Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  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 tha
t 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 wa
s 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.