Emmeline Part 60

CHAPTER V

His Lords.h.i.+p told them that Lady Westhaven had been less alarmed at the account he had given her of Delamere than he had apprehended; and that she was preparing to begin their journey towards him immediately after breakfast.

'I must send,' continued he, 'Miss Mowbray to her; who is, I understand, already up and walking.'

Bellozane then informed his Lords.h.i.+p of what he knew of Emmeline. But G.o.dolphin was silent: he dared not trust himself with speaking much of her; he dared not relate her illness, lest the cause of it should be enquired into. 'Does Miss Mowbray go with my sister?' asked he.

'That I know not,' replied Lord Westhaven. 'Augusta will very reluctantly go without her. Yet her situation in regard to Lord Delamere is such'--He ceased speaking; looked embarra.s.sed; and, soon after, the Chevalier quitting the room, before whom civility would not allow them to converse long in English, and to whom his Lords.h.i.+p thought he had no right to reveal the real situation of Emmeline, while it yet remained unknown to others, he related to his brother the circ.u.mstances of the discovery that had been made of her birth, and of her consequent claim to the Mowbray estate.

G.o.dolphin, who would, from the obscurest indigence, have chosen her in preference to all other women, heard this account with pleasure, only as supposing that independance might be grateful to her sensibility, and affluence favourable to the liberality of her spirit. But the satisfaction he derived from these reflections, was embittered and nearly destroyed, when he considered, that her acquiring so large a fortune would make her alliance eagerly sought by the very persons who had before scorned and rejected her; and that all the family would unite in persuading her to forgive Delamere, the more especially as this would be the only means to keep in it the Mowbray estate, and to preclude the necessity of refunding the income which had been received for so many years, and which now amounted to a great sum of money. When the pressing instances of all her own family, and particularly of Lady Westhaven, whom she so tenderly loved, were added to the affection he believed she had invariably felt for Delamere, he thought it impossible that her pride, however it might have been piqued by the desertion of her lover, could make any effort against a renewal of her engagement; and his own hopes, which he had never cherished till he was convinced Delamere had given her up, and which had been weakened by her apparent affection for him, were by this last event again so nearly annihilated, that, no longer conscious he retained any, he fancied himself condemned still to love, serve, and adore the object of his pa.s.sion, without making any effort to secure it's success, or being permitted to appear otherwise than as her friend. He was vexed that he had been unguardedly explicit, in telling her that he had ever indulged those hopes at all; since he now feared it would be the means of depriving her conversation and her manner, when they were together, of that charming frankness, of which, tho' it rivetted his chains and encreased his torments, he could not bear to be deprived. Melancholy and desponding, he continued long silent after Lord Westhaven ceased speaking. Suddenly, however, awakening from his reverie, he said--'Does your Lords.h.i.+p think Miss Mowbray _ought_ to go to meet Lord Delamere?'

'Upon my word I know not how to advise: my wife is miserable without her, and fancies the sight of her will immediately restore Delamere. On the other hand, I believe Emmeline herself will with reluctance take a step that will perhaps, appear like forcing herself into the notice of a man from whom she has received an affront which it is hardly in female nature to forgive.'

They were now interrupted by Bellozane, who flew about the house in evident uneasiness and confusion. He did not yet know how Emmeline was to be disposed of: he saw that Lord Westhaven was himself uncertain of it; and he had been applying for information to Le Limosin and Madelon, who had yet received no orders to prepare for her departure.

While Emmeline had created in the bosoms of others so much anxiety, she was herself tortured with the cruellest uncertainty. Unable to resolve how she ought to act, she had yet determined on nothing, when Lady Westhaven sent for her, who, as soon as she entered the room, said--'My dear Emmeline, are you not preparing for our journey?'

'How can I, dearest Madam--how can I, with any propriety, go where Lord Delamere is? After the separation which has now so decidedly and irrevocably taken place between us, shall I intrude again on his Lords.h.i.+p's sight? and solicit a return of that regard with which I most sincerely wish he had forborne to honour me?'

'You are piqued, my lovely friend; and I own with great reason. But Mr.

G.o.dolphin has undoubtedly told you that poor Frederic is truly penitent; that he has taken this journey merely to deprecate your just anger and to solicit his pardon. Will my Emmeline, generous and gentle as she is to others, be inexorable only to him? Besides, my sweet coz, pray consider a moment, what else can you do? You certainly would not wish to stay here? Surely you would not travel alone to St. Germains. And let me add my own hopes that you will not quit me now, when poor Frederic's illness, and my own precarious health, make your company not merely pleasant but necessary.'

'That is indeed a consideration which must have great force with me.

When Lady Westhaven commands, how shall I disobey, even tho' to obey be directly contrary to my judgment and my wishes.'

'Commands, my dear friend,' very gravely, and with an air of chagrin, said her Ladys.h.i.+p, 'are neither for me to give or for you to receive.

Certainly if you are so determined against going with me, I must submit.

But I did not indeed think that Emmeline, however the brother may have offended her, would thus have resented it to the sister.'

'I should be a monster, Lady Westhaven,' (hardly was she able to restrain her tears as she spoke,)--'was I a moment capable of forgetting all I owe you. But do you really think I _ought_ again to put myself in the way of Lord Delamere--again to renew all the family contention which his very unfortunate partiality for me has already occasioned; and again to hazard being repulsed with contempt by the Marquis, and still more probably by the Marchioness of Montreville. My lot has. .h.i.therto been humble: I have learned to submit to it, if not without regret, at least with calmness and resignation; yet pardon me if I say, that however unhappy my fortune, there is still something due to myself; and if I again make myself liable to the humiliation of being _refused_, I shall feel that I am degraded in mind, as much as I have been in circ.u.mstances, and lost to that proper pride to which innocence and rect.i.tude has in the lowest indigence a right, and which cannot be relinquished but with the loss of virtue.'

The spirit which Emmeline thought herself obliged to exert, was immediately lost in softness and in sorrow when she beheld Lady Westhaven in tears; who, sobbing, said--'Go then, Miss Mowbray!--Go, my dear Emmeline! (for dear you must ever be to me) leave _me_ to be unhappy and poor Frederic to die.'

'Hear me, my dear Madam!' answered she with quickness--'If to _you_ I can be of the least use, I will hesitate no longer; but let it then be understood that I go _with_ you, and by no means _to_ Lord Delamere.'

'It shall be so understood--be a.s.sured, my love, it shall! You will not, then, leave me?--You will see my poor brother?'

'My best, my dearest friend,' replied Emmeline, collecting all her fort.i.tude, 'hear me without resentment explain to you at once the real situation of my heart in regard to Lord Delamere. I feel for him the truest concern; I feel it for him even to a painful excess; and I have an affection for him, a sisterly affection for him, which I really believe is little inferior to your own. But I will not deceive you; nor, since I am to meet him, will I suffer him to entertain hopes that it is impossible for me to fulfil. To be considered as the friend, as the sister of Lord Delamere, is one of the first wishes my heart now forms--against ever being his wife, I am resolutely determined.'

'Impossible!--Surely you cannot have made such a resolution?'

'I have indeed!--Nor will any consideration on earth induce me from that determination to recede.'

'And is it anger and resentment only have raised in your heart this decided enmity to my poor brother? Or is it, that any other----'

Emmeline, whose colourless cheeks were suffused with a deep blush at this speech, hastily interrupted it.--

'Whatever, dear Lady Westhaven, are my motives for the decision, it is irrevocable; as Lord Delamere's sister, I shall be honoured, if I am allowed to consider myself.--As such, if my going with you to Besancon will give you a day's--an hour's satisfaction, I go.'

'Get ready then, my love. But indeed, cruel girl, if such is your resolution it were better to leave you here, than take you only to shew Lord Delamere all he has lost, while you deprive him of all hopes of regaining you. But I will yet flatter myself you do not mean all this.--"At lovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs."--And those of my fair cousin will be forgiven, should she break her angry vow and receive her poor penitent. Come, let us hasten to begin our journey to him; for tho' that dear G.o.dolphin, whom I shall love as long as I live,' (ah!

thought Emmeline, and so shall I) 'a.s.sures me he does not think him in any danger, my heart will sadly ache till I see him myself.'

Emmeline then left her to put up her cloaths and prepare for a journey to which she was determined solely by the pressing instances of Lady Westhaven. To herself she foresaw only uneasiness and embarra.s.sment; and even found a degree of cruelty in permitting Lord Delamere to feed, by her consenting to attend him, those hopes to which she now could never accede, unless by condemning herself to the most wretched of all lots--that of marrying one man while her love was another's. The late narrative which she had heard from G.o.dolphin, encreased her affection for him, and took from her every wish to oppose it's progress; and tho'

she was thus compelled to see Delamere, she determined not to deceive him, but to tell him ingenuously that he had lost all that tenderness which her friends.h.i.+p and long acquaintance with him would have induced her to cherish, had not his own conduct destroyed it--

But it was hardly less necessary to own to him part of the truth, than to conceal the rest. Should he suspect that G.o.dolphin was his rival, and a rival fondly favoured, she knew that his pride, his jealousy, his resentment, would hurry him into excesses more dreadful, than any that had yet followed his impetuous love or his unbridled pa.s.sions.

The apprehensions that he must, if they were long together, discover it, were more severely distressing than any she had yet felt; and she resolved, both now and when they reached Besancon, to keep the strictest guard on her words and looks; and to prevent if possible her real sentiments being known to Delamere, to Lady Westhaven, and to G.o.dolphin himself.

So painful and so difficult appeared the dissimulation necessary for that end; and so contrary did she feel it to her nature, that she was withheld only by her love to Lady Westhaven from flying to England with Mrs. Stafford; and should she be restored to her estate, she thought that the only chance she had of tranquillity would be to hide herself from Delamere, whom she at once pitied and dreaded, and from G.o.dolphin, whom she tenderly loved, in the silence and seclusion of Mowbray Castle.

Her embarra.s.sment and uneasiness were encreased, when, on her joining Lord and Lady Westhaven, whose carriages and baggage were now ready, she found that the Chevalier de Bellozane had insisted on escorting them; an offer which they had no pretence to refuse. On her taking leave of the Baron, he very warmly and openly recommended his son to her favour; and Mrs. St. Alpin, who was very fond of her, repeated her wishes that she would listen to her nephew; and both with unfeigned concern saw their English visitors depart. Captain G.o.dolphin had a place in his brother's chaise; Madelon occupied that which on the former journey was filled by Bellozane in the coach, the Chevalier now proceeding on horseback.

During the journey, Emmeline was low and dejected; from which she was sometimes roused by impatient enquiries and fearful apprehensions which darted into her mind, of what was to happen at the end of it. Every thing he observed, confirmed G.o.dolphin in his persuasion that her heart was wholly Delamere's: her behaviour to himself was civil, but even studiously distant; while the unreserved and ardent addresses of Bellozane, who made no mystery of his pretensions, she repulsed with yet more coldness and severity: and tho' towards Lord and Lady Westhaven the sweetness of her manners was yet preserved, she seemed overwhelmed with sadness, and her vivacity was quite lost.

As soon as they reached Besancon, Lord Westhaven directed the carriages to stop at another hotel, while he went with his brother to that where Lord Delamere was. At the door, they met Millefleur; who, overjoyed to see them, related, that since Mr. G.o.dolphin left his master the violence of his impatience had occasioned a severe relapse, in which, according to the orders Mr. G.o.dolphin had given, the surgeons had bled and blistered him; that he was now again better, but very weak; yet so extremely ungovernable and self-willed, that the French people who attended him could do nothing with him, and that his English footmen, and Millefleur himself, were forced to be constantly in his room to prevent his leaving it or committing some other excess that might again irritate the fever and bring on alarming symptoms. They hastened to him; and found not only that his fever still hung on him, tho' with less violence, but that he was also extremely emaciated; and that only his youth had supported him thro' so severe an illness, or could now enable him to struggle with it's effects.

The moment they entered the room, he enquired after his sister and Emmeline; and hearing the latter was actually come, he protested he would instantly go to her.

Lord Westhaven and G.o.dolphin resolutely opposed so indiscreet a plan: the former, by his undeviating rect.i.tude of mind and excellent sense, had acquired a greater ascendant over Delamere than any of his family had before possessed; and to the latter he thought himself so much obliged, that he could not refuse to attend to him. He consented therefore at length to remain where he was; and Lord Westhaven hastened back to his wife, whom he led immediately to her brother.

She embraced him with many tears; and was at first greatly shocked at his altered countenance and reduced figure. But as Lord Westhaven and G.o.dolphin both a.s.sured her there was no longer any danger if he would consent to be governed, she was soothed into hope of his speedy recovery and soon became tolerably composed.

As Lord Westhaven and G.o.dolphin soon left them alone, he began to talk to his sister of Emmeline. He told her, that when he had been undeceived by Mr. G.o.dolphin, and the scandalous artifices discovered which had raised in his mind such injurious suspicions, he had declared to Lord and Lady Montreville his resolution to proceed no farther in the treaty which they had hurried on with Miss Otley, and had solicited their consent, to his renewing and fulfilling that, which he had before entered into with Miss Mowbray; but that his mother, with more anger and acrimony than ever, had strongly opposed his wishes; and that his father had forbidden him, on pain of his everlasting displeasure, ever again to think of Emmeline.

After having for some time, he said, combated their inveterate prejudice, he had left them abruptly, and set out with his three servants for St. Alpin, (where G.o.dolphin informed him Emmeline was to be;) when a fever, owing to heat and fatigue, seized and confined him where he now was.

'Ah, tell me, my sister, what hopes are there that Emmeline will pardon me? May I dare enquire whether she is yet to be moved in my favour?'

Lady Westhaven, who during their journey could perceive no symptoms that her resolution was likely to give way, dared not feed him with false hopes; yet unwilling to depress him by saying all she feared, she told him that Emmeline was greatly and with justice offended; but that all he could at present do, was to take care of his health. She entreated him to consider the consequence of another relapse, which might be brought on by his eagerness and emotion; and then conjuring him to keep all he knew of Lady Adelina a secret from Lord Westhaven (the necessity of which he already had heard from G.o.dolphin) she left him and returned to Emmeline.

To avoid the importunity of Bellozane, and the melancholy looks of G.o.dolphin, which affected her with the tenderest sorrow, she had retired to a bed chamber, where she waited the return of Lady Westhaven with impatience.

Her solicitude for Delamere was very great; and her heart greatly lightened when she found that even his tender and apprehensive sister did not think him in any immediate danger, and believed that a few days would put him out of hazard even of a relapse.

She now again thought, that since Lady Westhaven had nothing to fear for his life, her presence would be less necessary; and her mind, the longer it thought of Mowbray Castle, adhering with more fondness to her plan of flying thither, she considered how she might obtain in a few days Lady Westhaven's consent to the preliminary measure of quitting Besancon.

CHAPTER VI

While the heiress of Mowbray Castle meditated how to escape thither from the embarra.s.sed and uneasy situation in which she now was; and while she fancied that in retirement she might conceal, if she could not conquer, her affection for G.o.dolphin, (tho' in fact she only languished for an opportunity of thinking of him perpetually without observation), Lady Westhaven laid in wait for an occasion to try whether the ruined health and altered looks of her brother, would not move, in his favour, her tender and sensible friend.

While Delamere kept his chamber, Emmeline easily evaded an interview; but when, after three or four days, he was well enough to leave it, it was no longer possible for her to escape seeing him. However G.o.dolphin thought himself obliged to bury in silence his unfortunate pa.s.sion, he could not divest himself of that painful curiosity which urged him to observe the behaviour of Emmeline on their first meeting. Bellozane had discovered on what footing Lord Delamere had formerly been; and he dreaded a renewal of that preference she had given her lover, to which his proud heart could ill bear to submit, tho' he could himself make no progress in her favour. Tho' Lady Westhaven had entreated her to see Delamere alone, she had refused; a.s.signing as a reason that as he could never again be to her any other than a friend, nothing could possibly pa.s.s which her other friends might not hear. Delamere was obliged therefore to brook the hard conditions of seeing her as an indifferent person, or not seeing her at all. But tho' she was immoveably determined against receiving him again as a lover, she had not been able to steel her heart against his melancholy appearance; his palid countenance, his emaciated form, extremely affected her. And when he approached her, bowed with a dejected air, and offered to take her hand--her haughtiness, her resentment forsook her--she trembling gave it, expressed in incoherent words her satisfaction at seeing him better, and betrayed so much emotion, that G.o.dolphin, who with a beating heart narrowly observed her, saw, as he believed, undoubted proof of her love; and symptoms of her approaching forgiveness.