Emmeline Part 1

Emmeline.

by Charlotte Turner Smith.

VOLUME I

TO MY CHILDREN

O'erwhelm'd with sorrow--and sustaining long 'The proud man's contumely, the oppressor's wrong,'

Languid despondency, and vain regret, Must my exhausted spirit struggle yet?

Yes! robb'd myself of all that Fortune gave, Of every hope--but shelter in the grave; Still shall the plaintive lyre essay it's powers, And dress the cave of Care, with Fancy's flowers; Maternal love, the fiend Despair withstand, Still animate the heart and guide the hand.

May you, dear objects of my tender care!

Escape the evils, I was born to bear: Round my devoted head, while tempests roll, Yet there--'where I have treasured up my soul,'

May the soft rays of dawning hope impart Reviving patience to my fainting heart; And, when it's sharp anxieties shall cease, May I be conscious, in the realms of peace, That every tear which swells my children's eyes, From evils past, not present sorrows, rise.

Then, with some friend who loves to share your pain, (For 'tis my boast, that still such friends remain,) By filial grief, and fond remembrance prest, You'll seek the spot where all my miseries rest, Recall my hapless days in sad review, The long calamities I bore for you, And, with an happier fate, resolve to prove How well ye merited your mother's love!

EMMELINE

THE ORPHAN OF THE CASTLE

CHAPTER I

In a remote part of the county of Pembroke, is an old building, formerly of great strength, and inhabited for centuries by the ancient family of Mowbray; to the sole remaining branch of which it still belonged, tho'

it was, at the time this history commences, inhabited only by servants; and the greater part of it was gone to decay. A few rooms only had been occasionally repaired to accommodate the proprietor, when he found it necessary to come thither to receive his rents, or to inspect the condition of the estate; which however happened so seldom, that during the twelve years he had been master of it, he had only once visited the castle for a few days. The business that related to the property round it (which was very considerable) was conducted by a steward grown grey in the service of the family, and by an attorney from London, who came to hold the courts. And an old housekeeper, a servant who waited on her, the steward, and a labourer who was kept to look after his horse and work in that part of the garden which yet bore the vestige of cultivation, were now all its inhabitants; except a little girl, of whom the housekeeper had the care, and who was believed to be the natural daughter of that elder brother, by whose death Lord Montreville, the present possessor, became ent.i.tled to the estate.

This n.o.bleman, while yet a younger son, was (by the partiality of his mother, who had been an heiress, and that of some other female relations) master of a property nearly equal to what he inherited by the death of his brother, Mr. Mowbray.

He had been originally designed for the law; but in consequence of being ent.i.tled to the large estate which had been his mother's, and heir, by will, to all her opulent family, he had quitted that profession, and at the age of about four and twenty, had married Lady Eleonore Delamere, by whom he had a son and two daughters.

The ill.u.s.trious family from which Lady Eleonore descended, became extinct in the male line by the premature death of her two brothers; and her Ladys.h.i.+p becoming sole heiress, her husband took the name of Delamere; and obtaining one of the t.i.tles of the lady's father, was, at his death, created Viscount Montreville. Mr. Mowbray died before he was thirty, in Italy; and Lord Montreville, on taking possession of Mowbray Castle, found there his infant daughter.

Her mother had died soon after her birth; and she had been sent from France, where she was born, and put under the care of Mrs. Carey, the housekeeper, who was tenderly attached to her, having been the attendant of Mr. Mowbray from his earliest infancy.

Lord Montreville suffered her to remain in the situation in which he found her, and to go by the name of Mowbray: he allowed for the trifling charge of her board and necessary cloaths in the steward's account, the examination of which was for some years the only circ.u.mstance that reminded him of the existence of the unfortunate orphan.

With no other notice from her father's family, Emmeline had attained her twelfth year; an age at which she would have been left in the most profound ignorance, if her uncommon understanding, and unwearied application, had not supplied the deficiency of her instructors, and conquered the disadvantages of her situation.

Mrs. Carey could indeed read with tolerable fluency, and write an hand hardly legible: and Mr. Williamson, the old steward, had been formerly a good penman, and was still a proficient in accounts. Both were anxious to give their little charge all the instruction they could: but without the quickness and attention she shewed to whatever they attempted to teach, such preceptors could have done little.

Emmeline had a kind of intuitive knowledge; and comprehended every thing with a facility that soon left her instructors behind her. The precarious and neglected situation in which she lived, troubled not the innocent Emmeline. Having never experienced any other, she felt no uneasiness at her present lot; and on the future she was not yet old enough to reflect.

Mrs. Carey was to her in place of the mother she had never known; and the old steward, she was accustomed to call father. The death of this venerable servant was the first sorrow Emmeline ever felt: returning late one evening, in the winter, from a neighbouring town, he attempted to cross a ford, where the waters being extremely out, he was carried down by the rapidity of the current. His horse was drowned; and tho' he was himself rescued from the flood by some peasants who knew him, and carried to the castle, he was so much bruised, and had suffered so much from cold, that he was taken up speechless, and continued so for the few hours he survived the accident.

Mrs. Carey, who had lived in the same house with him near forty years, felt the sincerest concern at his death; with which it was necessary for her immediately to acquaint Lord Montreville.

His Lords.h.i.+p directed his attorney in London to replace him with another; to whom Mrs. Carey, with an aching heart, delivered the keys of the steward's room and drawers.

Her health, which was before declining, received a rude shock from the melancholy death of Mr. Williamson; and she and her little ward had soon the mortification of seeing he was forgotten by all but themselves.

Frequent and severe attacks of the gout now made daily ravages in the const.i.tution of Mrs. Carey; and her illness recurred so often, that Emmeline, now almost fourteen, began to reflect on what she should do, if Mrs. Carey died: and these reflections occasionally gave her pain.

But she was not yet of an age to consider deeply, or to dwell long on gloomy subjects. Her mind, however, gradually expanded, and her judgment improved: for among the deserted rooms of this once n.o.ble edifice, was a library, which had been well furnished with the books of those ages in which they had been collected. Many of them were in black letter; and so injured by time, that the most indefatigable antiquary could have made nothing of them.

From these, Emmeline turned in despair to some others of more modern appearance; which, tho' they also had suffered from the dampness of the room, and in some parts were almost effaced with mould, were yet generally legible. Among them, were Spencer and Milton, two or three volumes of the Spectator, an old edition of Shakespeare, and an odd volume or two of Pope.

These, together with some tracts of devotion, which she knew would be very acceptable to Mrs. Carey, she cleaned by degrees from the dust with which they were covered, and removed into the housekeeper's room; where the village carpenter accommodated her with a shelf, on which, with great pride of heart, she placed her new acquisitions.

The dismantled windows, and broken floor of the library, prevented her continuing there long together: but she frequently renewed her search, and with infinite pains examined all the piles of books, some of which lay tumbled in heaps on the floor, others promiscuously placed on the shelves, where the swallow, the sparrow, and the daw, had found habitations for many years: for as the present proprietor had determined to lay out no more than was absolutely necessary to keep one end of the castle habitable, the library, which was in the most deserted part of it, was in a ruinous state, and had long been entirely forsaken.

Emmeline, however, by her unwearied researches, nearly completed several sets of books, in which instruction and amus.e.m.e.nt were happily blended.

From them she acquired a taste for poetry, and the more ornamental parts of literature; as well as the grounds of that elegant and useful knowledge, which, if it rendered not her life happier, enabled her to support, with the dignity of conscious worth, those undeserved evils with which many of her years were embittered.

Mrs. Carey, now far advanced in life, found her infirmities daily increase. She was often incapable of leaving her chamber for many weeks; during which Emmeline attended her with the solicitude and affection of a daughter; scorned not to perform the most humble offices that contributed to her relief; and sat by her whole days, or watched her whole nights, with the tenderest and most unwearied a.s.siduity.

On those evenings in summer, when her attendance could for a few hours be dispensed with, she delighted to wander among the rocks that formed the bold and magnificent boundary of the ocean, which spread its immense expanse of water within half a mile of the castle. Simply dressed, and with no other protection than Providence, she often rambled several miles into the country, visiting the remote huts of the shepherds, among the wildest mountains.

During the life of Mrs. Mowbray, a small stipend had been annually allowed for the use of the poor: this had not yet been withdrawn; and it now pa.s.sed thro' the hands of Mrs. Carey, whose enquiries into the immediate necessities of the cottagers in the neighbourhood of the castle, devolved to Emmeline, when she was herself unable to make them.

The ignorant rustics, who had seen Emmeline grow up among them from her earliest infancy, and who now beheld her with the compa.s.sion as well as the beauty of an angel, administering to their necessities and alleviating their misfortunes, looked upon her as a superior being, and throughout the country she was almost adored.

Perfectly unconscious of those attractions which now began to charm every other eye, Emmeline had entered her sixteenth year; and the progress of her understanding was equal to the improvement of her person; which, tho' she was not perfectly handsome, could not be beheld at first without pleasure, and which the more it was seen became more interesting and engaging.

Her figure was elegant and graceful; somewhat exceeding the middling height. Her eyes were blue; and her hair brown. Her features not very regular; yet there was a sweetness in her countenance, when she smiled, more charming than the effect of the most regular features could have given. Her countenance, open and ingenuous, expressed every emotion of her mind: it had a.s.sumed rather a pensive cast; and tho' it occasionally was lighted up by vivacity, had been lately frequently overclouded; when the sufferings of her only friend called forth all the generous sympathy of her nature.

And now the first severe misfortune she had known was about to overtake her. Early in the spring of that year, which was the sixteenth from her birth, Mrs. Carey had felt an attack of the gout, which however was short; and her health seemed for some time afterwards more settled than it had been for many months. She was one evening preparing to go down to the village, leaning on the arm of Emmeline, when she suddenly complained of an acute pain in her head, and fell back into a chair. The affrighted girl called for a.s.sistance, and endeavoured by every means in her power to recover her, but it was impossible; the gout had seized her head; and casting on Emmeline a look which seemed to express all she felt at leaving her thus desolate and friendless, her venerable friend, after a short struggle, breathed her last.

What should Emmeline now do? In this distress (the first she had ever known) how should she act? She saw, in the lifeless corpse before her, the person on whom she had, from her first recollection, been accustomed to rely; who had provided for all her wants, and prevented every care for herself. And now she was left to perform for this dear friend the last sad offices, and knew not what would hereafter be her own lot.

In strong and excellent understandings there is, in every period of life, a force which distress enables them to exert, and which prevents their sinking under the pressure of those evils which overwhelm and subdue minds more feeble and unequal.

The spirits of Emmeline were yet unbroken by affliction, and her understanding was of the first rank. She possessed this native firmness in a degree very unusual to her age and s.e.x. Instead therefore of giving way to tears and exclamations, she considered how she should best perform all she now could do for her deceased friend; and having seen every proper care taken of her remains, and given orders for every thing relative to them, with the solemn serenity of settled sorrow, she retired to her room, where she began to reflect on her irreparable loss, and the melancholy situation in which she was left; which she never had courage to consider closely till it was actually before her.

Painful indeed were the thoughts that now crouded on her mind; encreasing the anguish of her spirit for her recent misfortune. She considered herself as a being belonging to n.o.body; as having no right to claim the protection of any one; no power to procure for herself the necessaries of life. On the steward Maloney she had long looked with disgust, from the a.s.sured and forward manner in which he thought proper to treat her. The freedom of his behaviour, which she could with difficulty repress while Mrs. Carey lived, might now, she feared, approach to more insulting familiarity; to be exposed to which, entirely in his power, and without any female companion, filled her with the most alarming apprehensions: and the more her mind dwelt on that circ.u.mstance the more she was terrified at the prospect before her; insomuch, that she would immediately have quitted the house--But whither could she go?

By abruptly leaving the asylum Lord Montreville had hitherto allowed her, she feared she might forfeit all claim to his future protection: and, unknown as she was to the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the country, who were few, and their houses at a great distance, she could hardly hope to be received by any of them.

She had therefore no choice left but to remain at the castle till she heard from Lord Montreville: and she determined to acquaint his Lords.h.i.+p of the death of Mrs. Carey, and desire to receive his commands as to herself.

Fatigued and oppressed, she retired to bed, but not to sleep. The image of her expiring protectress was still before her eyes; and if exhausted nature forced her to give way to a momentary forgetfulness, she soon started from her imperfect slumber, and fancied she heard the voice of Mrs. Carey, calling on her for help; and her last groan still vibrated in her ears!--while the stillness of the night, interrupted only by the cries of the owls which haunted the ruins, added to the gloomy and mournful sensations of her mind.

At length however the sun arose--the surrounding objects lost the horror that darkness and silence had lent them--and Emmeline fell into a short but refres.h.i.+ng repose.