts seemed determined to urge, would he knew be the signal for every other creditor to beset him with demands he had no means of discharging.
Tho' Mrs. Stafford had long tho' vainly implored him to stop in his wild career, and had represented to him all the evils which were now about to overtake him, she could not see their near approach without an attempt again to rescue him. And he was accustomed in every difficulty to have recourse to her; tho' while he felt none, he scorned and even resented her efforts to keep them at a distance. He now fancied that her application might prevail on James Crofts to drop a suit he had commenced against him: she hastily therefore set out for London; leaving to Emmeline the care of her children; who promised, by the utmost attention to them, to obviate part of the inconvenience of such a journey.
It was unhappily, however, not only inconvenient but fruitless. Mr. and Mrs. James Crofts were inexorable. The suit was tried; Stafford was cast; and nothing remained for him but either to pay the money or to be exposed to the hazard of losing his property and his liberty. His conduct had so much injured his credit, that to borrow, it was impossible. Mrs. Stafford attempted therefore to divest herself of part of her own fortune to assist him with the money: but her trustees were not to be moved; and nothing but despair seemed darkening round the head of the unfortunate Stafford.
Mrs. Stafford saw too evidently that to be in the power of James Crofts, was to trust to avarice, meanness and malignity; and she trembled to reflect that her husband was now wholly at his mercy. The additional motives he had to use that power rigorously she knew not: she was ignorant that the business had so eagerly been pushed to a crisis, not merely by the avidity of James Crofts to possess the money, but also by the directions of Sir Richard, who hoped by this means to drive the family with whom Emmeline resided to another country; where Delamere might find access to her so difficult, that he might never have an opportunity of explaining the cause of his estrangement, or of hearing her vindication.
It was now that Mrs. Stafford remembered the frequent offers of service which she had repeatedly received from Lord Montreville; and to him she determined to apply. She hoped that he might be induced to influence the Crofts' family to give Mr. Stafford time, and to desist from the violence and precipitation with which they pursued him. She even fancied that his Lordship would be glad of an opportunity so easily to realize those offers he had so liberally made; and full of these expectations, she prepared to become a solicitress for favours to a statesman. She felt humbled and mortified at the cruel necessity that compelled her to it; but her children's interest conquering her reluctance, she addressed a letter to Lord Montreville, and received a very polite answer, in which he desired the honour of seeing her at two o'clock the following day; an hour, when he said he should be entirely disengaged. She might as well, however, have attended at his levee; for tho' punctual to the hour when he was to be disengaged, she found two rooms adjoining to that where his Lordship was, occupied by a variety of figures; some of whose faces, were faces of negociation and equality, but more, whose expression of fearful suspence marked them for those of petitioners and dependants. Those of the former description were separately called to an audience; and each, after a longer or shorter stay, retired; while Mrs. Stafford, tho' with an heart but ill at ease for observation, could not help fancying she discerned in their looks the success of their respective treaties.
As soon as these gentlemen were all departed, Mrs. Stafford, who had already waited almost three hours, was introduced into the study; where, with many gracious bows and smiling apologies, Lord Montreville received her.
Sir Richard Crofts had that morning warmly represented to his Lordship the necessity of the Staffords' going abroad and taking Emmeline with them. Lord Montreville knew that Delamere was returned, and was embroiled with Emmeline; he was therefore eager enough to follow advice which appeared so necessary, and to promote any plan which might prevent a renewal of the attachment. He enquired not into the cause of this estrangement, satisfied with it's effect; and had secretly determined to give Mrs. Stafford no assistance in the endeavours she was using to keep her family from dispersion and distress.
But statesman as he was, he could not entirely forget that he once felt as other men; and he could not hear, without some emotion, the melancholy description that Mrs. Stafford gave of the impending ruin of her family and all it's fearful consequences: which she did with so much clear simplicity, yet with so much proper dignity, that he found his resolution shaken; and recollecting that he had a conscience, was about to ask it by what right he assumed the power of rendering an innocent family wandering exiles, merely to save himself from a supposed possible inconvenience.
But while every lingering principle of goodness and generosity was rising in the bosom of his Lordship to assist the suit of Mrs. Stafford, a servant entered hastily and announced the Duke of N——. His Grace of course waited not in the anti-room, but was immediately introduced.
Lord Montreville then civilly apologized to Mrs. Stafford for being unable to conclude the business; adding, that if she would see Sir Richard Crofts the next day, he would take care it should be settled to her satisfaction. She withdrew with a heavy heart; and feeling infinite reluctance in the proposed application to Sir Richard Crofts, she employed the whole afternoon in attempting to move, in favour of her husband, some of those friends who had formerly professed the most unbounded and disinterested friendship for him and his family.
Of many of these, the doors were shut against her; others affected the utmost concern, and lamented that their little power and limited fortunes did not allow them to assist in repairing the misfortunes they deplored: some told her how long they had foreseen Mr. Stafford's embarrassments, and how destructive building and scheming were to a moderate fortune; while others made vague proffers of inadequate services, which on farther conversation she found they never intended to perform if unluckily she had accepted their offers. In all, she saw too plainly that they looked on Mr. Stafford's affairs as desperate; and in their coldness and studied civility, already felt all the misery and mortification of reduced circumstances.
With encreased anguish, she was now compelled to go, on the following day, to Sir Richard Crofts; whom she knew only from Emmeline's description.
He also, in imitation of his patron, had his anti-chamber filled with soliciting faces. She waited not quite so long, indeed, for an audience, but with infinitely less patience. At length, however, she was shewn into the apartment where Sir Richard transacted business.
Bloated prosperity was in his figure, supercilious scorn in his eyes: he rose half off his seat, and slightly inclined his head on her entrance.
'Madam, your servant—please to sit down.'
'I waited on you, Sir Richard, to—'
'I beg your pardon, Madam. But as I am perfectly acquainted, and informed, and aware of the business, there is no occasion or necessity to give you the trouble to repeat, and dwell upon, and explain it. It is not, I find, convenient, or suitable, or commodious, for Mr. Stafford to pay to my son James, who has married his (Mr. Stafford's) sister, that part, and proportion, and residue, of her fortune, which her father at his death gave, bequeathed, and left to her.'
'It is not only inconvenient, Sir,' answered Mrs. Stafford, 'but impossible, I fear, for him to do it immediately; and this is what I wished to speak to you upon.'
'I am aware, and informed, and apprized, Madam, of what you would say. I am sorry it is as you say so inconvenient, and impracticable, and impossible. However, Madam, my way in these cases is to go very plainly, and straitly, and directly to the point; therefore I will chalk out, and describe, and point out to you a line of conduct, which if you chuse to follow, and adopt, and pursue, it appears to me that all may be adjusted, settled, and put to rights.'
'You will oblige me, Sir Richard, by doing so.'
'Well then, it is this—As it appears, and is evident, and visible, that you have not the money in question, you must immediately sell, and dispose of, and make into money, your house and effects in Dorsetshire, and after paying, and satisfying, and discharging the debt to my son James, you must (as I understand your husband is besides deeply in debt,) withdraw, retire, and remove to France, or to Normandy, or Switzerland, or some cheap country, 'till your affairs come round, and are retrieved, and accommodated and adjusted.'
'This we might have done, Sir Richard, without troubling you with the present application.'
'No, Madam, you might not. I assure you I have talked, and reasoned, and argued some time with Mr. James Crofts, before I could induce, and prevail upon, and dispose him to wait, and remain, and continue unpaid, until this arrangement and disposition could take place. He wants the money, Madam, for a particular purpose; and tho' from my heart I grieve, and lament, and deplore the necessity of the measure, I do assure you, Madam, nothing else will give you any chance of winding up, compleating, and terminating the business before us. You will therefore, Madam, think, and consider, and reflect on it's necessity, and give your final answer to my son James, who will wait for it only 'till to-morrow morning.'
He then rang his bell; and saying he had an appointment with Lord Montreville, who must already have waited for him, he made a cold bow and hastened out of the room.
CHAPTER IX
Mrs. Stafford now saw that nothing remained but to follow her husband to a prison, or prevail on him to go to the Continent while she attempted anew to settle his affairs.
Obstinate even in despair, she had the utmost difficulty to convince him of the necessity of this measure; and would never, perhaps, have done it, if the more persuasive argument of a writ, taken out by James Crofts, had not driven him to embrace it rather than go into confinement.
Mrs. Stafford with difficulty procured money to furnish him for his journey, and saw him depart for Dover; while she herself returned to Emmeline, who had passed the three weeks of her absence in great uneasiness. No news had been received of Delamere; and she now believed, that of the promise he had forced from her he meant not to avail himself; yet did not relinquish it; but in proud and sullen resentment, disdained even to enquire whether he had justly harboured anger against her. She wished to have withdrawn a promise she could no longer think of without pain and regret; but she found Mrs. Stafford so unhappy, that she could not resolve to oppress her by complaints; and after some struggles with herself, determined to let the matter take it's course.
Willingly, however, she consented to accompany her friend to France; where Mrs. Stafford, at her husband's request, now determined to go with her family. She had found an opulent tradesman in a neighbouring town, who engaged, on receiving a mortgage on the estate, and ten per cent. interest, (which he so managed as to evade the appearance of usury,) to let her have the money to pay Mr. Crofts, and a farther sum for the support of her family: and having got a tenant for the house, and satisfied as many of the clamorous creditors as she could, she prepared, with a heavy heart, to quit her abode, with Emmeline and her infant family.
As it was necessary that little William should be sent to the Isle of Wight before their departure, Emmeline wrote to fix a day at the distance of a month, on which she desired Lady Adelina to send some careful person for him. But ten days before the expiration of that period, letters came from Mr. Stafford, in which he directed his wife, who intended to embark at Brighthelmstone and land at Dieppe, to change her route, and sail from Southampton to Havre. He also desired her to hasten her journey: and as every thing was now put on the best footing the time would allow, Mrs. Stafford immediately complied; and with her own unfortunate family, Emmeline, and little William, (whom they now meant to carry themselves to Lady Adelina) they left Woodfield.
The pain of quitting, probably for ever, a favourite abode, which she feared would at length be torn from her children by the rapacity of the law, and the fatigue of travelling with infant children, under such circumstances, almost overcame the resolution and spirits of Mrs. Stafford. Emmeline, ever reasonable, gentle, and consoling, was her principal support; and on the evening of the second day they arrived at Southampton.
While Emmeline almost forgot in her attention to her friend her own uncertain and unpleasant state, Delamere remained in Norfolk, where he had hid himself from the enquiries of his father, and from the importunities of his mother, who was now, with her eldest daughter, settled again in Berkley Square. Here he nourished inveterate resentment against Fitz-Edward: and finding it impossible to forget Emmeline, he continued to think of her as much as ever, but with indignation, jealousy and rage.
He had, immediately on receiving, as he believed, a confirmation of all those suspicions with which the Crofts' had so artfully inspired him, resolved to demand satisfaction of Fitz-Edward; and hearing on enquiry that he was in Ireland, but his return immediately expected, he waited with eager and restless uneasiness till the person whom he had commissioned to inform him of his return should send notice that he was again in London.
Week after week, however, passed away. He still heard, that tho' expected hourly, Fitz-Edward arrived not. Time, far from softening the asperity with which his thoughts dwelt on this supposed rival, seemed only to irritate and inflame his resentment; and ingenious in tormenting himself, he now added new anguish to that which corroded his heart, by supposing that Emmeline, aware of the danger which threatened her lover from the vengeance of his injured friend, had written to him to prevent his return. This idea was confirmed, when the agent whom he employed to watch the return of Fitz-Edward at length informed him that he had obtained leave of absence from his regiment, now in England, and was to pass the remainder of the winter with Lord and Lady Clancarryl.
The fury of his passions seemed to be suspended, while with gloomy satisfaction he looked forward to a speedy retribution: but now, when no immediate prospect offered of meeting the author of his calamities, they tormented him with new violence. Emmeline and Fitz-Edward haunted his dreams; Emmeline and Fitz-Edward were ever present to his imagination; he figured to himself his happy rival possessed of the tenderness and attachment of that gentle and sensible heart. The anguish these images inflicted affected his health; and while every day, as it passed, brought nothing to alleviate his despair, he became more and more convinced that the happiness of his life was blasted for ever; and growing impatient of life itself, determined to go to Ireland and insist on an opportunity of losing it, or of taking that of the man who had made it an insupportable burthen.
He set out therefore, attended only by Millefleur, and gave Lord Montreville no notice of his intention 'till he reached Holyhead; from thence he wrote to his Lordship to say that he had received an invitation to visit some friends at Dublin, and that he should continue about a month in Ireland. His pride prompted him to do this; least his father, on hearing of his absence, should suppose that he was weak enough to seek a reconciliation with Emmeline, whose name he now never mentioned, being persuaded that his Lordship knew how ill she had repaid an affection, which, tho' he could not divest himself of, he was now ashamed to acknowledge.
Lord Montreville, happy to find he had really quitted her, was extremely glad of this seasonable journey; which, as the Crofts' assured him Emmeline was on the point of leaving England, would, he thought, prevent his enquiring whither she was gone, and by introducing him into a new set of acquaintance, turn his thoughts to other objects and perfect his cure.
While Delamere then was travelling to Ireland in pursuit of Fitz-Edward, Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline left Southampton on a visit to Lady Adelina in the Isle of Wight; being desirous of delivering little William into the arms of his mother and his uncle. Tho' it was now almost the end of January, they embarked in an open boat, with the servant who waited on the child; but being detained 'till almost noon on account of the tide, it was evening before they reached a village on the shore, three miles beyond Cowes, where they were to land.
On arriving there, they found that the house of Captain Godolphin was situated two miles farther. Mrs. Stafford, ever attentive and considerate, was afraid that the sight of the child so unexpectedly, might overpower the spirits of Lady Adelina, and cause speculation among the servants which it was absolutely necessary to avoid. Emmeline therefore undertook to walk forward, attended by a boy in the village, who was to shew her the way, and apprize Lady Adelina of the visitor she was to expect.
Pleasure, in spite of herself, glowed in her bosom at the idea of again meeting Godolphin; tho' she knew not that he had conceived for her the most pure and ardent passion that was ever inspired by a lovely and deserving object.
He had long since found that his heart was irrecoverably gone. But tho' he struggled not against his passion, he loved too truly to indulge it at the expence of Emmeline; and had therefore determined to avoid her, and not to embitter her life with the painful conviction that their acquaintance had destroyed the happiness of his. For this reason he did not intend going himself to fetch his nephew from Woodbury Forest, but had given a careful servant directions to go thither in a few days after that when Emmeline herself prevented the necessity of the journey.
Her walk lay along the high rocks that bounded the coast; and it was almost dark before she entered a small lawn surrounded with a plantation, in which the house of Godolphin was situated. About half an acre of ground lay between it and the cliff, which was beat by the swelling waves of the channel. The ground on the other side rose more suddenly; and a wood which covered the hill behind it, seemed to embosom the house, and take off that look of bleakness and desolation which often renders a situation so near the sea unpleasant except in the warmest months of Summer. A sand walk lead round the lawn. Emmeline followed it, and it brought her close to the windows of a parlour. They were still open; she looked in; and saw, by the light of the fire, for there were no candles in the room, Godolphin sitting alone. He leaned on a book, which there was not light enough to read; scattered papers lay round him, and a pen and ink were on the table.
Emmeline could not forbear looking at him a moment before she approached the door. She could as little command her curiosity to know on what he was thus deeply thinking. The boy who was with her ran round to the kitchen, and sent up a servant to open the door; who immediately throwing open that of the parlour, said—'A lady, Sir!'
Godolphin starting from his reverie, arose, and unexpectedly beheld the subject of it.
His astonishment at this visit, was such as hardly left him the power to express the pleasure with which that astonishment was mingled. 'Miss Mowbray!' exclaimed he—'Is it indeed Miss Mowbray?'
For a moment he surveyed her in silent extasy, then congratulated himself upon his unhoped for good fortune; and answering her enquiries about Lady Adelina, he suddenly seemed to recollect the papers which lay on the table, hurried them into a drawer, and again returning to Emmeline, told her how happy he was to see her look so well. He thought indeed that he had never seen her so infinitely lovely. The sharpness of the air during her walk had heightened the glow of her complexion; her eyes betrayed, by their soft and timid glances, the partiality of which she was hardly yet conscious; she trembled, without knowing why; and could hardly recover her composure, while Godolphin, who would trust no other person to deliver the message, ran eagerly up stairs to acquaint Lady Adelina. 'My sister,' cried he, immediately returning, 'will be with you instantly; a slight pain in her head has kept her on the bed almost all day. But to what do we owe the happiness of seeing you here, when we thought you on the point of sailing for France by another route?'
Emmeline then hastily explained the change in their plan; adding, gravely—'You will have another visitor, who cannot fail of being welcome both to you and Lady Adelina. Mrs. Stafford stays with him at the village, while she desired me to come on to prepare you for his reception, and to know how you will have him introduced?'
'As my child,' answered Godolphin. 'My servants are already prepared to expect such an addition to my family. Ever amiable, ever lovely Miss Mowbray!' continued he, with looks that encreased her confusion—'what obligation does not our little boy—do we not all owe you?'
At this moment Lady Adelina, who had been obliged to wait some moments to recover herself from the joyful surprise into which the news of Emmeline's arrival had thrown her, ran into the room, and embracing with transport her lovely friend, sighed; but unable to weep, sat down, and could only kiss her hands with such wild expressions of rapture, that Emmeline was alarmed least it should have any ill effect on her intellects, or on a frame ever extremely delicate; and which now had, from her having long indulged incurable sorrow, assumed an appearance of such languor and weakness, that Emmeline with extreme concern looked on her as on a beautiful shadow whom she probably beheld for the last time.
She stood a moment pensively gazing on her face. Godolphin said gently to his sister, who still held the hand of Emmeline—'Adelina, my love, recollect yourself—you keep Miss Mowbray standing.'
'What is yet more material,' answered Emmeline, smiling, is, 'that you keep me from writing a note to Mrs. Stafford, which the boy who waits here is to take back to her.'
Godolphin answered that he would go himself to Mrs. Stafford, and instantly departed; while Emmeline began to talk to Lady Adelina of the immediate arrival of her child. She at length succeeded in getting her to speak of him, and to weep extremely; after which, she grew more composed, and her full heart seemed relieved by talking of her brother.
Her words, tho' faint, and broken by the emotion she felt, yet forcibly conveyed to the heart of Emmeline impressions of that uncommon worth they described.
'Never,' said she, 'can I be sufficiently grateful to heaven for having given me such a brother. 'Tis not in words, my Emmeline, to do him justice! He is all that is noble minded and generous. Tho' from the loss of his vivacity and charming spirits, I know too well how deeply my unworthy conduct has wounded him; tho' I know, that by having sullied the fair name of our family, and otherwise, I have been the unhappy cause of injuring his peace, yet never has a reproach or an unkind word escaped him. Pensive, yet always kind; melancholy, and at times visibly unhappy; yet ever gentle, considerate, and attentive to me; always ready to blame himself for yielding to that despondence which he cannot without an effort conquer; trying to alleviate the anguish of my mind by subduing that which frequently preys on his own; and now burying the memory of my fault in compassion to my affliction, he adopts my child, and allows me without a blush to embrace the dear infant, for whom I dare not otherwise shew the tenderness I feel.'
Emmeline, affected by this eulogium, to which her heart warmly assented, was silent.
'There is,' reassumed Lady Adelina, 'but one being on earth who resembles him:—it is my Emmeline! If ever two creatures eminently excelled the rest of their species, it is my friend and my brother!'
Something throbbed at the heart of Emmeline at these words, into which she was afraid to enquire: her engagement to Delamere, yet uncancelled, lay like a weight upon it; and seemed to impress the idea of her doing wrong while she thus listened to the praises of another; and felt that she listened with too much pleasure! She asked herself, however, whether it was possible to be insensible of the merit of Godolphin? Yet conscious that she had already thought of it too much, she wished to change the topic of discourse—But Lady Adelina still pursued it.
'Lord Westhaven,' said she, 'my elder brother, is indeed a most respectable and excellent man. Equally with my brother William, he inherits from my father, integrity, generosity and nobleness of mind, together with a regularity of morals and conduct, unusual in so young a man even in any rank of life, and remarkable in him, who has passed almost all his in the army. But he is, tho' not yet thirty, much older than I am, and has almost always been absent from me; those who know him better, have told me, that with as many other good qualities as William, he has less softness of temper; and being almost free from error himself, makes less allowance for the weakness of others. Such, however, has been the management of my younger brother, that the elder knows not the truth of my circumstances—he does not even suspect them. You may very possibly see him and Lady Westhaven abroad. I know I need not caution my Emmeline—she will be careful of the peace of her poor friend.'
Emmeline soon satisfied Lady Adelina on that head, who then asked when she heard of Delamere?
This question Emmeline had foreseen: but having predetermined not to distress her unfortunate friend, by telling her into what difficulties her attendance on her and her child had led her, and being shocked to own herself the subject of suspicions so injurious as those Delamere had dared to harbour, she calmly answered that Delamere was returned to England, but that she had seen him only for a few moments.
'And did he not object,' enquired Lady Adelina, 'to your quitting England, since he is himself returned to it?'
Emmeline, who could not directly answer this question, evaded it by saying—
'My absence or my presence you know cannot hasten the period, 'till the arrival of which our marriage cannot take place—if it ever takes place at all.'
'If it ever takes place at all?' repeated Lady Adelina—'Does then any doubt remain of it?'
'An affair of that sort,' replied Emmeline, assuming as much unconcern as she could, 'is always doubtful where so many clashing interests and opposite wishes are to be reconciled, and where so very young a man as Mr. Delamere is to decide.'
'Do you suspect that he wavers then?' very earnestly asked Lady Adelina, fixing her eyes on the blushing face of Emmeline.
'I really am not sure,' answered she—'you know my promise, reluctantly given, was only conditional. I am far from being anxious to anticipate by firmer engagements the certainty of it's being fulfilled; much better contented I should be, if he yet took a few years longer to consider of it. You, Lady Adelina,' continued she, smiling, 'are surely no advocate for early marriages; and Mrs. Stafford is greatly averse to them. You must therefore suppose that what my two friends have found inimical to their happiness, I cannot consider as being likely to constitute mine.'
This speech had the effect Emmeline intended. It brought back the thoughts of Lady Adelina from the uncertainties of her friend to her own actual sorrows. She sighed deeply.
'You say truly,' said she. 'I have no reason to wish those I love may precipitately form indissoluble engagements; nor do I wish it. Would to God I had not been the victim of an hasty and unhappy marriage; or that I had been the only victim. Emmeline,' added she, lowering her voice, now hardly audible, 'Emmeline, may I ask?—where is—spare me the repetition of a name I have solemnly vowed never to utter—you understand me?'
'I do,' answered Emmeline, gravely. 'He has been in Ireland; but is now I suppose in London, as the time he told me he should pass there has long since elapsed. I heard he was to return no more to Tylehurst, and that Mr. Delamere had given up the house there; but of this I know nothing from themselves. The person you enquire after, I have seen only once, and that for half an hour. Mrs. Stafford can tell you more, if you wish to hear it.'
'Ah! pardon my wretched weakness, Emmeline! I know I ought to conquer it! But I cannot help wishing—I cannot help being anxious to hear of him! Yet would I conceal from every one but you that the recollection of this unhappy man never a moment leaves me. Tell me, my angelic friend! for of you I may ask and be forgiven—has he seen his son?'
'He has; and was extremely affected. But dear Lady Adelina, do not, I beseech you, enquire into the particulars of the interview. Try, my beloved friend, to divest yourself of these painful recollections—ah! try to recover your peace, and preserve your life, for the sake of our dear little William and those friends who love you.'
The unhappy Adelina, who notwithstanding all her efforts, was devoured by an incurable affection for a man whom she had sworn to banish from her heart for ever, and whose name her brother would not suffer her to pronounce, now gave way to an agony of passion which she could indulge only before Emmeline; and so violently was she affected by regret and despair, that her friend trembled least her reason should again forsake it's seat. She tried, by soothing and tenderness, to appease this sudden effusion of grief; and had hardly restored her to some degree of composure, before Mrs. Stafford entered the room and embraced most cordially Lady Adelina, while Godolphin followed her with the little boy in his arms. In contemplating the beauty of his nephew, he had forgotten the misery of which his birth had been the occasion; for with all the humanity of a brave man, Godolphin possessed a softness of heart, which the helpless innocence of the son, and the repentant sorrow of the mother, melted into more than feminine tenderness. He carried the child to his sister, and put it into her arms—
'Take him, my Adelina!' said he—'take our dear boy: and while you embrace and bless him, you will feel all you owe to those who have preserved him.'
Lady Adelina did indeed feel such complicated sensations that she was unable to utter a word. She could only press the little boy to her heart and bedew his face with tears. Her affecting silence and pale countenance alarmed both Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline; and the former, willing to give her thoughts a new turn, said—
'You do not suppose, my dear friends, that we intend to go back to Southampton to night? so I hope you will give us some supper and beds in this hospitable island.'
Godolphin, who had been too much enchanted to think before, immediately saw that the meaning of Mrs. Stafford's solicitude was merely to call the thoughts of his sister from herself to her guests; he seconded therefore this intention, by desiring Lady Adelina to give proper orders about the apartments for her friends; and to take his little boy to that which had been prepared for his reception. The three ladies therefore withdrew with the child; where Lady Adelina soon recovered some degree of serenity, and was able to sit at table while they supped.
Had Mrs. Stafford been before unsuspicious of the passion of Godolphin for Emmeline, she would have been convinced of it during the course of this evening. His voice, his countenance, his manner, evidently betrayed it; and whenever the eyes of Emmeline were turned to any other object, his were fixed on her face, with looks so expressive of tender admiration, yet tempered by a kind of hopeless dejection, that the most uninterested observer could hardly have mistaken his thoughts.
But it was not her face, however interesting; or her form, however graceful; that rivetted the chains of Godolphin. He had seen many faces more regularly beautiful, and many figures equally elegant, with indifference: he had heard, with coldness, the finest sentiments uttered by the fairest mouths; and had listened to the brilliant sallies of fashionable wit, with contempt. In Emmeline, he discovered a native dignity of soul, an enlarged and generous heart, a comprehensive and cultivated understanding, a temper at once soft and lively, with morals the most pure, and manners simple, undesigning and ingenuous. To these solid perfections, genius had added all the lighter graces; and nature, a form which, enchanting as it must ever have been, seemed to receive irresistible charms from the soul by which it was informed.
All his philosophy could not prevent his being sensible of the attractions of such a woman; nor was his resolution sufficiently strong to enable him to struggle against their influence, even when he found he had nothing to hope. But yielding to the painful delight of loving her, he persuaded himself that tho' he could not conquer he could conceal it; and that while she was ignorant of his passion it could be injurious only to himself.
His absence and silence during supper was broken only by his natural politeness. After it concluded, they drew round the fire; and the three ladies entered into one of those interesting conversations that are so pleasant where mutual confidence and esteem reign among the party.
Godolphin continued silent; and insensibly fell into a train of thought the most dangerous to that appearance of indifference which he believed he could observe. Looking at Emmeline as she talked to his sister, and remembering all the friendship she had shewn her, hearing the sound of her voice and the elegance of her expressions, he began insensibly to consider how blessed he might have been, had he known her before her hand was promised and her affections given to the fortunate Delamere.
'Had it but been my lot!' said he to himself—'had it been my lot!—ah, what happiness, after the fatigues and dangers of my profession, to return to this place which I love so much, and to be received by such a friend—such a mistress—such a wife as she will make!' He indulged these ideas, 'till absolutely lost in them, he was unconscious of every thing but their impression, and starting up, he struck his hands together and cried—
'Merciful heaven!—and can it then never be?'
Alarmed at the suddenness of an exclamation so causeless, Lady Adelina looked terrified and her friends amazed.
'What, brother?—what are you speaking of?' enquired she.
'I beg your pardon,' said Godolphin, instantly recollecting himself, and blushing for this unguarded sally—'I beg your pardon. I was thinking of some business I have to settle; but I do not deserve to be forgiven for suffering my mind in such company to dwell on any thing but the pleasure I enjoy; and for yielding to a foolish custom I have acquired of uttering aloud whatever is immediately in my mind; an habit,' added he, smiling, 'that has grown upon me by living so much alone. Since Lady Adelina is now fixed with me, I hope I shall cease to speak and think like an hermit, and be again humanized. Adelina, my love, you look fatigued.'
'Ah!' replied she, 'of what fatigue can I be sensible when with those who I most love and value; and from whom, to-morrow—to-morrow I must part!'
'I doubt that extremely,' said Godolphin, trying to carry the conversation entirely from his own strange behaviour. 'If I have any skill in the weather, to-morrow will bring a gale of wind, which will opportunely make prisoners of our two fair friends for another day.'
'How infinitely,' cried Lady Adelina, 'shall I be obliged to it.'
The rising of the wind during the whole evening had made Godolphin's conjecture highly probable. Mrs. Stafford, impatient to return to her children, whom she never willingly left wholly in the care of servants, heard it's encreasing violence with regret. Emmeline tried to do so too; but she could not prevail on herself to lament a circumstance likely to keep her another day with Lady Adelina and her little boy. She wanted too to see a little of this beautiful island, of which she had heard so much; and found several other reasons for wishing to remain, without allowing herself to suppose that Godolphin had on these wishes the smallest influence.
CHAPTER X
Early the next morning, Emmeline arose; and looking towards the sea, saw a still encreasing tempest gathering visibly over it. She wandered over the house; which tho' not large was chearful and elegant, and she fancied every thing in it bore testimony to the taste and temper of its master. The garden charmed her still more; surrounded by copse-wood and ever-greens, and which seemed equally adapted to use and pleasure. The country behind it, tho' divested of its foliage and verdure, appeared more beautiful than any she had seen since she left Wales; and with uncommon avidity she enjoyed, even amid the heavy gloom of an impending storm, the great and magnificent spectacle afforded by the sea. By reminding her of her early pleasures at Mowbray Castle, it brought back a thousand half-obliterated and agreeable, tho' melancholy images to her mind; while its grandeur gratified her taste for the sublime.
As she was indulging these contemplations, the wind suddenly blew with astonishing violence; and before Mrs. Stafford arose, the sea was become so tempestuous and impracticable, that eagerly as she wished to return to her children she could not think of braving it.
Godolphin had seen Emmeline wandering along the cliff, and had resolutely denied himself the pleasure of joining her; for from what had passed the evening before, he began to doubt his own power to forbear speaking to her of the subject that filled his heart.
They now met at breakfast; and Emmeline was charmed with her walk, tho' she had been driven from it by the turbulence of the weather, which by this time had arisen to an hurricane. When their breakfast ended, Mrs. Stafford followed Lady Adelina, who wanted to consult her on something that related to the little boy; Godolphin went out to give some orders; and Emmeline retired to a bow window which looked towards the sea.
Could she have divested her mind of its apprehensions that what formed for her a magnificent and sublime scene brought shipwreck and destruction to many others, she would have been highly pleased with a sight of the ocean in its present tremendous state. Lost in contemplating the awful spectacle, she did not see or hear Godolphin; who imagining she had left the room with his sister, had returned, and with his arms crossed, and his eyes fixed on her face, stood on the other side of the window like a statue.
The gust grew more vehement, and deafened her with it's fury; while the mountainous waves it had raised, burst thundering against the rocks and seemed to shake their very foundation. Emmeline, at the picture her imagination drew of their united powers of desolation, shuddered involuntarily and sighed.
'What disturbs Miss Mowbray?' said Godolphin.
Emmeline, unwilling to acknowledge that she had been so extremely absent as not to know he was in the room, answered, without expressing her surprise to see him there—'I was thinking how fatal this storm which we are contemplating, may be to the fortunes and probably the lives of thousands.'
'The gale,' returned Godolphin, 'is heavy, but by no means of such fatal power as you apprehend. I have been at sea in several infinitely more violent, and shall probably be in many others.'
'I hope not,' answered Emmeline, without knowing what she said—'Surely you do not mean it?'
'A professional man,' said he, smiling, and flattered by the eagerness with which she spoke, 'has, you know, no will of his own. I certainly should not seek danger; but it is not possible in such service as ours to avoid it.'
'Why then do you not quit it?'
'If I intended to give you a high idea of my prudence, I should say, because I am a younger brother. But to speak honestly, that is not my only motive; my fortune, limited as it is, is enough for all my wishes, and will probably suffice for any I shall now ever form; but a man of my age ought not surely to waste in torpid idleness, or trifling dissipation, time that may be usefully employed. Besides, I love the profession to which I have been brought up, and, by engaging in which, I owe a life to my country if ever it should be called for.'
'God forbid it ever should!' said Emmeline, with quickness; 'for then,' continued she, hesitating and blushing, 'what would poor Lady Adelina do? and what would become of my dear little boy?'
Godolphin, charmed yet pained by this artless expression of sensibility, and thrown almost off his guard by the idea of not being wholly indifferent to her, answered mournfully—'To them, indeed, my life may be of some value; but to myself it is of none. Ah, Miss Mowbray! it might have been worth preserving had I——But wherefore presume I to trouble you on a subject so hopeless? I know not what has tempted me to intrude on your thoughts the incoherences of a mind ill at ease. Pardon me—and suffer not my folly to deprive me of the happiness of being your friend, which is all I will ever pretend to.'
He turned away, and hastened out of the room; leaving Emmeline in such confusion that it was not 'till Mrs. Stafford came to call her to Lady Adelina's dressing-room, that she remembered where she was, and the necessity of recollecting her scattered thoughts. When they met at dinner, she could not encounter the eyes of Godolphin without the deepest blushes: Lady Adelina, given wholly up to the idea of their approaching separation, and Mrs. Stafford, occupied by uneasiness of her own, did not attend to the singularity of her manner.
The latter had never beheld such a tempest as was now raging; and she could not look towards the sea, whose high and foaming billows were breaking so near them, without shivering at the terrifying recollection, that in a very few hours her children, all she held dear on earth, would be exposed to this capricious and furious element. Tho' of the steadiest resolution in any trial that merely regarded herself, she was a coward when these dear objects of her fondness were in question; and she could not help expressing to Mr. Godolphin some part of her apprehensions.
'As I have gained some credit,' answered he, 'for my sagacity in foreseeing the gale, I might perhaps as well not hazard the loss of it, by another prophecy, for which you, Lady Adelina, will not thank me.—It will be fine, I am afraid, to-morrow.'
'And the day following we embark for France,' said Mrs. Stafford; 'how providential that we could not sail yesterday!'
'Your heart fails you, my dear Mrs. Stafford,' replied Godolphin, 'and I do not wonder at it. But I will tell you what you shall allow me to do: I will attend you to-morrow to Southampton, where in the character of a veteran seaman I will direct your departure, (as the whole pacquet is yours) according to the appearance of the weather; and to indulge me still farther, you shall suffer me to see you landed at Havre. Adelina, I know, will be wretched 'till she hears you are safe on the other side; and will therefore willingly spare me to bring her such intelligence; and give me at the same time a fortunate opportunity of being useful to you.'
Mrs. Stafford, secretly rejoiced at a proposal which would secure them a protector and as much safety as depended on human skill, could not conceal her wish to assent to it; tho' she expressed great reluctance to give him so much trouble.
Godolphin then consulted the eyes of Emmeline, which on meeting his were cast down; but he could not find that they expressed any displeasure at his offer: he therefore assured Mrs. Stafford that he should consider it as a pleasurable scheme with a party to whom he was indifferent; 'but when,' added he, 'it gives me the means of being of the least use to you, to Miss Mowbray, and your children, I shall find in it not only pleasure but happiness. Alas! how poorly it will repay the twentieth part of the obligation we owe you!'
It was settled therefore that Mr. Godolphin was to cross the channel with them. Again Emmeline tried to be sorry, and again found herself incapable of feeling any thing but satisfaction in hearing that he would be yet longer with them.
During the rest of the evening, he tried to assume a degree of chearfulness; and did in some measure feel it in the prospect of this farther temporary indulgence.
Lady Adelina, unable to conceal her concern, drooped without any effort to imitate him; and when they parted for the night, could not help deploring in terms of piercing regret their approaching separation.
The assurances Godolphin had given them of a favourable morning were fulfilled. They found that tho' there was yet a considerable swell, the wind had subsided entirely, and that they might safely cross to Southampton. The boat that was to convey them was ready; and Emmeline could not take leave of Lady Adelina without sharing the anguish which she could not mitigate. They embraced silently and in tears; and Emmeline pressed to her heart the little boy, to whom she was tenderly attached.
Godolphin was a silent spectator of this melancholy farewel. The softness of Emmeline's heart was to him her greatest charm, and he could hardly help repeating, in the words of Louis XIV—'She has so much sensibility that it must be an exquisite pleasure to be beloved by her!'
He sighed in remembering that such could not be his happiness; then wishing to shorten a scene which so violently affected the unsettled spirits of Lady Adelina, he would have led Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline away; but Lady Adelina insisted on following them to the shore; smiled thro' her tears; and promised to behave better. Silently they walked to the sea-side. Mrs. Stafford hastily embracing her, was handed into the boat by Godolphin; who then advancing with forced gaiety to Emmeline, about whom his sister still fondly hung, said—'Come, come, I must have no more adieus—as if you were never to meet again.'
'Ah! who can tell,' answered Lady Adelina, 'that we ever shall!'
Emmeline spoke not; but kissing the hand of her weeping friend, gave her own to Godolphin; while Lady Adelina, resting on the arm of her woman, and overwhelmed with sorrow, suffered the boat to depart.
It rowed swiftly away; favoured by the tide. Lady Adelina remained on the shore as long as she could distinguish it; and then slowly and reluctantly returned to solitude and tears: while her two friends, attended by her brother, landed safely at Southampton, where he busied himself in settling every thing for their departure the next morning in the pacquet which they had hired, and which now lay ready to receive them.
During their passage to Havre, which was short and prosperous, the attention of Godolphin was equally divided between Mrs. Stafford, her children, and Emmeline. But when he assisted the latter to leave the vessel, he could not forbear pressing her to his heart, while in a deep sigh he bade adieu to the happiness of being with her; for he concluded she would not long remain single, and after she was married he determined never more to trust himself with the dangerous pleasure of beholding her.
He had never mentioned the name of Delamere; and knew not that he was returned to England. Having once been assured of her engagement, he was unable to enquire into the circumstances of what had destroyed his happiness. He knew they were to be married in March, and that Delamere had promised to remain on the Continent 'till that period. He doubted not, therefore, but that Emmeline, in compliance with the entreaties of her lover, had consented to accompany Mrs. Stafford to France, and by her presence to charm away the months that yet intervened; after which he supposed they would be immediately united.
Notwithstanding some remarks he had made on the interest she seemed to take in regard to himself, he imputed it merely to her general sensibility and to his relationship to Lady Adelina. He supposed that Delamere possessed her heart; and tho' it was the only possession on earth that would give him any chance of happiness, he envied this happy lover without hating him. He could not blame him for loving her, who was in his own opinion irresistible; nor for having used the opportunity his good fortune had given him of winning her affections. The longer he conversed with her, the more he was convinced that Delamere, in being as he believed master of that heart, was the most fortunate of human beings. But tho' he had not resolution enough to refuse himself the melancholy yet pleasing gratification of contemplating perfections which he thought could never be his, and tho' he could not help sometimes betraying the fondness which that indulgence hourly encreased, he never seriously meditated supplanting the happy Delamere. He did not think that to attempt it was honourable; and his integrity would have prevented the trial, had he supposed it possible to succeed.
Mrs. Stafford had at first seen with concern that Godolphin, whom she sincerely esteemed, was nourishing for her friend a passion which could only serve to make him unhappy. But she now saw it's progress rather with pleasure than regret. She was piqued at the groundless jealousy and rash injustice of Delamere towards Emmeline: and disappointed and disgusted at Lord Montreville's conduct towards herself; sickening at the little sincerity of the latter, and doubtful of the temper of the former, she feared that if the alliance took place, her friend would find less happiness than splendour: and she looked with partial eyes on Godolphin; who in morals, manners, and temper, was equally unexceptionable, and whose fortune, tho' inferior to his birth, was yet enough for happiness in that style of life which she knew better calculated for the temper and taste of Emmeline than the parade and grandeur she might share with Delamere.
Godolphin had no parents to accept her with disdainful and cold acquiescence—no sister to treat her with supercilious condescension.—But all his family, tho' of a rank superior to that of Delamere, would receive her with transport, and treat her with the respect and affection she deserved.
Mrs. Stafford, however, spoke not to Emmeline of this revolution in her sentiments, but chose rather to let the affair take it's course than to be in any degree answerable for it's consequences.
The hour in which Godolphin was to leave them now approached. Unable to determine on bidding Emmeline farewel, he would still have lingered with her, and would have gone on with them to Rouen, where Stafford waited their arrival: but this, Mrs. Stafford was compelled to decline; fearing least this extraordinary attention in a stranger should induce her husband to make enquiry into their first acquaintance, and by that means lead to discoveries which could not fail of being injurious to Lady Adelina.
Of all that related to her, he was at present ignorant. He had been told, that the infant which his wife and Miss Mowbray so often visited, was the son of an acquaintance of the latter; who being obliged soon after it's birth to go to the West Indies, had sent it to Bath to Emmeline, who had undertaken to overlook the nurse to whose care it was committed.
Into a circumstance which offered neither a scheme to occupy his mind, or money to purchase his pleasures, Stafford thought it not then worth his while farther to enquire; but now, in a country of which he understood not the language, and detached from his usual pursuits, Mrs. Stafford knew not what strange suspicions the assiduity of Godolphin might excite in a head so oddly constructed; and without explaining her reasons to Godolphin, she said enough to convince him that he must, with whatever reluctance, leave the lovely travellers at Havre.
He busied himself, however, in adjusting every thing for the safety of their journey; and being in the course of their preparations left alone with Emmeline in a room of the hotel, he could not forbear using the last opportunity he was likely to have of speaking to her.—
'Has Miss Mowbray any commands to Lady Adelina?'
'My most affectionate love!' answered Emmeline, 'my truest remembrance! And tell her, that the moment I am settled I will give her an account of my situation, and of all that happens worth her knowing.'
'We shall hear then,' said he, forcing a melancholy smile, 'we shall hear when you meet the fortunate, the happy Mr. Delamere.'
'Lady Adelina,' blushingly replied Emmeline, 'will certainly know it if I should meet him; but nothing is at present more improbable.'
'Tis now,' reassumed Godolphin, 'the last week of January—February—March—ah! how soon March will come! Tell me, how long in that month may Adelina direct to Miss Mowbray?'
'Mr. Delamere, Sir,' said Emmeline, gravely, 'is not now in France.'
'But may he not immediately return thither from Geneva or any other place? Is my sister, Lady Westhaven, to be present at the ceremony?'
'The ceremony,' answered she, half angry and half vexed, 'may perhaps never take place.'
The awkwardness of her situation in regard to Delamere arose forcibly to her mind, and something lay very heavy at her heart. She tried to check the tears which were filling her eyes, least they should be imputed to a very different cause; but the effort she made to conquer her feelings rendered them more acute. She took out a handkerchief to wipe away these involuntary betrayers of her emotion, and sitting down, audibly sobbed.
Godolphin had asked these questions, in that sort of desperate resolution which a person exerts who determines to know, in the hope of being able to endure, the worst that can befal him. But he was now shocked at the distress they had occasioned, and unable to bear the sight of her tears.
'Pardon me,' cried he, 'pardon me, most lovely, most amiable Emmeline!—oh! pardon me for having given a moment's pain to that soft and sensible bosom. Had I suspected that a reference to an event towards which I supposed you looked forward with pleasure, could thus affect you, I had not presumed to name it. Whenever it happens,' added he, after a short pause—'whenever it happens, Delamere will be the most enviable of human beings: and may you, Madam, be as happy as you are truly deserving of happiness!'
He dared not trust his voice with another word: but under pretence of fetching a glass of water left the room, and having recovered himself, quickly returned and offered it to Emmeline, again apologizing for having offended her.
She took the glass from him; and faintly smiling thro' her tears, said in the gentlest accents—'I am not offended—I am only low spirited. Tired by the voyage, and shrinking from the fatigue of a long journey, yet you talk to me of a journey for life, on which I may never set out in the company you mention—and still more probably never undertake at all.'
The entrance of Mrs. Stafford, who came to entreat some directions from Godolphin, prevented the continuance of this critical conversation; in which, whatever the words imported in regard to Delamere, he found but little hope for himself. He attributed what Emmeline had said to mere evasion, and her concern to some little accidental neglect on the part of her lover which had excited her displeasure. Ignorant of the jealousy Delamere had conceived from the misrepresentation of the Crofts', which the solicitude of Emmeline for the infant of Lady Adelina had so immediately matured, he had not the most distant idea of the truth; nor suspected that the passion of Delamere for Emmeline, which he knew had within a few weeks been acknowledged without hesitation, and received with encouragement, was now become to him a source of insupportable torment; that she had left England without bidding him adieu, or even informing him that she was gone.
The two chaises were now ready; and Godolphin having placed in the first, Mrs. Stafford and her younger children, approached Emmeline to lead her to the second, in which she was to accompany the elder. He stopped a moment as they were quitting the room, and said—'I cannot, Miss Mowbray, bid you adieu till you say you forgive me for the impertinence of my questions.'
'For impertinence?' answered Emmeline, giving him her hand—'I cannot forgive you, because I know not that you have been guilty of it. Before I go, however, allow me to thank you most sincerely for the protection you have afforded us.'
'And not one word,' cried he, 'not one parting good wish to your little protegÉ—to my poor William?'
'Ah! I send him a thousand!' answered Emmeline.
'And one last kiss, which I will carry him.' She suffered him to salute her; and then he hastily led her to the chaise; and, as he put her in, said very solemnly—'Let me repeat my wishes, Madam, that wheresoever you are, you may enjoy felicity—felicity which I shall never again know; and that Mr. Delamere—the fortunate Delamere—may be as sensible of your value as——'
Emmeline, to avoid hearing this sentence concluded, bade the chaise proceed. It instantly did so with all the velocity a French postillion could give it; and hardly allowed her to observe the mournful countenance and desponding air with which Godolphin bowed to her, as she, waving her hand, again bade him adieu!
The travellers arrived in due time safe at Rouen; where Mrs. Stafford found that her husband had been prevented meeting her, by the necessity he fancied himself under to watch the early nests of his Canary birds, of which he had now made a large collection, and whose encrease he attended to with greater solicitude than the arrival of his family. Mrs. Stafford saw with an eye of hopeless regret a new source of expence and absurdity opened; but knowing that complaints were more likely to produce anger and resentment in his mind, than any alteration in his conduct, she was obliged to conceal her chagrin, and to take possession of the gloomy chateau which her husband had chosen for her residence, about six miles from Rouen; while Emmeline, with her usual equality of temper, tried to reconcile herself to her new abode, and to share and relieve the fatigue and uneasiness of her friend. She found the activity she was for this purpose compelled to exert, assuaged and diverted that pain which she now could no longer hope to conquer, tho' she had not yet had the courage to ascertain, by a narrow examination of her heart in regard to Godolphin, that it would be removed no more.
On the evening after he had bade her adieu, Godolphin embarked in the pacquet which was on it's departure to England. The weather, tho' cold, was calm; and he sat down on the deck, where, after they had got a few leagues from France, all was profoundly quiet. Only the man at the helm and one sailor were awake on board. The vessel glided thro' the expanse of water; while the soul of Godolphin fled back to Emmeline, and dwelt with lingering fondness on the object of all it's affection.
CHAPTER XI
Emmeline having thus quitted England, and Delamere appearing no longer to think of her, the Crofts', who had brought about an event so desirable for Lord Montreville, thought it time to claim the reward of such eminent service.
Miss Delamere, in meeting Lady Westhaven at Paris, had severely felt all the difference of their situation; and as she had repented of her clandestine union almost as soon as she had formed it, the comparison between her sister's husband and her own had embittered her temper, never very good, and made her return to England with reluctance; where she knew that she could not long evade acknowledging her marriage, and taking the inferior and humiliating name of Mrs. Crofts.
To avoid returning was however not in her power; nor could she prevail on Crofts to delay a declaration which must be attended with circumstances, to her most mortifying and unpleasant. But impatient to demand a daughter of Lord Montreville as his wife, and still more impatient to receive twelve thousand pounds, which was her's independant of her father, he would hear of no delay; and the present opportunity of conciliating Lord and Lady Montreville, was in the opinion of all the Crofts' family not to be neglected.
Sir Richard undertook to disclose the affair to Lord Montreville, and to parry the first effusions of his Lordship's anger by a very common, yet generally successful stratagem, that of affecting to be angry first, and drowning by his own clamours the complaints of the party really injured.
For this purpose, he waited early one morning on Lord Montreville, and with a countenance where scornful superiority was dismissed for pusillanimous dejection, he began.—
'My Lord—when I reflect and consider and remember the innumerable, invaluable and extraordinary favours, kindnesses and obligations I owe your Lordship, my heart bleeds—and I lament and deplore and regret that it is my lot to announce and declare and discover, what will I fear give infinite concern and distress and uneasiness to you—and my Lord——'
'What is all this, Sir Richard?' cried Lord Montreville, hastily interrupting him.—'Is Delamere married?'
'Heaven forbid!' answered the hypocritical Crofts.—'Bad, and unwelcome, and painful as what I have to say is, it does not amount or arise to that misfortune and calamity.'
'Whatever it is Sir,' said his Lordship impatiently, 'let me hear it at once.—Is it a dismission from my office?'
'Never, I hope!' replied Sir Richard. 'At least, for many years to come, may this country not know and feel and be sensible of such a loss, deprivation and defection. My Lord, my present concern is of a very different nature; and I do assure and protest to your Lordship that no time nor intreaties nor persuasion will erase and obliterate and wipe away from my mind, the injury and prejudice the parties have done me, by thus——'
'Keep me no longer in suspense!' almost angrily cried Lord Montreville.
'Mr. Crofts, my Lord; Mr. Crofts is, I find, married—'
'To my daughter, Sir Richard.—Is it not so?'
'He is indeed, my Lord! and from this moment I disclaim, and renounce and protest against him; for my Lord——'
Sir Richard continued his harangue, to which Lord Montreville did not seem to attend. He was a moment silent, and then said—
'I have been more to blame than the parties.—I might have foreseen this. But I thought Fanny's pride a sufficient defence against an inferior alliance. Pray Sir, does Lady Montreville know of this marriage?'
Sir Richard then related all that his son had told him; interlarding his account with every circumstance that might induce his Lordship to believe he was himself entirely ignorant of the intrigue. Lord Montreville, however, knew too much of mankind in general, and of the Crofts' in particular, to give implicit credit to this artful recital. But Sir Richard was now become so necessary to him, and they had so many secrets in common of great consequence to the political reputation of both, that he could not determine to break with him. He considered too that resentment could not unmarry his daughter; that the lineal honours of his family could not be affected by her marriage; and that he owed the Crofts' some favour for having counteracted the indiscretion of Delamere. Determining therefore, after a short struggle, to sacrifice his pride to his politics, he dismissed Sir Richard with infinitely less appearance of resentment than he expected; and after long contention with the furious and irascible pride of his wife, prevailed upon her to let her daughter depart without her malediction. She would not see Crofts, or pardon her daughter; protesting that she never could be reconciled to a child of her's who bore such an appellation as that of 'Mrs. Crofts.' Soon afterwards, however, the Marquisate which Lord Montreville had been so long promised was to be granted him. But his wife could not bear, that by assuming a title which had belonged to the Mowbray family, (a point he particularly wished to obtain) he should drop or render secondary those honours which he derived from her ancestors. Wearied by her persecution, and accustomed to yield to her importunity, he at length gratified her, by relinquishing the name he wished to bear, and taking the title of Marquis of Montreville, while his son assumed that of Viscount Delamere. This circumstance seemed more than any other to reconcile Lady Montreville to her eldest daughter, whose surname she could evade under the more satisfactory appellation of Lady Frances. She was now therefore admitted to her mother's presence; Crofts received an haughty and reluctant pardon; and some degree of tranquillity was restored to the noble house of Mowbray-Delamere; while the Crofts', more elated and consequential than before, behaved as if they had inherited and deserved the fortune and splendor that surrounded them: and the table, the buildings, the furniture of Sir Richard, vied in expence and magnificence with those of the most affluent of the nobility.
Lord Delamere, to whom the acquisition of a title could offer nothing in mitigation of the anguish inflicted by disappointed love, was now at Dublin; where, immediately on his arrival, he had enquired for Colonel Fitz-Edward at the house of his brother, Lord Clancarryl.
As the family were in the country, and only a servant in it, he could not for some days obtain the information he wanted. He heard, however, that Lord Clancarryl was very soon expected, and for his arrival he determined to wait. In this interval of suspense, he heard from a correspondent in England, that Miss Mowbray had not only disappeared from Woodfield, but had actually quitted England; and was gone no one knew precisely whither; but it was generally supposed to France.
Tho' he had sworn in bitterness of heart to drive for ever from it this perfidious and fatal beauty, it seemed as if forgetting his resolution, he had in this intelligence received a new injury. He still fancied that she should have told him of her design to quit England, without recollecting that he had given her no opportunity to speak to him at all.
Again he felt his anger towards Fitz-Edward animated almost to madness; and again impatiently sought to hasten a meeting when he might discuss with him all the mischief he had sustained.
Lord Clancarryl coming for a few days to Dublin, found there letters from Lord Montreville, in which his Lordship bespoke for his son the acquaintance of the Clancarryl family. Desirous of shewing every attention to a young man so nearly connected with his wife's family, by the marriage of her brother, Lord Westhaven, to his youngest sister, and related also to himself, Lord Clancarryl immediately sought Delamere; and was surprised to find, that instead of receiving his advances with warmth or even with politeness, he hardly returned them with common civility, and seemed to attend to nothing that was said. The first pause in the conversation, however, Delamere took advantage of to enquire after Colonel Fitz-Edward.
'My brother,' answered Lord Clancarryl, 'left us only three days ago.'
'For London, my Lord?'
'No; he is gone with two other friends on a kind of pleasurable tour.—They hired a sloop at Cork to take them to France.'
'To France!' exclaimed Delamere—'Mr. Fitz-Edward gone to France?'
'Yes,' replied Lord Clancarryl, somewhat wondering at the surprise Delamere expressed—'and I promoted the plan as much as I could; for poor George is, I am afraid, in a bad state of health; his looks and his spirits are not what they used to be. Chearful company, and this little tour, may I hope restore them. But how happens it that he knew not, Sir, of your return? He was persuaded you were still abroad; and expressed some pleasure at the thoughts of meeting you when you least expected it.'
'No, no, my Lord,' cried Delamere, in a voice rendered almost inarticulate by contending passions—'his hope was not to meet me. He is gone with far other designs.'
'What designs, Lord Delamere?' gravely asked Lord Clancarryl.
'My Lord,' answered Delamere, recollecting himself, 'I mean not to trouble you on this matter. I have some business to adjust with Mr. Fitz-Edward; and since he is not here, have only to request of your Lordship information when he returns, or whither a letter may follow him?'
'Sir,' returned Lord Clancarryl with great gravity, 'I believe I can answer for Colonel Fitz-Edward's readiness to settle any business you may desire to adjust with him; and I wish, since there is business between ye, that I could name the time when you are likely to meet him. All, however, I can decidedly say is, that he intends going to Paris, but that his stay in France will not exceed five or six weeks in the whole; and that such letters as I may have occasion to send, are to be addressed to the care of Monsieur de Guisnon, banker, at Paris.'
Delamere having received this intelligence, took a cold leave; and Lord Clancarryl, who had before heard much of his impetuous temper and defective education, was piqued at his distant manner, and returned to his house in the country without making any farther effort to cultivate his friendship.
Debating whether he should follow Fitz-Edward to France or wait his return to Ireland, Delamere remained, torn with jealousy and distracted by delay. He was convinced beyond a doubt, that Fitz-Edward had met Emmeline in France by her own appointment. 'But let them not,' cried he—'let them not hope to escape me! Let them not suppose I will relinquish my purpose 'till I have punished their infamy or cease to feel it!—Oh, Emmeline! Emmeline! is it for this I pursued—for this I won thee!'
The violence of those emotions he felt after Lord Clancarryl's departure, subsided only because he had no one to listen to, no one to answer him. He determined, as Lord Clancarryl seemed so certain of his brother's return in the course of six weeks, to wait in Ireland 'till the end of that period, since there was but little probability of his meeting him if he pursued him to France. He concluded that wherever Emmeline was, Fitz-Edward might be found also; but the residence of Emmeline he knew not, nor could he bear a moment to think that he might see them together.
The violence of his resentment, far from declining, seemed to resist all the checks it's gratification received, and to burn with accumulated fury. His nights brought only tormenting dreams; his days only a repetition of unavailing anguish.
He had several acquaintances among young men of fashion at Dublin. With them he sometimes associated; and tried to forget his uneasiness in the pleasures of the table; and sometimes he shunned them entirely, and shut himself up to indulge his disquiet.
In the mean time, Lady Clancarryl was extremely mortified at the account her husband gave her of Delamere's behaviour. She knew that her brother, Lord Westhaven, would be highly gratified by any attention shewn to the family of his wife; particularly to a brother to whom Lady Westhaven was so much attached. She therefore entreated her Lord to overlook Delamere's petulance, and renew the invitation he had given him to Lough Carryl. But his Lordship, disgusted with the reception he had before met with, laughed, and desired her to try whether her civilities would be more graciously accepted. Lady Clancarryl therefore took the trouble to go herself to Dublin: where she so pressingly insisted on Delamere's passing a fortnight with them, that he could not evade the invitation without declaring his animosity against Fitz-Edward, and his resolution to demand satisfaction—a declaration which could not fail of rendering his purpose abortive. He returned, therefore, to Lough Carryl with her Ladyship; meaning to stay only a few days, and feeling hurt at being thus compelled to become the inmate of a family into which he might so soon carry grief and resentment.
Godolphin, after his return to the Isle of Wight, abandoned himself more than ever to the indulgence of his passion. He soothed yet encreased his melancholy by poetry and music; and Lady Adelina for some time contributed to nourish feelings too much in unison with her own. He now no longer affected to conceal from her his attachment to her lovely friend; but to her only it was known. Her voice, and exquisite taste, he loved to employ in singing the verses he made; and he would sit hours by her piano fortÉ to hear repeated one of the many sonnets he had written on her who occupied all his thoughts.
SONNET
When welcome slumber sets my spirit free
Forth to fictitious happiness it flies,
And where Elysian bowers of bliss arise
I seem, my Emmeline—to meet with thee!
Ah! Fancy then, dissolving human ties,
Gives me the wishes of my soul to see;
Tears of fond pity fill thy softened eyes;
In heavenly harmony—our hearts agree.
Alas! these joys are mine in dreams alone,
When cruel Reason abdicates her throne!
Her harsh return condemns me to complain
Thro' life unpitied, unrelieved, unknown.
And, as the dear delusions leave my brain,
She bids the truth recur—with aggravated pain.
But Lady Adelina herself at length grew uneasy at beholding the progress of this unhappy passion. His mind seemed to have lost all it's strength, and to be incapable of making even an effort to shake off an affection which his honour would not allow him to attempt rendering successful. His spirits, affected by the listless solitude in which he lived, were sunk into hopeless despondence; and his sister was every day more alarmed, not only for his peace but for his life. She therefore tried to make him determine to quit her, for a short abode in London; but to do that he absolutely refused. Lord Clancarryl had long pressed him to go to Ireland: he had not seen his eldest sister for some years; and ardently wished to embrace her and her children. But Fitz-Edward was at her house; and to meet Fitz-Edward was impossible. Lady Clancarryl, deceived by a plausible story, which had been framed to account for Lady Adelina's absence, was, as well as her Lord, entirely ignorant of the share Fitz-Edward had in it: they believed it to have been occasioned solely by her antipathy to Trelawny, and her fear lest her relations should insist on her again residing with him; and it was necessary that nothing should be said to undeceive them.
Godolphin had therefore been obliged to form several excuses to account for his declining the pressing invitations he received; and he found that his eldest sister was already much hurt by his apparent neglect. In one of her last letters, she had mentioned that Fitz-Edward was gone to France; and Lady Adelina pointed out to Godolphin several passages which convinced him he had given pain by his long absence to his beloved Camilla, and prevailed upon him to go to Ireland. He arrived therefore at Lough Carryl two days after his sister had returned thither with Lord Delamere.
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Godolphin was extremely surprised to find, in Ireland, Delamere, the happy Delamere! who he supposed had long since been with Emmeline, waiting the fortunate hour that was to unite them for ever. A very few weeks now remained of the year which he had promised to remain unmarried; yet instead of his being ready to attend his bride to England, to claim in the face of the world his father's consent, he was lingering in another country, where he appeared to have come only to indulge dejection; for he frequently fled from society, and when he was in it, forgot himself in gloomy reveries.
Nobody knew why he came to Ireland, unless to satisfy a curiosity of which nothing appeared to remain; yet he still continued there; and as Lord and Lady Clancarryl were now used to his singular humour, they never enquired into it's cause; while he, flattered by the regard of two persons so amiable and respectable, suffered not his enmity to Fitz-Edward to interfere with the satisfaction he sometimes took in their society; tho' he oftener past the day almost entirely alone. Godolphin could not repress the anxious curiosity he felt, to know what, at this period, could separate lovers whose union appeared so certain. But this curiosity he had no means of satisfying. Lady Clancarryl had heard nothing of his engagement, or any hint of his approaching marriage; and tho' he was on all other topics, when he entered at all into conversation, remarkably open and unguarded, he spoke not, in company, of any thing that related to himself.
He seemed, however, to seek a closer intimacy with Godolphin, whose excellent character he had often heard, and whose appearance and conversation confirmed all that had been reported in his favour. Godolphin neither courted him or evaded his advances; but could not help looking with astonishment on a man, who on the point of being the husband of the most lovely woman on earth, could saunter in a country where he appeared to have neither attachments or satisfaction. Sometimes he almost ventured to hope that their engagement was dissolved: but then recollecting that Lady Adelina had assured him the promise of Emmeline was still uncancelled, he checked so flattering an illusion, and returned again to uncertainty and despondence.
On the third day after Godolphin's arrival, Delamere, who intended to go back to Dublin the following morning save one, joined Lady Clancarryl and her brother in the drawing-room immediately after dinner.
Godolphin, on account of the expected return of Fitz-Edward, had determined to make only a short stay at Lough Carryl. He wished to carry with him to his own house, portraits of his sister and her children; and was expressing to her this wish—'I should like to have them,' said he, 'in a large miniature; the same size as one I have of Adelina.'
'Have you then a portrait of Adelina,' enquired Lady Clancarryl, 'and have not yet shewn it me?'
'I have,' answered Godolphin; 'but my sister likes not that it should be seen. It is very like her now, but has little resemblance to her former pictures. This is painted by a young lady, her friend.' He then took it out of his pocket, and gave it to Lady Clancarryl.
'And is Adelina so thin and pale,' asked her Ladyship, 'as she is here represented?'
'More so,' answered Godolphin.
'She is then greatly changed.—Yet the eyes and features, and the whole air of the countenance, I should immediately have acknowledged.' Continuing to look pensively at the picture, she added, 'Tis charmingly coloured; and might represent a very lovely and penitent Magdalen. The black veil, and tearful eye, are beautifully touched. But why did you indulge her in this melancholy taste?'
Godolphin, excessively hurt at this, speech, answered mournfully—'Poor Adelina, you know, has had little reason to be gay.'
Delamere, who during this conversation seemed lost in his own reflections, now suddenly advanced, and desired Lady Clancarryl would favour him with a sight of the picture. He took it to a candle; and looking steadily on it, was struck with the lightness of the drawing, which extremely resembled the portraits Emmeline was accustomed to make; tho' this was more highly finished than any he had yet seen of her's.
Without being able to account for his idea, since nothing was more likely than that the drawing of two persons might resemble each other, he looked at the back of the picture, which was of gold; and in the centre a small oval crystal contained the words Em. Mowbray, in hair, and under it the name of Adelina Trelawny. It was indeed a memorial of Emmeline's affection to her friend; and the name was in her own hair;—a circumstance that made it as dear to Godolphin as the likeness it bore to his sister: and the whole was rendered in his eyes inestimable, by it's being painted by herself. Delamere, astonished and pained he knew not why, determined to hear from Godolphin himself the name of the paintress: returning it to him, he said—'A lady, you say, Sir, drew it. May I ask her name?'
Godolphin, now first aware of the indiscretion he had committed, and flattering himself that the chrystal had not been inspected, answered with an affectation of pleasantry—'Oh! I believe it is a secret between my sister and her friend which I have no right to reveal; and to tell you the truth I teized Adelina to give me the picture, and obtained it only on condition of not shewing it.'
Delamere, who had so often sworn to forget her, still fancied he had a right to be exclusively acquainted with all that related to Emmeline. He felt himself piqued by this evasion, and answered somewhat quickly—'I know the drawing, Sir; it is done by Miss Mowbray.'
Godolphin was then compelled to answer 'that it was.'
'I envy Miss Mowbray her charming talent,' cried Lady Clancarryl. 'Pray who is Miss Mowbray?'
'A relation of Lord Delamere's,' answered Godolphin; 'and a most lovely and amiable young woman.'
Delamere, whose varying countenance ill seconded his attempt to appear indifferent on this subject, now grew pale, now red.
'Are you acquainted then with Miss Mowbray, Sir?' said he to Godolphin.
'I have seen her,' replied Godolphin, 'with my sister, Lady Adelina Trelawny.'
He then hurried the discourse to some other topic; being unwilling to answer any other questions that related either to his sister or her friend.
But Delamere, whose wounds bled afresh at the name of Emmeline, and who could not resist enquiring after her of a person who had so lately seen her, took the earliest opportunity of seeking Godolphin to renew this discourse.
They met therefore the following morning in the breakfast parlour; and Delamere suddenly turning the conversation from the topics of the day, said—'You are, I find, acquainted with Miss Mowbray. You may perhaps know that she is not only a relation of mine, but that I was particularly interested in whatever related to her.'
Godolphin, whose heart fluttered so as almost to deprive him of speech, answered very gravely—'I have heard so from Mrs. Stafford.'
'Then you know, perhaps——But you are undoubtedly well acquainted with Colonel Fitz-Edward?'
'Certainly,' replied Godolphin. 'He was one of my most intimate friends.'
'Then, Sir,' cried Delamere, losing all temper, 'one of your most intimate friends is a villain!'
Godolphin, shocked at an expression which gave him reason to apprehend Lady Adelina's story was known, answered with great emotion—'You will be so good, my Lord, as to explain that assertion; which, whatever may be it's truth, is very extraordinary when made thus abruptly to me.'
'You are a man of honour, Mr. Godolphin, and I will not conceal from you the cruel injuries I have sustained from Fitz-Edward, nor that I wait here only to have an opportunity of telling him that I bear them not tamely.' He then related, in terms equally warm and bitter, the supposed alienation of Emmeline's affections by the artifices of Fitz-Edward, enumerated all the imaginary proofs with which the invidious artifices of the Crofts' had furnished him, and concluded by asserting, that he had himself seen, in the arms of Emmeline, a living witness of her ruin, and the perfidy of his faithless friend.
To this detail, including as it did the real history of his sister under the false colours in which the Crofts' had drest it to mislead Delamere and destroy Emmeline, Godolphin listened with sensations impossible to be described. He could not hear without horror the character of Emmeline thus cruelly blasted; yet her vindication he could not undertake without revealing to a stranger the unhappy story of Lady Adelina, which he had with infinite difficulty concealed even from his own family.
The fiery and impatient spirit of Delamere blazing forth in menace and invective, gave Godolphin time to collect his thoughts; and he almost immediately determined, whatever it cost him, to clear up the reputation of Emmeline.
Tho' he saw, that to explain the whole affair must put the character of his sister, which he had been so solicitous to preserve, into the power of an inconsiderate young man, yet he thought he might trust to the honour and humanity of Delamere to keep the secret; and however mortifying such a measure appeared, his justice as well as his love would not allow him to suffer the innocent Emmeline to remain under an imputation which she had incurred only by her generous and disinterested attentions to the weakness and misfortunes of another.
But resolutely as he bore the pain of these reflections, he shrunk from others with which they were mingled: he foresaw, that as soon as the jealousy of Delamere was by his information removed; his love, which seemed to be as passionate as ever, would prompt him to seek a reconciliation: his repentance would probably be followed by Emmeline's forgiveness and their immediate union.
Farewel then for ever to all the hopes he had nourished since his unexpected meeting with Delamere!—Farewel to every expectation of happiness for ever!
But tho' in relinquishing these delightful visions he relinquished all that gave a value to life, so truly did he love and revere her, that to have the spotless purity of her name sullied even by a doubt seemed an insupportable injustice to himself; and his affection was of a nature too noble to owe it's success to a misrepresentation injurious to it's object. That the compassion which had saved his sister, should be the cause of her having suffered from the malicious malice of the Crofts' and the rash jealousy of Delamere, redoubled all his concern; and he was so much agitated and hurt, that without farther consideration he was on the point of relating the truth instantly, had not the entry of Lord Clancarryl for that time put an end to their discourse: from this resolution, formed in the integrity of his upright heart, nothing could long divert him; yet he reflected, as soon as he was alone, on the violent and ungovernable passions which seemed to render Delamere, unguided by reason and incapable of hearing it. He was apprehensive that the discovery, if made to him at Lough Carryl, might influence him to say or do something that might discover to Lady Clancarryl the unhappy story of her sister; and he thought it better to delay the explanation 'till he could follow Delamere to Dublin, which he determined to do in a few days after he left Lough Carryl.
This interval gave him time to feel all the pain of the sacrifice he was about to make. Nor could all his strength of mind, and firmness of honour, prevent his reluctance or cure his anguish.
He was about to restore to the arms of his rival, the only woman he had ever really loved; and whom he adored with the most ardent passion, at the very moment that his honour compelled him to remove the impediments to her marriage with another.
Sometimes he thought that he might at least indulge himself in the melancholy pleasure of relating to her in a letter, what he had done, as soon as the explanation should be made: but even this gratification he at length determined to refuse himself.
'If she loves Delamere,' said he, 'she will perhaps rejoice in the effect and forget the cause. If she has, as I have sometimes dared to hope, some friendship and esteem for the less fortunate Godolphin, why should I wound a heart so full of sensibility by relating the conflicts of my soul and the passion I have vainly indulged?'
A latent hope, however, almost unknown, at least unacknowledged, lingered in his heart. It was possible that Emmeline, resenting the injurious suspicions and rash accusations of Delamere, might refuse to fulfil her engagement. But whenever this feeble hope in spite of himself arose, he remembered her soft and forgiving temper, her strict adherence to her word on other occasions, and it faded in a conviction that she would pardon her repentant lover when he threw himself on her mercy; and not evade a promise so solemnly given, which he learned from Delamere himself had never been cancelled.
Delamere now returned to Dublin; and in a few days Godolphin followed him: but on enquiring at his lodgings, he heard that he was gone out of town for some days with some of his friends on a party of pleasure. Godolphin left a letter for him desiring to see him immediately on his return; and then again resigned himself to the painful delight of thinking of Emmeline, and to the conscious satisfaction of becoming the vindicator and protector of her honour even unknown to herself.
Emmeline, in the mean time, unhappy in the unhappiness of those she loved, and by no means flattered by the prospect of dependance thro' life, of which Lord Montreville now made her see all the dreariness and desolation, by the careless and irregular manner in which even her small quarterly stipend was remitted to her, yet exerted all her fortitude to support the spirits of Mrs. Stafford. Calm in the possession of conscious innocence, and rich in native integrity and nobleness of nature, she was, tho' far from happy herself, enabled to mitigate the sorrows of others. Nor was her residence, (otherwise disagreeable and forlorn enough,) entirely without it's advantages: it afforded her time and opportunity to render herself perfectly mistress of the language of the country; of which she had before only a slight knowledge. To the study of languages, her mind so successfully applied itself, that she very soon spoke and wrote French with the correctness not only of a native, but of a native well educated.
While she thus suffered banishment in consequence of the successful intrigues of the Crofts' family, they enjoyed all the advantages of their prosperous duplicity; at least they enjoyed all the satisfaction that arises from accumulating wealth and an ostentatious display of it. Sir Richard, by the political knowledge his place afforded him, had been enabled (by means of trusty agents) to carry on such successful traffic in the stocks, that he now saw himself possessed of wealth greater than his most sanguine hopes had ever presented to his imagination. But as his fortune enlarged, his spirit seemed to contract in regard to every thing that did not administer to his pride or his appetite. In the luxuries of the table, his house, his gardens, he expended immense sums; and the astonished world saw, with envy and indignation, wealth, which seemed to be ill-gotten, as profusely squandered: but dead to every generous and truly liberal sentiment, these expences were confined only to himself; and in regard to others he still nourished the sordid prejudices and narrow sentiments with which he set out in life—a needy adventurer, trusting to cunning and industry for scanty and precarious bread. Mr. Crofts, who had received twelve thousand pounds with his wife, (whose clandestine marriage had prevented it's being secured in settlement,) used it, as his father directed, in gaming in the stocks, with equal avidity and equal success. Lady Frances, in having married beneath herself, had yet relinquished none of the privileges of high birth: she played deep, dressed in the extremity of expence, and was celebrated for the whimsical splendor of her equipages and the brilliancy of her assemblies. Her husband loved money almost as well as the fame acquired by these fashionable displays of her Ladyship's taste; but on the slightest hint of disapprobation, he was awed into silence by her scornful indignation; and with asperity bade to observe, that tho' the daughter of the Marquis of Montreville had so far forgotten her rank as to marry the son of Crofts the attorney, she would allow nobody else to forget that she was still the daughter of the Marquis of Montreville.
This right honourable eloquence subdued the plebeian spirit of Crofts; while he was also compelled to submit patiently, lest Lord Montreville should be offended and withhold the fortune he farther expected to receive. Lady Frances therefore pursued the most extravagant career of dissipation unchecked. She was young, handsome and vain; and saw every day new occasion to lament having thrown herself away on Crofts: and as she could not now release herself from him, she seemed determined to render him at least a fashionable husband.
Mrs. James Crofts trod as nearly as she could in the footsteps of Lady Frances; whose name she seemed to take exquisite pleasure in repeating, tho' it's illustrious possessor scarce deigned to treat her with common civility; and never on any account admitted her to any thing but her most private parties, with a few dependants and persons who found the way to her favour by adulation. Mrs. James Crofts however consoled herself for the slights she received from Lady Frances, by parading in all inferior companies with the names of her high and illustrious relations: and she employed the same tradespeople; laid out with them as much money; and paid them better than Lady Frances herself.—
Her chariot and job horses were discarded for a fashionable coach; her house at Clapham, for an elegant town residence. She tried to hide the approaches of age, by rouge; and dress and amusements effectually kept off the approaches of thought; her husband, slowly yet certainly was creeping up the hill of preferment; her daughters were certainly growing more beautiful and accomplished than their mother; and Mrs. James Crofts fancied she was happy.
CHAPTER XIII
It was now early in May; and in the blooming orchards and extensive beech woods of Normandy, Emmeline found much to admire and something to lament.
The Seine, winding thro' the vale and bringing numberless ships and vessels to Rouen, surrounded by hills fringed with forests, the property of the crown, and extending even to that of Arques, formed a rich and entertaining scene. But however beautiful the outline, the landscape still appeared ill finished: dark and ruinous hovels, inhabited by peasants frequently suffering the extremes of poverty; half cultivated fields, wanting the variegated enclosures that divide the lands in England; and trees often reduced to bare poles to supply the inhabitants with fewel, made her recollect with regret the more luxuriant and happy features of her native country.
The earth, however, covered with grass and flowers, offered her minute objects on which she delighted to dwell; but she dared not here wander as in England far from home: the women of the villages, who in this country are robust and masculine, often followed her with abuse for being English; and yet oftener the villagers clattered after her in their sabots, and addressed her by the name of la belle Demoiselle Anglaise, with a rudeness and familiarity that at once alarmed and disgusted her.
The long avenue of fir and beech which led to the chateau, and the parterre, potagerie, and verger[2] behind it, were therefore the scenes of her morning and evening walks. She felt a pensive pleasure in retracing the lonely rambles she used to take at the same season at Mowbray Castle; and memory bringing before her the events of the two years and an half which had elapsed since she left it, offered nothing that did not renew her regret at having bid it's solitary shades and unfrequented rocks adieu!
The idea of Godolphin still obtruded itself continually on her mind: nor could all her resolution prevent it's obtruding with pleasure, tho' she perpetually condemned herself for allowing it to recur to her at all. Lady Adelina, in her two or three last letters, had not mentioned him farther than to say he was in Ireland; and Emmeline was ashamed of suffering her thoughts to dwell on a man, whose preference of her seemed uncertain and perhaps accidental, since he had neither absolutely declared himself when present or sought to engage her favour when absent; and tho' she was now fully persuaded that of Delamere she should hear no more as a lover, yet while her promise remained in his hands uncancelled, she fancied herself culpable in indulging a partiality for another.
Nor could she reflect on the jealousy which had tortured Delamere, and the pain he must have suffered in tearing her from his heart, without mingling with her resentment some degree of pity and sorrow.
She was one afternoon sitting at an open window of the chateau, revolving in her mind these reflections, when raising her eyes at a sudden noise, she saw driving along the avenue that led to it, an English post chaise and four, preceded by a valet de chambre, and followed by two livery servants.
To those who are driven by misfortune to seek a melancholy asylum in a foreign country, there is an inconceivable delight in beholding whatever forcibly brings back to the memory, the comforts and conveniences of their own: Emmeline, who had for many weeks seen only the boors or the curÉ of the village, gazed at English servants and English horses with as much avidity as if she beheld such an equipage for the first time.
Instantly however her wonder was converted into pleasure.—Lady Westhaven was assisted out of the chaise by a gentleman, whose likeness to Godolphin convinced the fluttering heart of Emmeline that it was her Lord; and eagerly enquiring for Miss Mowbray, she was immediately in her arms.
As soon as the joy (in which Mrs. Stafford partook,) of this unexpected meeting had a little subsided, Lady Westhaven related, that hearing by a letter they had received at Paris from Mr. Godolphin, that Emmeline was with Mrs. Stafford in or near Rouen, she had entreated Lord Westhaven to make a journey to see her.
'And I assure you Emmeline,' added she, 'I had no great difficulty to persuade him. His own curiosity went as far as my inclination; for he has long wished to see this dangerous Emmeline; who began by turning the head of my brother, and now I believe has turned the more sage one of his—for Godolphin's letters have been filled only with your praises.'
Emmeline, who had changed colour at the beginning of this speech, blushed more deeply at it's conclusion. Involuntary pleasure penetrated her heart to hear that Godolphin had praised her. But it was immediately checked. Lady Westhaven seemed to know nothing of Delamere's desertion; of the history of Lady Adelina she was undoubtedly ignorant. How could Emmeline account for one without revealing the other? This reflection overwhelmed her with confusion, and she hardly heard the affectionate expressions with which Lady Westhaven testified her satisfaction at meeting her.
'I trust, my Lord,' said her Ladyship, 'that the partiality which I foresee you will feel for my fair cousin for her own sake, will not be a little encreased by our resemblance.—Tell me, do you think us so very much alike?'
'I never,' answered he, 'saw a stronger family likeness between sisters. Our lovely cousin has somewhat the advantage of you in height.'
'And in complexion, my Lord, notwithstanding the improvements I have learned to make to mine in France.'
'I should not,' answered his Lordship smiling, 'have ventured such a remark. I was merely going to add that you have the same features as Miss Mowbray, with darker hair and eyes; if however our charming Emmeline had a form less attractive, I have heard enough of her to be convinced that her understanding and her heart justify all that Lord Delamere or Mr. Godolphin have said of her.'
Lady Westhaven then expressed her wonder that she had heard nothing of Delamere for some months.—'And it is most astonishing to me,' said she to Emmeline, 'that the month of March should elapse without your hearing of him.'
The distress of Emmeline now redoubled; and became so evident, that Lady Westhaven, convinced there was something relative to her brother of which she was ignorant, desired her to go with her into another room.
Incapable of falsehood, and detesting concealment, yet equally unwilling to ruin the reputation of the unhappy Adelina with her brother's wife, and having no authority to divulge a secret entrusted to her by her friend, Emmeline now felt the cruellest conflict. All she could determine was, to tell Lady Westhaven in general terms that Lord Delamere had undoubtedly altered his intentions with regard to her, and that the affair was, she believed, entirely and for ever at an end.
However anxious her Ladyship was to know from what strange cause such a change of sentiments proceeded, she found Emmeline so extremely hurt that she forbore at present to press the explanation. Full of concern, she was returning to the company, having desired Emmeline to remain and compose herself; when, as she was leaving the room, she said—
'But I forgot, my dear Emmeline, to ask you where you first became acquainted with Mr. Godolphin?'
Again deep blushes dyed the cheeks of the fair orphan; for this question led directly to those circumstances she could not relate.
'I knew him,' answered she, faultering as she spoke, 'at Bath.'
'And is he,' enquired Lady Westhaven, 'so very charming as his brother and his family represent him?'
'He is indeed very agreeable,' replied she—'very much so. Extremely pleasant in his manner, and in his person very like Lord Westhaven.'
'He never told us how he first became acquainted with you; and to tell you the truth Emmeline, if I had not thought, indeed known, that you was engaged to Lord Delamere, I should have thought Godolphin your lover.'
This speech did not serve to hasten the composure Emmeline was trying to regain. She attempted to laugh it off; but succeeded so ill, that Lady Westhaven rejoined her Lord and Mr. and Mrs. Stafford, full of uneasy conjectures; and Emmeline, with a still more heavy heart, soon after followed her.
The pressing and earnest invitation of Mrs. Stafford, induced her guests to promise her their company for some days. But Lady Westhaven was so astonished at her brother's desertion of Emmeline, and so desirous of accounting for it without finding occasion to impute cruelty and caprice to him, or imprudence and levity to Emmeline, that she took the earliest opportunity of asking Mrs. Stafford, with whom she knew Miss Mowbray had no secrets, to explain to her the cause of an event so contrary to her expectations.
Mrs. Stafford had heard from Emmeline the embarrassment into which the questions of Lady Westhaven had thrown her; and with great difficulty at length persuaded her, that she owed it to her own character and her own peace to suffer her Ladyship to be acquainted with the truth: that she could run no risk in telling her what, for the sake of her Lord (whose happiness might be disturbed, and whose life hazarded by it's knowledge) she certainly would not reveal. Besides which motives to secresy, the gentleness and humanity of Lady Westhaven would, Mrs. Stafford said, be alone sufficient to secure Lady Adelina from any possible ill consequences by her being made acquainted with the unhappy story.
These arguments wrung from Emmeline a reluctant acquiescence: and Mrs. Stafford related to Lady Westhaven those events which had been followed by Delamere's jealousy and their separation.
The love and regard, which on her first knowledge of Emmeline Lady Westhaven had conceived for her, and which her admirable qualities had ever since encreased, was now raised to enthusiasm. She knew not (for Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline were themselves ignorant) of the artful misrepresentations with which the Crofts' had poisoned the mind of her brother; and was therefore astonished at his suspicions and grieved at his rashness. She immediately proposed writing to him; but this design both her friends besought her for the present to relinquish. Emmeline assured her that she had so long considered the affair as totally at an end, that she could not now regret it; or if she felt any regret, it was merely in resigning the hope of being received into a family of which Lady Westhaven was a part. Her Ladyship could not however believe that Emmeline was really indifferent to her brother; and accounted for her present coldness by supposing her piqued and offended at his behaviour, for which she had so much reason.
Anxious therefore to reconcile them, she still continued desirous of writing to Delamere. And so much did her affectionate heart dwell on the happiness she should have in re-uniting her brother and her friend, that only the difficulty which there seemed to be in vindicating Emmeline without injuring Lady Adelina, withheld her; and she promised to delay writing 'till means could be found to clear up the reputation of the one without ruining that of the other.
Lord Westhaven had, during his stay, learnt from Mrs. Stafford the circumstances that had driven her and her family abroad; and had heard them with a sincere wish to alleviate the inconveniences that oppressed a woman whose manners and conduct convinced him she deserved a better fate. Unwilling however to hold out to her hopes that he was not sure he should be able to fulfil, he contented himself with procuring from Emmeline general information of the state of their affairs, and silently meditated the noble project of doing good, as soon as it should be in his power.
Her children, for whose sake only she seemed to be willing to support with patience her unfortunate lot, were objects particularly interesting to Lord Westhaven; and for the boys he thought he might, on his return to England, assist in providing. To their father, consoling himself in trifling follies and dirty intrigues for his misfortunes, it seemed more difficult to be serviceable.
While these benevolent purposes engaged his attention, Lady Westhaven reflected with regret on her approaching departure, which must divide her from Emmeline, whom she seemed now to love with redoubled affection. His Lordship, ever solicitous to gratify her, proposed that Emmeline should go with them into Switzerland with the Baron de St. Alpin, his Lordship's uncle; who, after a life passed in the service of France, now prepared to retire to his native country.
The Baron had seen his nephew at Paris. He had embraced with transport the son of a beloved sister, and insisted on his and Lady Westhaven's going back with him to his estate in the PaÏs de Vaud, as soon as he should have the happiness of being rejoined by his only son, the Chevalier de Bellozane, who was expected with his regiment from Martinique. Lord Westhaven, on his first visit to the paternal house of his mother, had found there only one of her sisters, who, with the Baron, were the last survivors of a numerous family. He could not therefore resist his uncle's earnest entreaties to accompany him back; and Lady Westhaven, who was charmed with the manners of the respectable veteran and interested by his affection for her Lord, readily consented to delay her return to England for three months and to cross France once more to attend him.
To have Emmeline her companion in such a journey seemed to offer all that could render it charming. But how could she ask her to quit Mrs. Stafford, to whom she had been so much obliged; and who, in her present melancholy solitude, seemed more than ever to need her consolatory friendship.
Her Ladyship however ventured to mention it to Emmeline; who answered, that tho' nothing in the world would give her more pleasure than being with such friends, she could not, without a breach of duty which it was impossible to think of, quit Mrs. Stafford, to whom she was bound by gratitude as well as by affection.
Lord Westhaven acquiesced in the justice of this objection, but undertook to remove it by rendering the situation of her friend such as would make a short absence on both sides more supportable.
He therefore in his next conversation with Stafford represented the inconvenience of a house so far from a town, and how much better his family would be situated nearer the metropolis. He concluded by offering him a house he had himself hired at St. Germains; which he said he should be obliged to Mrs. Stafford and her family if they would occupy 'till his return from Switzerland. And that no objection might arise as to expence, he added, that considering himself as Miss Mowbray's banker, he had furnished her with five hundred pounds, with which she was desirous of repaying some part of the many obligations she owed Mr. and Mrs. Stafford.
Mrs. Stafford, who saw immediately all the advantages that might arise to Emmeline from her residence with Lady Westhaven, had on the slightest hint been warmly an advocate for her going. However reluctant to part with her, she suffered not her own gratifications to impede the interest of her fair charge. But she could not prevail on Emmeline to yield to her entreaties, 'till Lord Westhaven having settled every thing for the removal of the family to St. Germains, she was convinced that Mrs. Stafford would be in a pleasant and advantageous situation; and that she ought, even for the sake of her and her children, whom Lord Westhaven had so much the power of serving, to yield to an arrangement which would so much oblige him.
The chateau they inhabited was ready furnished; their cloaths were easily removed; and the Staffords and their children set out at the same time with Lord Westhaven, his wife, and Emmeline; who having seen them settled at St. Germains greatly to the satisfaction of Mrs. Stafford, went on to Paris; where, in about a week, they were joined by the Baron de St. Alpin, and the Chevalier de Bellozane.
CHAPTER XIV
The Baron de St. Alpin was a venerable soldier, near sixty, in whom the natural roughness of his country was polished by a long residence among the French. He was extremely good humoured and chearful, and passionately fond of the Chevalier de Bellozane, who was the youngest of three sons, the two elder of whom had fallen in the field. The military ardour however of the Baron had not been buried with them; and he still entrusted the sole survivor of his house, and the last support of his hopes, in the same service.
With infinite satisfaction he embraced this beloved son on his return from Martinique, and with exultation presented him to his nephew, to Lady Westhaven, and Miss Mowbray. The Baron was indeed persuaded that he was the most accomplished young man in France, and had no notion that every body did not behold him with the same eyes.
Bellozane was tall, well made, and handsome; his face, and yet more, his figure, bore some resemblance to the Godolphin family; his manners were elegant, his air military, his vivacity excessive, and he was something of a coxcomb, but not more than is thought becoming to men of his profession in France at two and twenty.
Having lived always in the army or in fashionable circles at Paris, he had conceived no advantageous ideas of his own country, where he had not been since his childhood. His father now retiring thither himself, had obtained a long leave of absence for him that he might go also; but Bellozane would willingly have dispensed with the journey, which the Baron pressed with so much vehemence, that he had hardly time to modernize his appearance after his American campaigns; a point which was to him of serious importance.
He had therefore with reluctance looked forward to their journey over the Alps. But as soon as his father (who had met him at Port L'Orient on his landing) introduced him at Paris to his English relations and to Emmeline, the journey seemed not only to have lost it's horrors, but to become a delightful party of pleasure, and he was happy to make the fourth in the post-coach in which Lady Westhaven, Emmeline, and her Ladyship's woman, travelled; Lord Westhaven and the Baron following in a post-chaise.
Nothing could exceed the happiness of the Baron, nor the gaiety of his son. Lord Westhaven and his wife, tho' they talked about it less, were not less pleased with their friends and their expedition; while Emmeline appeared restored to her former chearfulness, because she saw that they wished to see her chearful: but whenever she was a moment alone, involuntary sighs fled towards England; and when she remembered how far she must be from Lady Adelina, from little William, in short, from Godolphin, how could she help thinking of them with concern.
During the day, however, the Chevalier gave her no time for reflection. He waited on her with the most assiduous attention, watched her looks to prevent her slightest wishes, talked to her incessantly, besought her to teach him English, and told her all he had seen in his travels, and much that he had done. A Frenchman talks without hesitation of himself, and the Chevalier was quite a Frenchman.
Too polite however for exclusive adulation, Lady Westhaven shared all his flattery; and her real character being now unrepressed by the severity of her mother, she, all gaiety and good humour, was extremely amused with the extravagant gallantry of the Chevalier and at Emmeline's amazement, who having been little used to the manners of the French, was sometimes alarmed and sometimes vexed at the warmth of his address and the admiration which he professed towards them both.
Lady Westhaven assured her that such conversation was so usual that nobody ever thought of being offended at it; and that Bellozane was probably so much used to apply the figures of speech, which she thought so extraordinary, to every woman he saw, that he perhaps knew not himself, and certainly never thought of, what he was saying.
Emmeline therefore heard from him repeatedly what would from an Englishman have been considered as an absolute declaration of love, without any other answer than seeming inattention, and flying as soon as possible to some other topic.
In the progress of their journey these common place speeches and this desultory gallantry was gradually exchanged for a deportment more respectful. He besought Emmeline very seriously to give him an opportunity of speaking to her apart; which she with the utmost difficulty evaded. His extreme gaiety forsook him—the poor Chevalier was in love.
It was in vain he communicated his malady to la belle cousine, (as he usually called Lady Westhaven); la belle cousine only laughed at him, and told him he had according to his own account been so often in love, that this additional penchant could not possibly hurt him, and would merely serve to prevent what he owned he had so much dreaded, being 'ennuyÉ a la mort' at St. Alpin.
When he found the inexorable Lady Westhaven refused seriously to attend to him, he applied with new ardour to Emmeline herself; to whom his importunity began to be distressing, as she foresaw in his addresses only a repetition of the persecution she had suffered from the fiery and impetuous Delamere. Still, however, she was often obliged to hear him. She could hear him only with coldness; which he was far from taking as discouragement. As she did not love to think herself engaged, she could not use that plea, or even name an engagement which she believed might now never be claimed by him to whom it was given. All therefore she could say was, that she had no thoughts of marrying. An answer, which however frequently repeated, Bellozane determined to think favourable; and Emmeline knew not how to treat with peremptory rudeness the cousin of Lord Westhaven and of Captain Godolphin.
But whatever diminution of her ease and tranquillity she might suffer or apprehend from the growing attachment of this young man, the journey was attended with so many pleasant circumstances, that all parties were desirous that it might be lengthened.
The extreme eagerness with which the Baron de St. Alpin had wished to revisit his estate, gave way to the pleasures he found in travelling in such society; and as Lady Westhaven had never been farther South than Lyons, and Emmeline had never seen the Southern Provinces at all, it was determined on their arrival at that city to proceed to the shore of the Mediterranean before they went into Switzerland.
It was the finest season of the year and the loveliest weather imaginable. The party consulted therefore only pleasure on their way. Sometimes they went no more than a single stage in a day, and employed the rest in viewing any place in it's neighbourhood worth their curiosity. They often left their carriages to walk, to saunter, to dine on the grass on provisions they had brought with them; and whenever a beautiful view or uncommon scene presented themselves, they stopped to admire them; and Bellozane drew sketches, which were put into Emmeline's port feuille.
As they were travelling between Marseilles and Toulon they entered a road bounded on each side by mountainous rocks, which sometimes receding, left between them small but richly cultivated vallies; and in other parts so nearly met each other, as to leave little more room than sufficed for the carriage to pass; while the turnings of the road were so angular and abrupt, that it seemed every moment to be carrying them into the bosom of the rock. Thro' this defile, as it was quite shady, they agreed to walk.
In some places huge masses impended over them, of varied form and colour, without any vegetation but scattered mosses; in others, aromatic plants and low shrubs; the lavender, the thyme, the rosemary, the mountain sage, fringed the steep craggs, while a neighbouring aclivity was shaded with the taller growth of holly, phillyrea, and ever-green oak; and the next covered with the glowing purple of the Mediterranean heath. The summits of almost all, crowned with groves of fir, larch, and pine.
Emmeline in silent admiration beheld this beautiful and singular scene; and with the pleasure it gave her, a soft and melancholy sensation was mingled. She wanted to be alone in this delightful place, or with some one who could share, who could understand the satisfaction she felt. She knew nobody but Godolphin who had taste and enthusiasm enough to enjoy it.
Insensibly she left Lady Westhaven and the Chevalier behind her; and passing his Lordship and the Baron, who were deeply engaged in a discourse about the military operations of the past war, she walked on with some quickness. Intent on the romantic wildness of the cliffs with which she was surrounded, and her mind associating with these objects the idea of him on whom it now perpetually dwelt, she had brought Godolphin before her, and was imagining what he would have said had he been with her; with what warmth he would enjoy, with what taste and spirit point out, the beauty of scenes so enchanting!
She had now left her companions at some distance; yet as she heard their voices swell in the breeze along the defile, she felt no apprehension. In the narrowest part of it, where she saw only steep craggs and the sky, which their bending tops hardly admitted, she was stopped by a transparent stream, which bursting suddenly with some violence out of the rock, is received into a small reservoir of stone and then carried away in stone channels to a village at some distance.
While Emmeline stood contemplating this beautiful spring, she beheld, in an excavation in the rock close to it, two persons sitting on a bench, which had been rudely cut for the passenger to rest. One of them appeared to be a man about fifty; he wore a short, light coloured coat, a waistcoat that had once been of embroidered velvet; from his head, which was covered first with a red thrum nightcap, and then with a small hat, bound with tarnished lace, depended an immense queÜe; his face, tho' thin and of a mahogena darkness, seemed to express penetration and good humour; and Emmeline, who had at first been a little startled, was no longer under alarm; when he, on perceiving her near the entrance of the cavern, flew nimbly out of it, bowed to the ground, and pulling off most politely his thrum nightcap, enquired—'Si Mademoiselle voudrez bien se reposer?'[4]
Emmeline thanked him, and advanced towards the bench; from which a girl about seventeen, very brown but very pretty, had on her approach arisen, and put up into a kind of wallet the remains of the provisions they had been eating, which were only fruit and black bread. As soon as the old Frenchman perceived that Emmeline intended to sit down, he sprung before her, brushed down the seat with his cap, and then making several profound bows, assured 'Mademoiselle qu'elle pourroit s'asseoir sans incommoditÉ.'[3]
The young woman, dressed like the paisannes of the country, was modestly retiring; but Emmeline desired her to remain; and entering into conversation with her, found she was the daughter of the assiduous old Frenchman, and that he was going with her to Toulon in hopes of procuring her a service.
The Baron and Lord Westhaven now approached, and laughingly reproached Emmeline for having deserted them. She told them she was enchanted with the seat she had found, and should wait there for the Chevalier and Lady Westhaven.
'I am only grieved,' said she, 'that I have disturbed from their humble supper these good people.'
The two gentlemen then spoke to the old Frenchman; whose countenance had something of keen intelligence and humble civility which prejudiced both in his favour.
'Je vois bien," said he, addressing himself to Lord Westhaven,—'je vois bien que j'ai l'honneur de parler a un Milor Anglais.'[5]
'Eh! comment?' answered his Lordship—'comment? tu connois donc bien les Anglais?'[6]
'Oh oui!—j'ai passÉ a leur service une partie de ma jeunesse.—Ils sont les meilleur maitres—'[7]
'Parle tu Anglais, mon ami?'[8]
'Yes Milor, I speak little English. Mais,' continued he, relapsing into the volubility of his own language—'Mais il y'a À peu pres dix neuf ans, depuis que mon maitre—mon pauvre maitre mouroit dans mes bras; helas!—s'i avoit vecu—car il etoit tout jeun—j'aurois passÉ ma vie entiere avec lui—j'aurois retournez avec lui en Angleterre—Ah c'est un paÏs charmant que cette Angleterre.'[9]
'You have been there then?'
He answered that he had been three times; and should have been happy had it pleased heaven to have ended his days there.
'The praise you bestow on our country, my friend,' said Lord Westhaven, 'is worth at least this piece de six francs, and the beauty de cette jolie enfant,[10] added he, turning towards the little paisanne, 'is interesting enough to induce me to enquire whether such a gift may not serve to purchase quelques petites amplettes a la ville.'[11] He presented the young woman with another crown.
The old Frenchman seemed ready to thank his Lordship with his tears.
Without solicitation or ceremony, seeing that the gentlemen were disposed to listen to him, he began to relate his 'short and simple' story.
Lady Westhaven and the Chevalier now arrived: but she sat down by Emmeline, and desired the old man to continue whatever he was saying.
'He has been praising our country,' said Lord Westhaven, 'and in return I am willing to hear the history of himself, which he seems very desirous of relating.'
'I was in the army,' said he, 'as we all are; till being taken with a pleurisy at Calais, and rendered long incapable of duty, I got my discharge, and hired myself as a travelling valet to a Milor Anglais. With him (he was the best master in the world) I lived six years. I went with him to England when he came to his estate, and five years afterwards came back with him to France. He met with a misfortune in losing une dame tres amiable, and never was quite well afterwards. To drive away trouble, pour se dissiper, he went among a set of his own countrymen, and I believe le chagrin, and living too freely, gave him a terrible fever. Une fievre ardente lui saisit a Milan, ses compagnons apparemment n'aimoit gueres les malades;[12] for nobody came near him except a young surgeon who arrived there by accident, and hearing that an Englishman of fashion lay ill, charitably visited him. But it was too late: he had already been eleven days under the hands of an Italian physician, and when the English gentleman saw him he said he had only a few hours to live.
'He sat by him, however. But my poor master was senseless; 'till about an hour before he died he recovered his recollection.
'He ordered me to bring him two little boxes, which he always carried with him, and charged me to go to England with his body, and deliver those boxes to a person he named. He bade me give one of his watches, which was a very rich one, to his brother, and told me to keep the other in memory of my master.
'Then he spoke to the stranger—"Sir," said he, "since you have the humanity to interest yourself for a person unknown to you, have the goodness to see that my servant is suffered to execute what I have directed, and put your seal on my effects. The money I have about me, my cloaths, and my common watch, I have given him. He knows what farther I would have done; I told him on the second day of my illness. Baptist—you remember——"
'He tried to say something more; but in a few moments he died in my arms.
'With the assistance of the young English surgeon, I arranged every thing as my master directed. I went with his corps to England, and received a large present from his brother, whom, however, I did not see, because he was not in London. Then I returned to France.'
'Since you loved England so much,' enquired the Baron, 'puisque vous aimiez tant cet paÏs pourquoi ne pas y' rester?'[13]
'Ah, Monsieur! j'etois riche; et je brulez de partager mes richesse avec une jolie fille dont j'etois eperdument amoureux.'[14]
'Eh bien?'
'I married her, Monsieur; and for above two years we were the happiest people on earth. But we were very thoughtless. Je ne scais comment cela se faisoit, mes espece Anglais, qui je croyais inepuisable se dissiperent peu a peu, et enfin il falloit songer a quelque provision pour ma femme et mes deux petites filles.'[15]
'I returned therefore into the Limosin, of which province I was a native; but some of my family were dead, and the rest had neither power or inclination to assist their poor relations. The seigneur of the village had bought a post at Paris, and was about to quit his chateau. He heard I was honest; and therefore, tho' he had very little to lose, he put me into it. I worked in the garden, and raised enough, with the little wages we had, to keep us. My wife learned to work, and my two little girls were healthy and happy.
'Oui Messieurs, nous etions pauvre a la veritÉ! mais nous etions tres contents![16] 'till about eight months ago; and then an epidemical distemper broke out in the village, and carried off my wife and my eldest daughter.
'Oh, Therese! et toi ma petite Suzette, je te pleurs; encore amerement je te pleurs.'[17]
The poor Frenchman turned away and wept bitterly.
'Je scais bien,' continued he—'je scais bien qu'il faut s'accoutumer a les souffrances![18] We might still have lived on, Madelon and me, at our ruinous chateau; but the possessor of it dying, his son sent us notice that he should pull it down (indeed it must soon have fallen) and ordered us to quit it.
'Ainsi me voila, Messieurs, a cinquante ans, sans pain. Mais pour cela je ne m'embarrasse pas; si je pourrois bien placer ma pauvre Madelon tout ira bien!'[19]
There was in this relation a touching simplicity which drew tears from Lady Westhaven and Emmeline. The whole party became interested for the father and the daughter, who had wept silently while he was relating their story.
'Can nothing be done for these poor creatures?' said Lady Westhaven.
'Certainly we will assist them,' answered her Lord.—'But let us enquire how we can best do it. Tu t'appelles?'[20] continued he, speaking to the Frenchman.
'Baptiste La Fere—mais mon nomme de guerre, et de condition fut toujours Le Limosin.'[21]
'Dites moi donc,[22] Monsieur Le Limosin,' said his Lordship, 'what hopes have you of placing your daughter at Toulon?'
'Alas! Milor, but little. I know nobody there but an old relation of my poor wife's, who is Touriere at a convent; and if I cannot get a service for Madelon, I must give the good abbess a little money to take her till I can do something better for her.'
'And where do you expect to get money?'
'Tenez, mon Seigneur,' answered he, pulling a watch out of his pocket, 'ayez la bontÉ d'examiner cet montre.[23] It is an English watch. Gold; and in a gold case. I have been offered a great deal of money for it; but in all my poverty, in all my distresses, I have contrived to keep it because it was the last gift of my dear master. But now, my poor Madelon must be thought of, and if it must be so, I will sell it and pay for her staying in the convent.'
'You shall not do that, my friend,' replied Lord Westhaven, still holding the watch in his hand.
It had a cypher, H. C. M. and a crest engraved on it.
'H. C. M,' said his Lordship, 'and the Mowbray crest! Pray what was your master's name?'
'Milor Moubray,' answered Le Limosin.
'Comment? Milor Mowbray?'
'Oui Milor—regardez s'il vous plait. Voila son chiffre, Henri-Charles Moubray—et voila le cimier du famille.'[24]
Emmeline, who no longer doubted but this was her father's servant, was so much affected, that Lady Westhaven, apprehending she would faint, called for assistance; and the Chevalier, who during this conversation had attended only to her, snatched up the beechen cup out of which Le Limosin and Madelon had been drinking, and which still stood on the ground, and flying with it to the spring, brought it instantly back filled with water; while Lady Westhaven bathed her temples and held to her her salts. She soon recovered; and then speaking in a faint voice to his Lordship, said—'My Lord, this is the servant in whose arms my poor father expired. Do allow me to intercede with your Lordship for him and for his daughter; but let him not know, to-night at least, who I am. I cannot again bear a circumstantial detail about my father.'
Lord Westhaven now led Le Limosin out of the cave; told him he had determined, as he had known his master's family, to take him into his own service, and that Lady Westhaven would provide for his daughter. At this intelligence the poor fellow grew almost frantic. He would have thrown himself at the feet of his benefactor had he not been prevented; then flew back to fetch his Madelon, that she might join in prayers and benedictions; and hardly could Lord Westhaven persuade him to be tranquil enough to understand the orders he gave him, which were, to hire some kind of conveyance at the next village to carry his daughter to Toulon; where he gave him a direction to find his English benefactor the next day.
It was now late; and the party hastened to leave this romantic spot, which had been marked by so singular a meeting. On their arrival at Toulon, they equipped, and sent away before them to St. Alpin, Le Limosin and Madelon, the latter of whom Lady Westhaven took entirely to wait on Emmeline.
The soft heart and tender spirits of Emmeline had not yet recovered the detail she had heard of her father's death. A pensive melancholy hung over her; which the Chevalier, nothing doubting his own perfections, hoped was owing to a growing affection for himself. But it had several sources of which he had no suspicion; and it made the remaining three weeks of their tour appear tedious to Emmeline; who languished to be at St. Alpin, where she hoped to find letters from Mrs. Stafford and from Lady Adelina. She thought it an age since she had heard from the latter; and secretly but anxiously indulged an hope of meeting a large pacquet, which might contain some intelligence of Godolphin.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME