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 co
ntented 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.
Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith Page 70
