Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  ‘They do; but not so immediately as to prevent my attending you to East Cliff. If you will suffer me to do that, I promise instantly to return.’

  ‘No. I go only attended by my servants or go not at all.’

  Godolphin was mortified to find her so determined. And easily discouraged from those hopes which he had indulged rather from the flattering prospects offered to him by Mrs. Stafford than presumption founded on his own remarks, he now again felt all his apprehensions renewed of her latent affection for Delamere. The acute anguish to which those ideas exposed him, and their frequent return, determined him now to attempt knowing at once, whether he had or had not that place in Emmeline’s heart which Mrs. Stafford had assured him he had long possessed.

  Sitting down near her, therefore, he said, gravely— ‘As I may not, Miss Mowbray, soon have again the happiness I now enjoy, will you allow me to address you on a subject which you must long have known to be nearest my heart; but on which you have so anxiously avoided every explanation I have attempted, that I fear intruding too much on your complaisance if I enter upon it.’

  Emmeline found she could not avoid hearing him; and sat silent, her heart violently beating. Godolphin went on. —

  ‘From the first moment I beheld you, my heart was your’s. I attempted, indeed, at the beginning of our acquaintance — ah! how vainly attempted! — to conquer a passion which I believed was rendered hopeless by your prior engagement. While I supposed you the promised wife of Lord Delamere, I concealed, as well as I was able, my sufferings, and never offended you with an hint of their severity. Had you married him, I think I could have carried them in silence to the grave. Those ties, however, Lord Delamere himself broke; and I then thought myself at liberty to solicit your favour. It was for that purpose I took the road to St. Alpin, when the unhappy Delamere stopped me at Besançon.

  ‘When I afterwards related to you his illness; the sorrow, the lively and generous sorrow, you expressed for him, and the cold and reserved manner in which you received me, made me still believe, that tho’ he had relinquished your hand he yet possessed your heart. I saw it with anguish, and continued silent. All that passed at Besançon confirmed me in this opinion. I determined to tear myself away, and again conceal in solitude a passion, which, while I felt it to be incurable, I feared was hopeless. Accident, however, detaining me at Calais, again threw me in your way; and I heard, that far from having renewed your engagement with Lord Delamere, you had left him to avoid his eager importunity. Dare I add — that then, my pity for him was lost in the hopes I presumed to form for myself; and studiously as you have avoided giving me an opportunity of speaking to you, I have yet ventured to flatter myself that you beheld not with anger or scorn, my ardent, my fond attachment.’

  From the beginning of this speech to it’s conclusion, the encreasing confusion of Emmeline deprived her of all power of answering it. With deepened blushes, and averted eyes, she at first sought for refuge in affecting to be intent on the netting she drew from her work box; but having spoiled a whole row, her trembling hands could no longer go on with it; and as totally her tongue refused to utter the answer, which, by the pause he made, she concluded Godolphin expected. After a moment, however, he went on.

  ‘I have by no means encouraged visions so delightful, without a severe alloy of fear and mistrust. Frequently, your coldness, your unkindness, gives me again to despondence; and every lovely prospect I had suffered my imagination to draw, is lost in clouds and darkness. Yet I am convinced you do not intend to torture me; and that from Miss Mowbray I may expect that candour, that explicit conduct, of which common minds are incapable. Tell me then, dearest and loveliest Emmeline, may I venture to hope that tender bosom is not wholly insensible? Will you hear me with patience, and even with pity?’

  ‘What, Sir, can I say?’ faulteringly asked Emmeline. ‘I am in a great measure dependant, at least for some time, on Lord Montreville; and till I am of age, have determined to hear nothing on the subject on which you are pleased to address me.’

  ‘Admitting it to be so,’ answered Godolphin, ‘give me but an hope to live upon till then!’

  ‘I will not deny, Sir,’ said Emmeline still more faintly, ‘I will not deny that my esteem for your character — my — my’

  ‘Oh! speak!’ exclaimed Godolphin eagerly— ‘speak, and tell me that — —’

  At this moment Le Limosin hastily came into the room, and said— ‘Mademoiselle, le Chevalier de Bellozane demande permission de vous parler.’

  Godolphin, vexed at the interruption, and embarrassed at the arrival of the Chevalier, said hastily— ‘You will not see him?’

  ‘How can I refuse him?’ answered she; ‘perhaps he comes with some intelligence of your brother — of my dear Lady Westhaven.’

  By this time the Chevalier was in the room. Emmeline received him with anxious and confused looks, arising entirely from her apprehensions about Lady Westhaven and Lord Delamere; but the vanity of Bellozane saw in it only a struggle between her real sentiments and her affectation of concealment. She almost instantly, however, enquired after her friends.

  ‘I left them,’ said Bellozane, ‘almost as soon as you did, and went (because I wanted money and my father wanted to see me,) back to St. Alpin, where I staid almost a fortnight; and having obtained a necessary recruit of cash, I set off for Paris; where (my leave of absence being to expire in another month) I was forced to make interest to obtain a longer permission, in order to throw myself, lovely Miss Mowbray, at your feet, and to pass the winter in the delights of London, which they tell me I shall like better than Paris.’

  Emmeline, disgusted at his presumption and volatility, enquired if he knew nothing since of Lord and Lady Westhaven.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘I saw them all at Paris, and asked them if they had any commands to you? But I could get nothing from my good cousin but sage advice, and from Lady Westhaven only cold looks and half sentences; and as to poor Delamere, I knew he was too much afraid of my success to be in a better temper with me than the other two; so we had but little conversation.’

  ‘But they are well, Sir?’

  ‘No; Delamere has been detained all this time by illness, at different places. He was better when I saw him; but Lady Westhaven was herself ill, and my cousin was, in looks, the most rueful of the three.’

  ‘But, Sir, when may they be expected in England?’

  ‘That I cannot tell. The last time I saw Lord Westhaven was above a week before I left Paris; and then he said he knew not when his wife would be well enough to begin their journey, but he hoped within a fortnight.’

  ‘Good God!’ thought Emmeline, ‘what can have prevented his writing to me all this time?’

  Godolphin, after the first compliments passed with the Chevalier, had been quite silent. He now, however, asked some questions about his brother; by which he found, that in consequence of endeavouring to discourage Bellozane’s voyage to England, Lord Westhaven had offended him, and that a coldness had taken place between them. Bellozane had ceased to consider Godolphin as a rival, when he beheld Lord Delamere in that light; and was now rather pleased to meet him, knowing that his introduction into good company would greatly be promoted by means of such a relation.

  ‘Do you know,’ said the Chevalier, addressing himself to Emmeline, ‘that I have had some trouble, my fair friend, to find you?’

  ‘And how,’ enquired Godolphin, ‘did you accomplish it?’

  ‘Why my Lord Westhaven, to whom I applied at Paris, protested that he did not know; so remembering the name of le Marquis de Montreville, I wrote to him to know where I might wait on Mademoiselle Mowbray. Monseigneur le Marquis being at his country house, did not immediately answer my letter. At length I had a card from him, which he had the complaisance to send by a gentleman, un Monsieur — Monsieur Croff, who invited me to his house, and introduced me to Milady Croff, his wife, who is daughter to Milor Montreville. Mon Dieu! que cette femme la, est vive, aimable; qu’elle a l’air du monde
, et de la bonne compagnie.’

  ‘You think Lady Frances Crofts, then, handsomer than her sister?’ asked Godolphin.

  ‘Mais non — elle n’est pas peut-etre si belle — mais elle a cependant un certain air. Enfin — je la trouve charmante.’

  Godolphin then continuing to question him, found that the Crofts’ had invited Bellozane with an intention of getting from him the purpose of his journey, and what his business was with Emmeline; and finding that it was his gallantry only brought him over, and that he knew nothing of the late Mr. Mowbray’s affairs, had no longer made any attempt to oppose his seeing her.

  Godolphin, tho’ he believed Emmeline not only indifferent but averse to him, was yet much disquieted at finding she was likely again to be exposed to his importunities. He trembled least if he discovered her intentions of going to East Cliff, he should follow her thither; for which his relationship to Lady Adelina would furnish him with a pretence; and desirous of getting him away as soon as possible, he asked if he would dine with him at his lodgings.

  Bellozane answered that he was already engaged to Mr. Crofts’; and then turning to Emmeline, offered to take her hand; and enquired whether she had a softer heart than when she left Besançon?

  Emmeline drew away her hand; and very gravely entreated him to say no more on a subject already so frequently discussed, and on which her sentiments must ever be the same. Bellozane gaily protested that he had been too long a soldier to be easily repulsed. That he would wait on her the next day, and doubted not but he should find her more favourably disposed. ‘Je reviendrai demain vous offrir encore mon hommage. Adieu! nymphe belle et cruelle. La chaine que je porte fera toute ma gloire.’ He then snatched her hand, which in spite of her efforts he kissed, and with his usual gaiety went away, accompanied by Godolphin.

  Hardly had Emmeline time to recollect her dissipated spirits after the warm and serious address of Godolphin, and to feel vexation and disgust at the presumptuous forwardness of Bellozane, from which she apprehended much future trouble, before a note was brought from Mrs. Stafford, to inform her, that after waiting some hours at the house of the attorney she employed, the people who were to meet her had disappointed her, and that there was no prospect of her getting her business done till a late hour in the evening; she therefore desired Emmeline to dine without her, and not to expect her till ten or eleven at night.

  As it was now between four and five, she ordered up her dinner, and was sitting down to it alone, when Godolphin again entered the room. Vexation was marked in his countenance: he seemed hurried; and having apologized for again interrupting her, tho’ he did not account for his return, he sat down.

  ‘Surely,’ cried Emmeline, alarmed, ‘you have heard nothing unpleasant from France?’

  ‘Nothing, upon my honour,’ answered he. ‘The account the Chevalier gives is indeed far from satisfactory, yet I am persuaded there is nothing particularly amiss, or we should have heard.’

  ‘It is that consideration only which has made me tolerably easy. Yet it is strange I have no letter from Lady Westhaven. Will you dine with me?’ added Emmeline. It was indeed hardly possible to avoid asking him, as Le Limosin at that moment brought up the dinner.

  ‘Where is Mrs. Stafford?’ said he.

  ‘Detained in the city.’

  ‘And you dine alone, and will allow me the happiness of dining with you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied Emmeline, blushing, ‘if you will favour me with your company.’

  Godolphin then placed himself at the end of the table; and in the pleasure of being with her, thus unmarked by others, and considering her invitation as an assurance that his declaration of the morning was favourably received, he forgot the chagrin which hung upon him at his first entrance, and thought only of the means by which he might perpetuate the happiness he now possessed.

  Emmeline tried to shake off, in common conversation, her extreme embarrassment. But when dinner was over, and Le Limosin left the room, in whose presence she felt a sort of protection, she foresaw that she must again hear Godolphin, and that it would be almost impossible to evade answering him.

  She now repented of having asked him to dine with her; then blamed herself for the reserve and coldness with which she had almost always treated a man, who, deserving all her affections, had so long possessed them.

  But the idea of poor Delamere — of his sadness, his despair, arose before her, and was succeeded by yet more frightful images of the consequences that might follow his frantic passions. And impressed at once with pity and terror, she again resolved to keep, if it were possible, the true state of her heart from the knowledge of Godolphin.

  ‘I have seldom seen one of my relations with so little pleasure,’ said he, after the servant had withdrawn, ‘as I to day met my volatile cousin de Bellozane. I hoped he would have persecuted you no farther with a passion to which I think you are not disposed to listen.’

  ‘I certainly never intend it.’

  ‘Pardon me then, dearest Miss Mowbray, if I solicit leave to renew the conversation his abrupt entrance broke off. You had the goodness to say you had some esteem for my character — Ah! tell me, if on that esteem I may presume to build those hopes which alone can give value to the rest of my life?’

  Emmeline, who saw he expected an answer, attempted to speak; but the half-formed words died away on her lips. It was not thus she was used to receive the addresses of Delamere: her heart then left her reason and her resolution at liberty, but now the violence of it’s sensations deprived her of all power of uttering sentiments foreign to it, or concealing those it really felt.

  Godolphin drew from this charming confusion a favourable omen.— ‘You hear me not with anger, lovely Emmeline!’ cried he— ‘You allow me, then, to hope?’

  ‘I can only repeat, Sir,’ said Emmeline, in a voice hardly audible, ‘that until I am of age, I have resolved to hear nothing on this subject.’

  ‘And why not? Are you not now nearly as independant as you will be then?’

  ‘Alas!’ said Emmeline, ‘I am indeed! — for my uncle concerns not himself about me, and it is doubtful whether he will do me even the justice to acknowledge me.’

  ‘He must, he shall!’ replied Godolphin warmly— ‘Ah! entrust me with your interest; let me, in the character of the fortunate man whom you allow to hope for your favour — let me apply to him for justice.’

  ‘That any one should make such an application, except Lord Westhaven, is what I greatly wish to avoid. I shall most reluctantly appeal to the interference of friends; and still more to that of law. The last is, you know, very uncertain. And instead of the heiress to the estate of my father, as I have lately been taught to believe myself, I may be found still to be the poor destitute orphan, so long dependant on the bounty of my uncle.’

  ‘And as such,’ cried Godolphin, greatly animated, ‘you will be dearer to me than my existence! Yes! Emmeline; whether you are mistress of thousands, or friendless, portionless and deserted, your power over this heart is equally absolute — equally fixed! Ah! suffer not any consideration that relates to the uncertainty of your situation, to delay a moment the permission you must, you will give me, to avow my long and ardent passion.’

  ‘It must not be, Mr. Godolphin!’ (and tears filled her eyes as she spoke) ‘Indeed it must not be! It is not now possible, at least it is very improper, for me to listen to you. Ah! do not then press it. I have indeed already suffered you to say too much on such a topic.’

  Godolphin then renewed his warm entreaties that he might be permitted openly to profess himself her lover: but she still evaded giving way to them, by declaring that ‘till she was of age she would not marry. ‘Had I no other objections,’ continued she, ‘the singularity of my circumstances is alone sufficient to determine me. I cannot think of accepting the honour you offer me, while my very name is in some degree doubtful; it would, I own, mortify me to take any advantage of your generosity; and should I fail of obtaining from Lord Montreville that to which I am n
ow believed to have a claim, his Lordship, irritated at the attempt, will probably withdraw what he has hitherto allowed me — scanty support, and occasional protection.’

  ‘Find protection with your lover, with your husband!’ exclaimed he— ‘And may that happy husband, that adoring lover, be Godolphin! May Adelina forget her own calamities in contemplating the felicity of her brother; and may her beauteous, her benevolent friend, become her sister indeed, as she has long been the sister of her heart.’

  ‘You will oblige me, Sir,’ said Emmeline, feeling that notwithstanding all her attempts to conceal it the truth trembled in her eyes and faultered in her accents— ‘you will oblige me if you say no more of this.’

  ‘I will obey you, if you will only tell me I may hope.’

  ‘How can I say so, Sir, when so long a time must intervene before I shall think of fixing myself for life.’

  ‘Yet surely you know, the generous, the candid Miss Mowbray knows, whether her devoted Godolphin is agreeable to her, or whether, if every obstacle which exists in her timid imagination were removed, he would be judged wholly unworthy of pretending to the honour of her hand?’

  ‘Certainly not unworthy,’ tremblingly said Emmeline.

  ‘Let me then, thus encouraged, go farther — and ask if I have a place in your esteem?’

  ‘Do not ask me — indeed I cannot tell — Nay I beg, I entreat,’ added she, trying to disengage her hands from him, ‘that you will desist — do not force me to leave you.’

  ‘Ah! talk not, think not of leaving me; think rather of confirming those fortunate presages I draw from this lovely timidity. I cannot go till I know your thoughts of me — till I know what place I hold in that soft bosom.’

  ‘I think of you as an excellent brother; as a generous and disinterested friend; for such I have found you; as a man of great good sense, of noble principles, of exalted honour!’

  ‘As one then,’ said Godolphin, vehemently interrupting her, ‘not unworthy of being entrusted with your happiness; who may hope to be honoured with a deposit so inestimable, as the confidence and tenderness of that gentle and generous heart?’