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 a
ffected 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 b
een 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?’
Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works Page 66
