Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  Lord Westhaven, after pausing a second, ran down stairs after them; and just as Bellozane was stepping into the chariot, took him by the arm, and begged to speak to him for two minutes.

  He apologized to Lady Frances, and they went together into a room; where Lord Westhaven, with all the warmth which his relationship authorized, remonstrated against his stay in England; represented the expence and uneasiness it must occasion to the good old Baron; and above all, exhorted him to fly immediately from the dangerous society of Lady Frances Crofts.

  Bellozane received this advice from his cousin with a very ill grace. He said, that he could not discover why his Lordship assumed an authority over him, or pretended either to blame his past conduct or dictate his future. That he came to England a stranger; brought thither by his honourable passion for Miss Mowbray, which he had a right to pursue; but that Mr. Godolphin, who was his only relation then in England, had either from accident or design shewn him very little attention; while Lady Frances had, with the most winning honeteté, invited him to her house, and supplied the want of that hospitality which his own family had not afforded him. And that infinitely obliged as he was to her, he should ill brook any reflection on a woman of honour who was his friend.

  ‘But my Lord,’ added he, ‘if your Lordship will allow me to visit here as Miss Mowbray’s favoured lover, I will not only drop the acquaintance of Lady Frances, but will put myself entirely under your Lordship’s direction.’

  Lord Westhaven, piqued and provoked, answered— ‘that he had no power whatever to direct Miss Mowbray; and if he had, should never advise her to receive him. Be assured, Monsieur le Chevalier, that you have no chance of ever being acceptable to her, and you must think no more of her.’

  Bellozane, equally impatient of advice and contradiction, burst from him; and went back to Lady Frances in a very ill humour.

  Delamere, who had been dressing while his eldest sister remained, now joined Lady Westhaven and Emmeline in the drawing room. Thither also came Lady Adelina; who, during the five days they had been in town had not been well enough till this day to dine below.

  She was now languid and faint, and obliged to retire, as soon as the cloth was removed, to her own room. Emmeline attended her; and when they were alone together, she complained of finding herself every day more indisposed. ‘The air of London,’ said she, ‘is not good for my child: I cannot help fancying he droops already. And the noise of a house where there are unavoidably so many visitors, and such a multitude of servants, is too much for my spirits. As Lord Westhaven is desirous of my staying in London till my sister Clancarryl arrives, that we may meet all together after being so many years divided, I will not press my return to East Cliff; but I wish he would allow me to go to some village near London, where I may occasionally enjoy solitude and silence; for I have that upon my heart, Emmeline, that demands both.’

  Emmeline communicated her wish to Godolphin the same evening; who undertook to settle it with Lord Westhaven as his sister desired; and the next day Lady Adelina and her little boy removed to Highgate, where her brother had procured her a handsome lodging; and he, quitting those he usually occupied in town, went to reside with her.

  After having been there a few days, she sent to Emmeline the following letter, which she desired might be delivered by her own hand.

  ‘To the Honourable George Fitz-Edward.

  ‘I have thus long forborne to answer your letter, because I have not ‘till now been able to collect that strength of mind which is necessary, when I am to obey the inexorable duty that tears me from you for ever!

  ‘That you yet love me well enough to solicit my hand, is I own most soothing and consolatory: but where, Fitz-Edward, is the Lethean cup, without which you cannot esteem me? — without which, I cannot esteem myself? No! I am not worthy the honour of being your wife! It is fit my fault be punished — punished by the cruel obligation it lays me under of renouncing the man I love!

  ‘Fitz-Edward, I will not dissemble! I cannot, if I would! My affection for you is become a part of my existence, and can end my reason was too weak to support me: now that I have no longer any apprehensions of either, my reason is returned — it is returned to shew me all my wretchedness, and to afford me that light by which I must plunge a dagger into my own bosom.

  ‘Had I, however, no objections on my own account, there is one that on another appears insuperable. Were the marriage you solicit to take place, and to be followed by a family, could I bear that my William, the delight and support of my life, should be as an alien in his father’s house, and either appear as the son of Godolphin or learn to blush for his mother!

  ‘We must part, Fitz-Edward! Indeed we must! Or if we are obliged to meet, do you at least forget that we ever met before.

  ‘I know that the daughter of Lord Westhaven, in youth, beauty, and innocence, would not have been, however portionless, unworthy of you. But what would you receive in the widow of Trelawny? A mind unsettled by guilt and sorrow; spirits which have lost all relish for felicity; a blemished, if not a ruined reputation, a faded person, and an exhausted heart — exhausted of almost every sentiment but that so fatally predominant; which now forces me to blot my paper with tears, as I write this last farewel!

  ‘Farewel! most beloved Fitz-Edward! — Ah! try if it be possible to be happy! Be assured I wish it; even tho’ it be necessary for that end to drive from your memory, for ever, the lost

  Adelina Trelawny.’

  Emmeline, to whom this letter was sent open, could not but approve the sentiments it contained, while her heart bled for the pain it must have cost Lady Adelina, and for that which it must inflict on Fitz-Edward.

  When she had dispatched a note to his lodgings, to name an early hour the next day for speaking to him, she went down into the drawing room, where a large party of company were already assembled. Emmeline, to avoid a particular conversation with Lord Delamere, which he incessantly solicited, placed herself near one of the card tables; when, at a late hour of the evening, dressed in the utmost exuberance of fashion, blazing in jewels and blooming in rouge, entered Mrs. James Crofts, followed by the two eldest of her daughters; one, drest in the character of Charlotte in the Sorrows of Werter; and the other, as Emma, the nut brown maid. Their air and manner were adapted, as they believed, to the figures of those characters as they appear in the print shops; and their excessive affectation, together with the gaudy appearance of their mama, nearly conquered the gravity of Emmeline and of many others of the company.

  While Mrs. Crofts paid her compliments to Lady Westhaven and Emmeline, and gave herself all those airs which she believed put her upon an equality with the circle she was in, the two Misses anxiously watched the impression which they concluded their charms must make on the gentlemen present. Their mama had told them that most likely all of them were Lords, or Lords sons at least; and the girls were not without hopes, that among them there might be some of that species of men of quality, whom modern novelists describe as being in the habit of carrying forcibly away, beautiful young creatures, with whom perchance they become enamoured, and marrying them in despite of all opposition. They longed above all things to meet with such adventures, and to be carried off by a Lord, or a Baronet at least; whose letters afterwards, to some dear Charles or Harry, could not fail to edify the world. After Mrs. Crofts had displayed her dress, and convinced the company of her being quite in a good style of life; and when her daughters had committed hostilities for near an hour upon the hearts of the gentlemen, they sailed out in the same state as they entered; nor could all Emmeline’s good humour prevent her smiling at the satyrical remarks made on them by some of the company; nothing more strongly exciting the ridicule and contempt of people of real fashion than awkward and impotent efforts to imitate them.

  The next day, Fitz-Edward attended at the hour Emmeline appointed, and received from her the letter of Lady Adelina, with a degree of anguish which gave great pain to Emmeline and Godolphin. Still, however, he was not quite deprived of
hope; but flattered himself that the persuasions of her sister, Lady Clancarryl (who was now every day expected, with her husband and family, to pass the rest of the winter in London) added to those of Lord Westhaven, and the good offices of Emmeline, would together prevail on Lady Adelina to alter a resolution which rendered them both wretched.

  Some weeks, however, passed, and she still adhered to it; while the melancholy conversation which Emmeline frequently had with Fitz-Edward, and the importunity and unhappiness of Delamere, deprived her of much of that tranquillity she might otherwise have enjoyed; particularly after the recovery of Lady Westhaven (who presented her Lord with a son), and the arrival of Mrs. Stafford and her family from France.

  Lord Westhaven, who held a promise particularly sacred when made to the unfortunate, had procured for Mr. Stafford a lucrative employment in the West Indies. Thither he immediately went; and his wife, whose spirits and health were greatly hurt, was happy to accept the offer Emmeline made her of going down with her children to Mowbray Castle. The Marquis of Montreville had presented his niece with the furniture he had sent thither, being in truth ashamed to charge it; there was therefore every thing necessary; and there Emmeline intended Mrs. Stafford should reside ‘till she should be established in some residence agreeable to her; which she intended to fix if possible near her own; and she now felt all the advantages of that fortune, which enabled her to repay the obligations she owed to her earliest friend.

  CHAPTER XV

  The rank, and extensive connections of Lady Westhaven, led her unavoidably into a good deal of company; but it was among persons as respectable for their virtues as their station. Emmeline, of course, often accompanied her: but almost all her mornings, and frequently her evenings, were dedicated to Lady Adelina; who hardly saw any body but her, Lady Westhaven, her brothers, and her sister; and never went out but for the air.

  Godolphin passed with her much of his time: to the love and pity he had before felt for her, was added veneration and esteem, excited by the heroism of her conduct. At her lodgings, too, he could see Emmeline without the restraint they were under in other places. There, he could talk to her of his love; and there, she consented to hear him.

  Lady Westhaven went constantly every morning to visit her mother, who had lately been rather better, and whose health her physicians entertained some hopes of re-establishing. Her own unhappy temper seemed to be the chief impediment to her recovery; her violent passions, unsubdued by sickness and disappointment; and her immeasurable pride, which even the approach of death could not conquer, kept her nerves continually on the stretch; and allowed her no repose of mind, even when her bodily sufferings were suspended. That her favourite project of uniting the only surviving branches of her own family, by the marriage of Lord Delamere and Miss Otley, was now for ever at an end, was a perpetual source of murmuring and discontent. And tho’ Emmeline had as splendid a fortune, with a person and a mind infinitely more lovely, her Ladyship could not yet prevail upon herself to desire, that the name for which she felt such proud veneration, and the fortune of her own illustrious ancestors, should be enjoyed, or carried down to posterity by her, who had become the object of her capricious but inveterate dislike.

  Emmeline was very glad that the Marchioness thro’ prejudice, and her uncle thro’ shame, forbore to persecute her in favour of their son: but tho’ perfectly aware of the antipathy Lady Montreville entertained towards her, she yet shewed her all the attention she would receive; and would even constantly have waited on her, had she not expressed more pain than pleasure in her presence.

  Lady Frances Crofts, by this time fixed in Burlington street for the winter, called now and then on her mother; but her visits were short and cold. It unfortunately happened, that the Marchioness, whose amusement was now almost solely confined to reading the daily prints, had found in one of them a paragraph evidently pointed at the intimacy subsisting between Lady Frances and the Chevalier de Bellozane, which had long been the topic of public scandal.

  Lady Frances called upon her while her mind was under the first impression of this disgraceful circumstance; and she spoke to her daughter of her improper attachment to that young foreigner with more than her usual severity. Lady Frances, far from hearing her remonstrance with calmness, retorted, with rudeness and asperity, what she termed unjust reproaches; and asserted her own right to associate with whom she pleased. The Marchioness grew more enraged, and they parted in great wrath: in consequence of which, Lady Montreville, in the inconsiderate excess of her anger, sent for her husband and her son; and exclaiming with all her natural acrimony against the shameful conduct of Lady Frances, insisted upon their obliging Crofts to separate his wife from her dangerous and improper acquaintance, and forcing her immediately into the country.

  Lord Montreville, who had already heard too much of his daughter’s general light conduct, and her particular partiality to Bellozane, now saw new evils gathering round him, from which he knew not how to escape. The fiery and impatient Delamere, already irritated against Bellozane for his pretensions to Emmeline, broke forth in menace and invective; and nothing but his father’s anguish, and even tears, prevented his flying directly to him to execute that vengeance which his mother had dictated. She herself, in the violence of her passion, had overlooked the consequence of putting this affair into the hands of the inconsiderate and headlong Delamere; but when she saw him thus inflamed, terror for him, was added to resentment against her daughter; and altogether produced such an effect on her broken constitution, that in a few days afterwards her complaints returned with great violence, and all remedies proving ineffectual, she expired in less than a fortnight. Lady Westhaven and Emmeline attended on her themselves for the last four or five days; but she was insensible; and knew neither of them. Delamere, very fond of his mother, and whose feelings were painfully acute, suffered for many days the most violent paroxysms of grief; yet it was a considerable alleviation to reflect that he had not finally been the cause of her death. Lord Montreville bore it with more composure: and the softer, tho’ deep sorrow of Lady Westhaven, found relief in the constant and tender attention of her Lord, and the sympathy of Emmeline.

  Lady Frances Crofts, not insensible to remorse, but resolutely stifling it, affected to hear the news with proper concern, yet as what had been for many months expected. She sent constantly to enquire after her father; and the Marquis hoping that while her mind was softened by such a mournful event his remonstrance might make a deeper impression, determined to go to her; therefore the day after the remains of the Marchioness had been carried to the family vault of the Delameres, he took his chair, and went to Burlington street.

  On entering the house, the servants, who concluded he came to Mr. Crofts, were taking him into those apartments below which their master occupied: but his Lordship told them he must speak to their lady. Her own footman said her Ladyship had given orders to be denied.

  ‘To her father, puppy?’ — said Lord Montreville. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In her dressing room, my Lord.’

  He then passed alone up stairs — As he went, he heard the voice of laughter and gaiety, and was more shocked than surprised, when, on opening the door, he saw Lady Frances in a morning dishabille, and the Chevalier de Bellozane making her tea. At the entrance of her father thus unexpectedly, she changed colour; but soon assuming her usual assured manner, said she was glad to see his Lordship well enough to come out.

  ‘Dismiss this young man,’ said he sternly. ‘I must speak to you alone.’

  ‘Va mon ami,’ cried Lady Frances, with the utmost ease, ‘pour quelques moments.’

  Bellozane left the room; and then Lord Montreville, with paternal affection, tried to move her. But she had conquered her feelings; and answered with great calmness— ‘That conscious of her own innocence, she was quite indifferent to the opinion of the world. And that tho’ she certainly wished to be upon good terms with her own family, yet if any part of it chose to think ill of her, they must do so entirely from p
rejudice, which it was little worth her while to attempt removing.’

  Lord Montreville, now provoked beyond all endurance, gave way to the indignation with which he was inflamed, and denounced his malediction against her, if she did not immediately dismiss Bellozane and regulate her manner of life. She heard him with the most callous insensibility; and let him depart without making any attempt to appease his anger or calm his apprehensions. From her, he went down to Crofts; to whom he forcibly represented the necessity there was for putting an immediate stop to the scandal which the conduct of his wife occasioned. Pusillanimous and mean-spirited, Crofts chose neither to risk his personal safety with the Chevalier, nor the diminution of his fortune by attempting to procure a divorce, which would compel him to return what he loved much better than honour.

  He saw many others do extremely well, and mightily respected, whose wives were yet gayer than his own; and convinced that while he had money he should always obtain as much regard as he desired, he rather excused to Lord Montreville the conduct of Lady Frances than shewed any disposition to resent it. The Marquis left him with contempt, and ordered his chair to Lord Westhaven’s. As he went, he could not forbear reflecting on the contrast between his eldest and youngest daughter, and between his eldest daughter and his niece. He grew extremely anxious for Lord Delamere’s marriage with Emmeline: sure of finding, in her, an honour to his family, which might console him for his present misfortunes: and he deeply regretted that infatuation which had blinded him to her superior merit, and hazarded losing her for ever. Disgusted already with the Crofts, he remembered that it had been in a great measure owing to them, and he thought of them only with repentance and dislike.