Emmeline Part 71

'But how do you know, Barret, that your lady employs herself in writing verses about her own unhappiness?'

'Dear, Ma'am, I have found them about every where. When the Captain is absent, my lady is indifferent where she leaves them. Sometimes four or five sheets lay open on the table in her little dressing room, and sometimes upon her music.'

Emmeline was too certain that such were the occupations of her poor friend. During the short time they had been together, Lady Adelina had shewn her some work; and as she took it out of her drawer, she drew out some papers with it.

'I do but little work,' said she. 'I find even embroidery does not serve to call off my thoughts sufficiently from myself. I read a good deal in books of mere amus.e.m.e.nt, for of serious application I am incapable; and here is another specimen of my method of employing myself, which perhaps you will not think a remedy for melancholy thoughts.'

She put a written paper into Emmeline's hand, who was about to open it; but Lady Adelina added, with a pensive smile, 'do not read it now; rather keep it till you are alone.'

This paper Emmeline took out to peruse as soon as she had dismissed Barret. Her heart bled as she ran over this testimony of the anguish and despondence which preyed on the heart of Lady Adelina. It was an

ODE TO DESPAIR

Thou spectre of terrific mien, Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye, In whose fierce train each form is seen That drives sick Reason to insanity!

I woo thee with unusual prayer, 'Grim visaged, comfortless Despair!'

Approach; in me a willing victim find, Who seeks thine iron sway--and calls thee kind!

Ah! hide for ever from my sight The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay, Portrays some vision of delight, Then bids the fairy tablet fade away; While in dire contrast, to mine eyes Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise, And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower, Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!

I bid the traitor Love, adieu!

Who to this fond, believing bosom came, A guest insidious and untrue, With Pity's soothing voice--in Friends.h.i.+p's name; The wounds _he_ gave, nor Time shall cure, Nor Reason teach me to endure.

And to that breast mild Patience pleads in vain, Which feels the curse--of meriting it's pain.

Yet not to me, tremendous power!

Thy worst of spirit-wounding pangs impart, With which, in dark conviction's hour, Thou strik'st the guilty unrepentant heart!

But of Illusion long the sport, That dreary, tranquil gloom I court Where my past errors I may still deplore And dream of long-lost happiness no more!

To thee I give this tortured breast, Where Hope arises but to foster pain; Ah! lull it's agonies to rest!

Ah! let me never be deceiv'd again!

But callous, in thy deep repose Behold, in long array, the woes Of the dread future, calm and undismay'd, Till I may claim the hope--that shall not fade!

The feelings of a mind which could dictate such an address, appeared to Emmeline so greatly to be lamented, and so unlikely to be relieved, that the tender and painful compa.s.sion she had ever been sensible of for her unhappy friend, was if possible augmented. Full of ideas almost as mournful as those by which they had been inspired, she went to bed, but not to tranquil sleep. Her spirits, worn by her journey, and oppressed by her concern for Lady Adelina, were yet busy; and instead of the uneasy images which had pursued her while she waked, they represented to her others yet more terrifying. She beheld, in her dreams, G.o.dolphin wildly seeking vengeance of Fitz-Edward for the death of his sister.

Then, instead of Fitz-Edward, Lord Delamere appeared to be the object of his wrath, and mutual fury seemed to animate them against the lives of each other. To them, her uncle, in all the phrenzy of grief and despair, succeeded; overwhelmed her with reproaches for the loss of his only son, and tore her violently away from G.o.dolphin, who in vain pursued her.

These horrid visions returned so often, drest in new forms of terror, that Emmeline, having long resisted the impression they made upon her, could at length bear them no longer; but shaking off all disposition to indulge sleep on such terms, she arose from her bed, and wrapping herself up in her night gown, went to the window. The dawn did not yet appear; but she sat down by the window, of which she had opened the shutter to watch it's welcome approach.

The morning, for it was between three and four, was mild; the declining stars were obscured by no cloud, and served to shew dimly the objects in the garden beneath her. She softly opened the sash; listened to the low, hollow murmur of the sea; and surveyed the lawn and the hill behind it, which, by the faint and uncertain light, she could just discern. All breathed a certain solemn and melancholy stillness calculated to inspire horror. Emmeline's blood ran cold; yet innocence like her's really fears nothing if free from the prejudices of superst.i.tion. She endeavoured to conquer the disagreeable sensations she felt, and to shake off the effects of her dreams; but the silence, and the gloominess of the scene, a.s.sisted but little her efforts, and she cast an eye of solicitude towards the Eastern horizon, and wished for the return of the sun.

In this disposition of mind, she was at once amazed and alarmed, by seeing the figure of a man, tall and thin, wrapped in a long horseman's coat, as if on purpose to disguise him, force himself out from between the shrubs which bounded one part of the lawn. He looked not towards the windows; but with folded arms, and his hat over his eyes, was poring on the ground, while with slow steps he crossed the lawn and came immediately under the windows of the house.

When she first perceived him, she had started back from that where she sat; but tho' greatly surprized, she could not forbear watching him: on longer observing his figure, she fancied it was that of a gentleman; and by his slow walk and manner he did not appear to have any design to attack the house. Her presence of mind never forsook her unless where her heart was greatly affected; and she had now courage enough to determine that she would still continue for some moments to observe him, and would not alarm the servants till she saw reason to believe he had ill intentions. She sat therefore quite still; and saw, that instead of making any attempt to enter the house, he traversed the whole side of it next the lawn, with a measured and solemn pace, several times; then stopped a moment, again went to the end, and slowly returned; and having continued to do so near an hour, he crossed the gra.s.s, and disappeared among the shrubs from whence he had issued.

Had not Emmeline been very sure that she not only heard his footsteps distinctly as he pa.s.sed over a gravel walk in his way, but even heard him breathe hard and short, as if agitated or fatigued, she would almost have persuaded herself that it was a phantom raised by her disordered spirits. The longer she reflected on it, the more incomprehensible it seemed, that a man should, at such an hour, make such an excursion, apparently to so little purpose. That it was with a dishonest design there seemed no likelihood, as he made no effort to force his way into the house, which he might easily have done; and had he come on a clandestine visit to any of the servants, he would probably have had some signal by which his confederates would have been informed of his approach. But he seemed rather fearful of disturbing the sleeping inhabitants; his step was slow and light; and on perceiving the first rays of the morning, he 'started like a guilty thing,' and swiftly stepped away to his concealment.

Emmeline continued some time at the window after his disappearance, believing he might return. But it soon grew quite light: the gardener appeared at his work; and she was then convinced that he would for that time come no more.

So extraordinary a circ.u.mstance, however, dwelt on her mind; nor could she entirely divest herself of alarm. A strange and confused idea that this visitor might be some one not unknown to her, crossed her mind. His height answered almost equally to that of Bellozane, G.o.dolphin, and Fitz-Edward. The latter, indeed, was rather the tallest, and to him she thought the figure bore the greatest resemblance. Yet he had taken leave of her ten days before she left London, and told her he was going down to Mr. Percival's, in Berks.h.i.+re; where, as he was very anxious to hear of Lady Adelina, he had desired Mrs. Stafford to write to him; (who had done so, and had received an answer of thanks dated from thence before the departure of Emmeline from London). That Fitz-Edward, therefore, should be the person, seemed improbable; yet it was hardly less so that a night ruffian should be on foot so long, without any attempt to execute mischief, or even the appearance of examining how it might be perpetrated. After long consideration, she determined, that lest the first conjecture should be true, she would speak to n.o.body of the stranger she had seen; but would watch another night, before she either terrified Lady Adelina with the apprehension of robbers, or gave rise to conjectures in her and the servants of yet more disquieting tendency.

Having taken this resolution, and argued herself out of all those fears for her personal safety which might have enfeebled a less rational mind, she met Lady Adelina at breakfast with her usual ease, and almost with her usual chearfulness: but she was pale, and her eyes were heavy: Lady Adelina remarked it with concern; but Emmeline, making light of it, imputed it intirely to the fatigue of her journey; and when their breakfast was finished, proposed a walk. To this her friend a.s.sented; and while she went to give some orders, and to fetch the c.r.a.pe veil in which she usually wrapped herself, (for even her dress partook something of the mournful cast of her mind), Emmeline, already equipped, went into the lawn, and saw plainly where the stranger had made his way thro' the thick shrubs, and where the flexible branches of a young larch were twisted away, a laurel broken, and that some deciduous trees behind them had lost all their lower leaves; which, having sustained the first frosts, fell on the slightest violence. She marked the place with her eye; and determined to observe whether, if he came again, it was from thence.

Emmeline now desired that Madelon might come with them to wait on little William, rather than his own maid; as she understood English so ill, that she would be no interruption to their discourse. They then walked arm in arm together towards the sea; and there Lady Adelina, who now enjoyed the opportunity she had so long languished for, opened to her sympathizing friend the sorrows of an heart struggling vainly with a pa.s.sion she condemned, and sinking under ineffectual efforts to vindicate her honour and eradicate her love.

She knew not that Fitz-Edward had ever written to her. G.o.dolphin, well acquainted with his hand, had kept the letter from her. She knew not that he had applied to Emmeline: and tho' she had torn herself from him, and had vowed never again to write to him, to name him, to hear from him, she involuntarily felt disposed to accuse him of neglect, of ingrat.i.tude, of cruelty, for having never attempted to write to her or see her; and added the poignant anguish of jealousy to the dreary horrors of despair. That Fitz-Edward was for ever lost to her, she seemed to be convinced; yet that he should forget her, or attach himself to another, seemed a torment so entirely insupportable, that when her mind dwelt upon it, as it perpetually did, her reason was inadequate to the pain it inflicted; and when she touched on that subject, Emmeline too evidently saw symptoms of that derangement of intellect to which she had once before been a melancholy witness.

With a mind thus unsettled, and a heart thus oppressed, the consequences of touching on the application of Fitz-Edward to herself, might, as Emmeline believed, have the most alarming effect on Lady Adelina. And she dared not therefore name it unless she had the concurrence of G.o.dolphin. She only attempted to soothe and tranquillize her mind, without giving her those a.s.surances of his undiminished attachment, which, she thought, might in the event only encrease her anguish, if her brother remained inflexible. On the other hand, she forbore to remonstrate with her on the necessity there might be to forget him; being too well convinced that the arguments which were to enforce that doctrine, would be useless, and perhaps appear cruel, to a heart so deeply wounded as was that of the luckless, lovely Adelina.

But in pouring her sorrows into the bosom of her friend she appeared to find consolation. The tender pity of Emmeline was a balm to her wounded mind; and growing more composed, she began to discourse on the singular discovery Emmeline had made, and to enter with some interest into the affairs depending between her and the Marquis of Montreville; and by questions, aided by the natural frankness of Emmeline, at length became acquainted with the happy prospects, which, tho' distant, opened to G.o.dolphin.

This was the only information that seemed to have the power of suspending for a moment the weight of those afflictions which Lady Adelina suffered. 'My brother then,' cried she--'my dear G.o.dolphin, will be happy! And you, my most amiable friend, will const.i.tute, while you share his felicity. Ah! fortunate, thrice fortunate for ye both, was the hour of your meeting; for heaven and nature surely designed ye for each other! Fortunate, too, were those circ.u.mstances which divided my Emmeline from Delamere, before indissoluble bonds enchained you for ever. Had it been otherwise; had _your_ guardian angel slumbered as _mine did_; you too, all lovely and deserving as you are, would have been condemned to the bitterest of all lots, and might have discovered all the excellence and worth of G.o.dolphin, when your duty and your honour allowed you no eyes but for Delamere. _Your_ destiny is more happy--yet not happier than you deserve. Oh! may it quickly be fixed unalterably; and long, very long, may it endure! So shall your Adelina, for the little while she drags on a reluctant existence, have something on which to lean for the alleviation of her sorrows; and when she shall interrupt your felicity no longer by the sight of cureless calamity, she will, in full confidence, entrust the sole tie she has on earth, the dear and innocent victim of her fatal weakness, to the compa.s.sionate bosoms of G.o.dolphin and his Emmeline!'

The tremulous voice and singular manner in which Lady Adelina uttered these words, made Emmeline tremble. She now tried to divert the attention of her poor friend, from dwelling too earnestly either on her own wretchedness or the promised felicity of her brother: but, as if exhausted by the mingled emotions of pain and pleasure, she soon afterwards fell into a deep silence; scarce attending to what was said; and after a long pause, she suddenly called to Madelon, in whose arms her little boy had fallen asleep, and looking at him earnestly a moment, took him from the maid, and carried him towards the house. Emmeline, more and more convinced of her partial intellectual derangement, followed her, dreading lest she should see it encrease, without the power of applying any remedy. Before Lady Adelina reached the gate, which opened from the cliffs to the lawn, she was fatigued by her lovely burthen and forced to stop. Emmeline would then have taken him; but she said 'No!' and sitting down on the ground, held him in her lap, till Barret, who had seen her from a window, came out and took him from her; to which, as to a thing usual, she consented, and then walked calmly home with Emmeline, who, extremely discomposed by the wildness of her manner, was fearful of again introducing any interesting topic, lest she should again touch those fine chords which were untuned in the mind of her unhappy friend; and which seemed occasionally to vibrate with an acuteness that threatened the ruin of the whole fabric. Barret, who afterwards came to a.s.sist her in dressing, told her, that within the last six weeks her lady had often been subject to long fits of absence, sometimes of tears; which generally ended in her s.n.a.t.c.hing the child eagerly to her, kissing him with the wildest fondness, and that after having kept him with her some time, and wept extremely, she usually became rational and composed for the rest of the day.

CHAPTER XII

When Emmeline met Lady Adelina at dinner, she had the satisfaction to find her quite tranquil and easy. As the afternoon proved uncommonly fine, and Emmeline was never weary of contemplating the scenery which surrounded them, she willingly consented to Lady Adelina's proposal of another ramble; that she might see some beautiful cliffs, a little farther from the house than she had yet been. There, she was pleased to find, that her fair friend seemed to call off her mind from it's usual painful occupations to admire the charms, which on one side a very lovely country, and on the other an extensive sea view, offered to their sight.

'You cannot imagine, my Emmeline,' said she, 'how exquisitely beautiful the prospect is from the point of these rocks where we stand, in the midst of summer; now the sun, more distant, gives it a less glowing and rich l.u.s.tre, and reflects not his warm rays on the sea, and on the white cliffs that hang over it. Here it was, that indulging that melancholy for which I have too much reason, I made, while my brother was absent last summer, some lines, which, if it was pleasant to repeat one's own poetry, I would read to you, as descriptive at once of the scene, and the state of mind in which I surveyed it.'

Emmeline now earnestly pressing her to gratify the curiosity she had thus raised, at length prevailed upon her to repeat the following

SONNET

Far on the sands, the low, retiring tide, In distant murmurs hardly seems to flow, And o'er the world of waters, blue and wide The sighing summer wind, forgets to blow.

As sinks the day star in the rosy West, The silent wave, with rich reflection glows; Alas! can tranquil nature give _me_ rest, Or scenes of beauty, soothe me to repose?

Can the soft l.u.s.tre of the sleeping main, Yon radient heaven; or all creation's charms, 'Erase the written troubles of the brain,'

Which Memory tortures, and which Guilt alarms?

Or bid a bosom transient quiet prove, That bleeds with vain remorse, and unextinguish'd love!

The 'season and the scene' were brought by this description full on the mind of Emmeline; yet she almost immediately repented having pressed Adelina to repeat to her what seemed to have led her again into her usual tract of sad reflection. She fell, as usual, into one of her reveries, and as they walked homewards said very little. The rest of the evening, however, pa.s.sed in a sort of mournful tranquillity--Adelina seemed to feel encreasing pleasure as she gazed on her friend; and remembering all her goodness, reflected on the happiness of her brother.

But this satisfaction was not of that kind which seeks to express itself in words; and Emmeline, sensible of great anxiety for her and G.o.dolphin, (who would, she knew, be cruelly hurt by the relapse which he feared threatened his sister) and busied in no pleasant conjectures about the person whom she had seen in the lawn, was in no spirits for conversation. Nor did her thoughts, when they wandered to other objects from those immediately before her, bring home much to appease her anxiety. That nothing had yet been heard of Lord and Lady Westhaven, was extremely disquieting. She knew not that the Marquis of Montreville had received a letter for her under cover to him; and that having sent it to Mr. Crofts in another, in order to be forwarded to her, the latter had exercised his political talents, and supposing it related to her claims on Lord Montreville, and probably contained instructions for pursuing them, and that therefore his Lords.h.i.+p would be but little concerned if it never reached the place of its destination, he had very composedly put it into the fire; and undertook, should it be enquired for, to account for it's failure without suffering the name of Lord Montreville to be called in question.

The Marquis, tho' his conscience had been so long under the direction of Sir Richard Crofts that it ought to have acquired insensibility as callous as his own, yet found it sometimes a very troublesome companion; and it often spoke to him so severely on the subject of his niece, that he was more than once on the point of writing to her, to say he was ready to make her the retribution to which his heart told him she had the clearest pretensions, and which his fears whispered that a court of justice would certainly render her.

These qualms and these fears, would inevitably have produced a restoration of the Mowbray estate to it's owner, had they not been counteracted by the influence of the Marchioness of Montreville and Sir Richard Crofts. The Marchioness, now in declining health, felt all the inefficacy of riches, and all the fallacy of ambition; yet could she not determine to relinquish one, or to own that the other had but little power to confer happiness. That Emmeline Mowbray, whom she had despised and rejected, should suddenly become heiress to a large fortune, and that of that fortune her own children should be deprived; that Lord Westhaven should be the instrument to a.s.sist her in this hateful transition, and should interfere for this obscure orphan, against the interest of the ill.u.s.trious family into which he had married; stung her to the soul, and irritated the natural asperity of her temper, already soured by the repeated defection of Delamere, and her own continual ill health, till it was grown insupportable to others, and injurious to herself; since it aggravated all her complaints, and put it out of the power of medicine to relieve her.

Rather than encrease these maladies by opposition, his Lords.h.i.+p was content to yield to delay. And while her haughtiness and violence withheld him on one hand from settling with his niece, Sir Richard a.s.sailed him on the other with cool and plausible arguments; and together they obliged him to have recourse to such expedients as gained time, without his having much hope that he could finally detain the property of his late brother from his daughter, who seemed likely to establish her right to it's possession.

At once to indulge his avarice and quiet his conscience, he would willingly have consented to pay her a considerable portion, and to leave her right to the whole undecided; but of such an accommodation there seemed no probability, unless he could win over Lord Westhaven to his interest. He thought, however, that there could be little doubt of his re-uniting the Mowbray estate with his own, by promoting the marriage between Emmeline and Lord Delamere, which he had hitherto so strenuously opposed. But this, he knew, must be the last resort; not only because he was ashamed so immediately to avow a change of opinion in regard to Emmeline, which could have happened only from her change of circ.u.mstances, but because the dislike which Lady Montreville had originally conceived towards her, now amounted to the most determined and inveterate hatred.