Emmeline Part 49

Of all that related to her, he was at present ignorant. He had been told, that the infant which his wife and Miss Mowbray so often visited, was the son of an acquaintance of the latter; who being obliged soon after it's birth to go to the West Indies, had sent it to Bath to Emmeline, who had undertaken to overlook the nurse to whose care it was committed.

Into a circ.u.mstance which offered neither a scheme to occupy his mind, or money to purchase his pleasures, Stafford thought it not then worth his while farther to enquire; but now, in a country of which he understood not the language, and detached from his usual pursuits, Mrs.

Stafford knew not what strange suspicions the a.s.siduity of G.o.dolphin might excite in a head so oddly constructed; and without explaining her reasons to G.o.dolphin, she said enough to convince him that he must, with whatever reluctance, leave the lovely travellers at Havre.

He busied himself, however, in adjusting every thing for the safety of their journey; and being in the course of their preparations left alone with Emmeline in a room of the hotel, he could not forbear using the last opportunity he was likely to have of speaking to her.--

'Has Miss Mowbray any commands to Lady Adelina?'

'My most affectionate love!' answered Emmeline, 'my truest remembrance!

And tell her, that the moment I am settled I will give her an account of my situation, and of all that happens worth her knowing.'

'We shall hear then,' said he, forcing a melancholy smile, 'we shall hear when you meet the fortunate, the happy Mr. Delamere.'

'Lady Adelina,' blus.h.i.+ngly replied Emmeline, 'will certainly know it if I should meet him; but nothing is at present more improbable.'

'Tis now,' rea.s.sumed G.o.dolphin, 'the last week of January--February--March--ah! how soon March will come! Tell me, how long in that month may Adelina direct to Miss Mowbray?'

'Mr. Delamere, Sir,' said Emmeline, gravely, 'is not now in France.'

'But may he not immediately return thither from Geneva or any other place? Is my sister, Lady Westhaven, to be present at the ceremony?'

'The ceremony,' answered she, half angry and half vexed, 'may perhaps never take place.'

The awkwardness of her situation in regard to Delamere arose forcibly to her mind, and something lay very heavy at her heart. She tried to check the tears which were filling her eyes, least they should be imputed to a very different cause; but the effort she made to conquer her feelings rendered them more acute. She took out a handkerchief to wipe away these involuntary betrayers of her emotion, and sitting down, audibly sobbed.

G.o.dolphin had asked these questions, in that sort of desperate resolution which a person exerts who determines to know, in the hope of being able to endure, the worst that can befal him. But he was now shocked at the distress they had occasioned, and unable to bear the sight of her tears.

'Pardon me,' cried he, 'pardon me, most lovely, most amiable Emmeline!--oh! pardon me for having given a moment's pain to that soft and sensible bosom. Had I suspected that a reference to an event towards which I supposed you looked forward with pleasure, could thus affect you, I had not presumed to name it. Whenever it happens,' added he, after a short pause--'whenever it happens, Delamere will be the most enviable of human beings: and may you, Madam, be as happy as you are truly deserving of happiness!'

He dared not trust his voice with another word: but under pretence of fetching a gla.s.s of water left the room, and having recovered himself, quickly returned and offered it to Emmeline, again apologizing for having offended her.

She took the gla.s.s from him; and faintly smiling thro' her tears, said in the gentlest accents--'I am not offended--I am only low spirited.

Tired by the voyage, and shrinking from the fatigue of a long journey, yet you talk to me of a journey for life, on which I may never set out in the company you mention--and still more probably never undertake at all.'

The entrance of Mrs. Stafford, who came to entreat some directions from G.o.dolphin, prevented the continuance of this critical conversation; in which, whatever the words imported in regard to Delamere, he found but little hope for himself. He attributed what Emmeline had said to mere evasion, and her concern to some little accidental neglect on the part of her lover which had excited her displeasure. Ignorant of the jealousy Delamere had conceived from the misrepresentation of the Crofts', which the solicitude of Emmeline for the infant of Lady Adelina had so immediately matured, he had not the most distant idea of the truth; nor suspected that the pa.s.sion of Delamere for Emmeline, which he knew had within a few weeks been acknowledged without hesitation, and received with encouragement, was now become to him a source of insupportable torment; that she had left England without bidding him adieu, or even informing him that she was gone.

The two chaises were now ready; and G.o.dolphin having placed in the first, Mrs. Stafford and her younger children, approached Emmeline to lead her to the second, in which she was to accompany the elder. He stopped a moment as they were quitting the room, and said--'I cannot, Miss Mowbray, bid you adieu till you say you forgive me for the impertinence of my questions.'

'For impertinence?' answered Emmeline, giving him her hand--'I cannot forgive you, because I know not that you have been guilty of it. Before I go, however, allow me to thank you most sincerely for the protection you have afforded us.'

'And not one word,' cried he, 'not one parting good wish to your little _protege_--to my poor William?'

'Ah! I send him a thousand!' answered Emmeline.

'And one last kiss, which I will carry him.' She suffered him to salute her; and then he hastily led her to the chaise; and, as he put her in, said very solemnly--'Let me repeat my wishes, Madam, that wheresoever you are, you may enjoy felicity--felicity which I shall never again know; and that Mr. Delamere--the fortunate Delamere--may be as sensible of your value as----'

Emmeline, to avoid hearing this sentence concluded, bade the chaise proceed. It instantly did so with all the velocity a French postillion could give it; and hardly allowed her to observe the mournful countenance and desponding air with which G.o.dolphin bowed to her, as she, waving her hand, again bade him adieu!

The travellers arrived in due time safe at Rouen; where Mrs. Stafford found that her husband had been prevented meeting her, by the necessity he fancied himself under to watch the early nests of his Canary birds, of which he had now made a large collection, and whose encrease he attended to with greater solicitude than the arrival of his family. Mrs.

Stafford saw with an eye of hopeless regret a new source of expence and absurdity opened; but knowing that complaints were more likely to produce anger and resentment in his mind, than any alteration in his conduct, she was obliged to conceal her chagrin, and to take possession of the gloomy chateau which her husband had chosen for her residence, about six miles from Rouen; while Emmeline, with her usual equality of temper, tried to reconcile herself to her new abode, and to share and relieve the fatigue and uneasiness of her friend. She found the activity she was for this purpose compelled to exert, a.s.suaged and diverted that pain which she now could no longer hope to conquer, tho' she had not yet had the courage to ascertain, by a narrow examination of her heart in regard to G.o.dolphin, that it would be removed no more.

On the evening after he had bade her adieu, G.o.dolphin embarked in the pacquet which was on it's departure to England. The weather, tho' cold, was calm; and he sat down on the deck, where, after they had got a few leagues from France, all was profoundly quiet. Only the man at the helm and one sailor were awake on board. The vessel glided thro' the expanse of water; while the soul of G.o.dolphin fled back to Emmeline, and dwelt with lingering fondness on the object of all it's affection.

CHAPTER XI

Emmeline having thus quitted England, and Delamere appearing no longer to think of her, the Crofts', who had brought about an event so desirable for Lord Montreville, thought it time to claim the reward of such eminent service.

Miss Delamere, in meeting Lady Westhaven at Paris, had severely felt all the difference of their situation; and as she had repented of her clandestine union almost as soon as she had formed it, the comparison between her sister's husband and her own had embittered her temper, never very good, and made her return to England with reluctance; where she knew that she could not long evade acknowledging her marriage, and taking the inferior and humiliating name of _Mrs. Crofts_.

To avoid returning was however not in her power; nor could she prevail on Crofts to delay a declaration which must be attended with circ.u.mstances, to her most mortifying and unpleasant. But impatient to demand a daughter of Lord Montreville as his wife, and still more impatient to receive twelve thousand pounds, which was her's independant of her father, he would hear of no delay; and the present opportunity of conciliating Lord and Lady Montreville, was in the opinion of all the Crofts' family not to be neglected.

Sir Richard undertook to disclose the affair to Lord Montreville, and to parry the first effusions of his Lords.h.i.+p's anger by a very common, yet generally successful stratagem, that of affecting to be angry first, and drowning by his own clamours the complaints of the party really injured.

For this purpose, he waited early one morning on Lord Montreville, and with a countenance where scornful superiority was dismissed for pusillanimous dejection, he began.--

'My Lord--when I reflect and consider and remember the innumerable, invaluable and extraordinary favours, kindnesses and obligations I owe your Lords.h.i.+p, my heart bleeds--and I lament and deplore and regret that it is my lot to announce and declare and discover, what will I fear give infinite concern and distress and uneasiness to you--and my Lord----'

'What is all this, Sir Richard?' cried Lord Montreville, hastily interrupting him.--'Is Delamere married?'

'Heaven forbid!' answered the hypocritical Crofts.--'Bad, and unwelcome, and painful as what I have to say is, it does not amount or arise to that misfortune and calamity.'

'Whatever it is Sir,' said his Lords.h.i.+p impatiently, 'let me hear it at once.--Is it a dismission from my office?'

'Never, I hope!' replied Sir Richard. 'At least, for many years to come, may this country not know and feel and be sensible of such a loss, deprivation and defection. My Lord, my present concern is of a very different nature; and I do a.s.sure and protest to your Lords.h.i.+p that no time nor intreaties nor persuasion will erase and obliterate and wipe away from my mind, the injury and prejudice the parties have done _me_, by thus----'

'Keep me no longer in suspense!' almost angrily cried Lord Montreville.

'Mr. Crofts, my Lord; Mr. Crofts is, I find, married--'

'To _my_ daughter, Sir Richard.--Is it not so?'

'He is indeed, my Lord! and from this moment I disclaim, and renounce and protest against him; for my Lord----'

Sir Richard continued his harangue, to which Lord Montreville did not seem to attend. He was a moment silent, and then said--

'I have been more to blame than the parties.--I might have foreseen this. But I thought f.a.n.n.y's pride a sufficient defence against an inferior alliance. Pray Sir, does Lady Montreville know of this marriage?'

Sir Richard then related all that his son had told him; interlarding his account with every circ.u.mstance that might induce his Lords.h.i.+p to believe he was himself entirely ignorant of the intrigue. Lord Montreville, however, knew too much of mankind in general, and of the Crofts' in particular, to give implicit credit to this artful recital.

But Sir Richard was now become so necessary to him, and they had so many secrets in common of great consequence to the political reputation of both, that he could not determine to break with him. He considered too that resentment could not unmarry his daughter; that the lineal honours of his family could not be affected by her marriage; and that he owed the Crofts' some favour for having counteracted the indiscretion of Delamere. Determining therefore, after a short struggle, to sacrifice his pride to his politics, he dismissed Sir Richard with infinitely less appearance of resentment than he expected; and after long contention with the furious and irascible pride of his wife, prevailed upon her to let her daughter depart without her malediction. She would not see Crofts, or pardon her daughter; protesting that she never could be reconciled to a child of her's who bore such an appellation as that of '_Mrs. Crofts_.' Soon afterwards, however, the Marquisate which Lord Montreville had been so long promised was to be granted him. But his wife could not bear, that by a.s.suming a t.i.tle which had belonged to the Mowbray family, (a point he particularly wished to obtain) he should drop or render secondary those honours which he derived from _her_ ancestors. Wearied by her persecution, and accustomed to yield to her importunity, he at length gratified her, by relinquis.h.i.+ng the name he wished to bear, and taking the t.i.tle of Marquis of Montreville, while his son a.s.sumed that of Viscount Delamere. This circ.u.mstance seemed more than any other to reconcile Lady Montreville to her eldest daughter, whose surname she could evade under the more satisfactory appellation of Lady Frances. She was now therefore admitted to her mother's presence; Crofts received an haughty and reluctant pardon; and some degree of tranquillity was restored to the n.o.ble house of Mowbray-Delamere; while the Crofts', more elated and consequential than before, behaved as if they had inherited and deserved the fortune and splendor that surrounded them: and the table, the buildings, the furniture of Sir Richard, vied in expence and magnificence with those of the most affluent of the n.o.bility.

Lord Delamere, to whom the acquisition of a t.i.tle could offer nothing in mitigation of the anguish inflicted by disappointed love, was now at Dublin; where, immediately on his arrival, he had enquired for Colonel Fitz-Edward at the house of his brother, Lord Clancarryl.

As the family were in the country, and only a servant in it, he could not for some days obtain the information he wanted. He heard, however, that Lord Clancarryl was very soon expected, and for his arrival he determined to wait. In this interval of suspense, he heard from a correspondent in England, that Miss Mowbray had not only disappeared from Woodfield, but had actually quitted England; and was gone no one knew precisely whither; but it was generally supposed to France.