Emmeline Part 79

'Oh! my father!' loudly exclaimed Lady Westhaven, with a dreadful shriek--'Who shall dare to announce these tidings to you?'

'Send,' continued G.o.dolphin, 'an express to Lord Montreville. He is at Lord Dornock's; and dispatch another to my brother. Pray take care of your own health. It is now impossible for me to stay--the poor languis.h.i.+ng Delamere expects me.' He then ran hastily away; and Emmeline, struggling with all her power against her own anguish, was obliged to commit her friend to the care of her servants, while she sat down to write to Lord Montreville. Her letter contained only two lines.

'My dear Lord,

'Your son is very ill. We are much alarmed; and Lady Westhaven begs you will immediately come hither. Do not go to Berkley-square.

EMMELINE MOWBRAY.'

_Grosvenor-street, April 5th._

This note, short as it was, she had the utmost difficulty to make legible. A servant was sent off with it, who was ordered to answer no questions; and in another short and incoherent note she told to Lord Westhaven the melancholy truth, and sent it by express into Kent.

Having thus obeyed G.o.dolphin as well as she could; she returned to Lady Westhaven, who could not be prevailed upon to go to bed, but insisted on being allowed to see her brother. Emmeline, dreadfully terrified by her obstinacy, now sent for the two physicians who usually attended the family. One of them had been taken by G.o.dolphin to Delamere; but the other instantly attended the summons. Every argument he could use failing entirely of effect, he was obliged to administer to her a remedy, which soon acting on her fatigued and exhausted spirits, threw her for a short time into insensibility. While poor Emmeline, who expected soon the arrival of the unhappy father, and who waited with torturing anxiety for news from G.o.dolphin, could not even sit down; but wandered about the house, and walked from room to room, as if change of place could shorten or lessen her dreadful suspence.

No news, however, came from G.o.dolphin. But a little before eight o'clock, the Marquis's chaise stopped at the door.

He got out; asked faulteringly of the servants for his son. Their looks imported sad tidings; but they were ordered to profess ignorance, and it was the excruciating task allotted to Emmeline to inform this wretched parent that his only son, the pride and support of his life, had fallen; and what made it still more horrid, by the hand of his daughter's paramour. Lord Montreville entered the drawing room; and the wild and pallid looks of his niece struck him with such horror, that he could only p.r.o.nounce with trembling lips the name of Delamere: and then throwing himself into a chair, seemed to expect she should tell him what he was unable to ask.

She approached him; but words failed her.

'Delamere!--my son!' cried he, in a voice hollow and tremulous.

'He is not dead, my Lord.'

'Not dead! wherefore is it then that you look thus? Oh! what is it I am to know?'

Emmeline then briefly related his situation, as she had heard it from G.o.dolphin. She had only said, that tho' desperately wounded he yet lived, when Lord Montreville, gazing on her with eyes that bespoke the agony of his soul, and seizing her violently by the hand, said--'Come, then, with me! come to him with me, now, this instant!'

He then burst out of the room, still taking her with him. She knew not why he wished her to follow; but went, unequal to resistance or enquiry.

His chariot was at the door. They both got in, and just as it was driving away, Millefleur ran up to it.

'Your master?--your master?--' said Lord Montreville.

'Ah! my Lord, he is--yet living!'

'_Yet_ living!'

'And Captain G.o.dolphin sent me to see if you was come, in hopes that you might see him.'

'Go on!' cried Lord Montreville, with a degree of fierceness that made Emmeline shudder. The horses flew. He continued in dreadful and gloomy silence, interrupted only by deep groans. Emmeline had no comfort to offer, and dared not speak to him. At length they arrived at the place.

The servants a.s.sisted their lord to leave the chariot. Just as he got out of it, Dr. Gardner came out; but too much shocked to be able to speak, he waved his hand to say that all was over; and almost instantly, G.o.dolphin, with a countenance most expressive of what he felt, came out to him also.

'My dear Lord, your going up will be of no use; spare yourself so great a shock, and suffer me to attend you home.'

'He is dead then?'

Deep and mournful silence told him it was so.

'I will see him, however,' said he, pus.h.i.+ng by those who would have detained him.

'No, no,' cried Emmeline. 'Pray, my Lord! pray, my dear uncle!'

'Uncle!' exclaimed he. 'Have I deserved to be your uncle? But I am punished--dreadfully, dreadfully punished!'

A croud was now gathering; and G.o.dolphin was compelled to let him proceed; while he himself approached Emmeline, who was left half dead in the chariot.

'Ah! attend not to me!' said she. 'Go, I beg of you, with my poor uncle!'

Dreadful was the scene when the miserable father beheld the body of his son. In that bitter anguish which is incapable of tears, he reproached himself for the obstinacy with which, even against his own judgment, he had opposed his marriage with Emmeline.--'Instead of seeing thus my hopes blasted for ever, I might have grown old among his children and the children of my brother's daughter! But I drove her to France; and in consequence of that, the scourge, the dreadful scourge has fallen upon me! I and my house are low in the dust! Weak and wretched infatuation!

Dreadful sacrifice to vain and empty ambition; Oh! my poor murdered boy!' Then, after a moment's pause, he turned suddenly to G.o.dolphin, whose manly countenance was covered with tears. 'Tell me, Sir! did he not wish to see his misjudging father? did he leave me nothing--not even his forgiveness?'

'Lord Delamere,' said G.o.dolphin, 'was wounded in the lungs, and every effort to speak threatened his immediate dissolution. He expressed a wish to see you and Miss Mowbray; but said very little else.'

'I brought her, because I knew he must wish to see her. But he will see her no more!' A deep and hollow groan now burst from him: his sorrow began to choak him; and exclamation was at an end; yet struggling a moment with it, he said quickly to G.o.dolphin--'Do you think he suffered great pain?'

'I believe very little, my Lord.'

'And he had every a.s.sistance?'

'He had instantly every a.s.sistance that skill could offer. Two surgeons of eminence were at supper with company in the house; and they were with him before I was, which was not ten minutes after the accident. I never left him afterwards, but to run to Lady Westhaven.'

'Excellent young man! you will still, I know, remain with him, and do what _I_ cannot do.' He then paused a moment, and his anguish seemed to gather strength--while with a look of deep and gloomy despair he approached the bed; slowly and sternly invoked the vengeance of heaven on his eldest daughter; and then continued with glazed and motionless eyes to gaze on the body. From this dreadful torpor it was necessary to rouse him, and to remove him from the room. The united efforts of G.o.dolphin and the surgeons, with difficulty effected it. He was however at length placed in the chariot; and with Emmeline, who was more dead than alive, was conveyed to Grosvenor-street. G.o.dolphin, dreading the scene he was to encounter when they got thither, followed them on foot; and a.s.sisted Lord Montreville to his chamber, where he entreated the servants not to allow him to see Lady Westhaven, till they were both better able to bear the interview. He then returned to Emmeline; who, quite overcome by excessive terror and fatigue, had hardly strength to speak to him; and unable to support herself longer, retired to bed, where a violent fever seized her; and for near a week she was so alarmingly ill, that G.o.dolphin, in the wildest distraction, believed he saw her s.n.a.t.c.hed from him by the inexorable hands of death. Lady Adelina came to her the evening after Delamere's decease, and never left her bed side while there was the least appearance of danger; G.o.dolphin continued whole days in the little dressing room that adjoined to it; and Fitz-Edward, who insisted on attending him during these hours of torturing suspence, was unavoidably frequently in the presence of Lady Adelina, whose every sentiment was for the time absorbed in her fear for a life so dear to them all.

At length Emmeline, tho' yet too ill to leave her room, was no longer in danger; and Lord Westhaven, who returned instantly to town on hearing the mournful news helped to appease the violent grief of his wife. But on the more settled and silent anguish of her wretched father, his good offices made not the least impression. He seemed to abhor all thoughts of consolation: and when the remains of poor Delamere were carried to be deposited with those of his mother, he shut himself up in total darkness, and refused to admit even Lady Westhaven to partic.i.p.ate his sorrows. When she was allowed to pay her duty to him, he conjured her to keep from him the sight of any of the Crofts', and that she would prevent even their name being repeated in his presence. With their visits there was no danger of his Lords.h.i.+p's being offended; for as he had, in consequence of this family calamity, resigned all the places he held, Sir Richard and his two sons were already eagerly paying their court to his successor; and had entered into new views, and formed new political connections, with an avidity which made them equally forgetful of their patron's personal afflictions and of that favour to which they owed their sudden and unmerited elevation. Amidst all the misery which the guilty and scandalous conduct of his wife had brought upon the family of his benefactor, the point on which Mr. Crofts felt the most solicitude, was to know what portion of the Delamere estate was irrevocably settled in equal divisions on the daughters, if the Marquis of Montreville died without a son. The physicians now advised Lord Westhaven to carry the Marquis into the country as soon as possible; where he might enjoy the solitude he so much desired, without being excluded from the air, as he was in town, by being confined entirely to his bed chamber and dressing room. The sight of any of his own seats; places which he had so lavishly embellished for the residence of him who was now no more, he could not yet endure; and Lord Westhaven with some difficulty prevailed upon him to remove to _his_ house in Kent. Thither, therefore, the Marquis and Lord Westhaven's family removed, at the end of a fortnight; but Emmeline, tho' pretty well recovered, desired Lady Westhaven not to insist on her being of the party; being convinced, that tho' he tried to see her with fort.i.tude, and to behave to her with tenderness, the sight of her was painful to her uncle, and perpetually brought to his mind his own fatal misconduct in regard to his son.

Lady Westhaven yielded reluctantly to her reasons, and departed without her: but as her health made her immediate departure from London necessary, she went with Lady Adelina to Highgate; who now remained there only for the purpose of taking leave of Lord and Lady Clancarryl, as they were within a fortnight to return to Ireland.

In this interval, they heard that Lady Frances Crofts, infatuated still with her pa.s.sion for Bellozane, had followed him to Paris, whither he had fled after his fatal encounter with her brother. Bellozane, stung with guilt, and pursued by remorse, hurried from her with detestation; and concealing himself in Switzerland, saw her no more. For some time she continued to live in France in a style the most disgraceful to her family and herself. n.o.body dared name her to her unhappy father. But Lord Westhaven at length interposed with Crofts, who, influenced by his authority, and still more by his own desire to lessen her expences, went over, and found no great difficulty in procuring a _lettre de cachet_, which confined her during pleasure to a convent.

CHAPTER XVI

To fix some plan for her future life, Emmeline now thought absolutely and immediately necessary. To go to Mowbray Castle seemed the properest measure she could adopt; and on that she appeared to determine. But tho'

she still meant to adhere to her resolution of remaining single until she became of age, the tender importunity of her lover, the pressing entreaties of her friends, and her own wishes to make them happy, were every hour more powerfully undermining it. Her mind, softened by grief for the death of poor Delamere, and more fondly attached than ever to the generous G.o.dolphin; whose n.o.ble qualities that unhappy event had served to call forth anew, was rendered less capable than ever of resisting his prayers; and Delamere, on whose account her determination had been originally made, could now no longer suffer by her breaking it.

Still, however, she insisted upon it, that a term little short of what she had named should elapse before her marriage should take place; as a compliment to the memory of her unfortunate lover, and to the deep sorrow of her uncle and Lady Westhaven.

Here, then, she rested her last defence. And when their encreasing solicitations obliged her to consent to shorten the term to three months, G.o.dolphin undertook to make it the particular request of Lord Montreville and his daughter, that their marriage should take place within three weeks. Animated by the hopes of hastening the period, he went himself into Kent; where he pleaded so successfully to Lady Westhaven, that she not only wrote pressingly to Emmeline, but prevailed on the Marquis to give him a letter also; in which, after deploring, in terms expressive of anguish and regret, that unfortunate infatuation which had eventually robbed him of his son, he told her that he had very little more now to wish, dead as he was to the world, than to see her happily married. That the tender attention of the generous G.o.dolphin to that beloved son, in the last hours of his life, had endeared him to him above all other men; that his character, connections and conduct were unexceptionable; and therefore, his Lords.h.i.+p added, that tho' he did not know that he could himself bear to see it, he wished she would not hesitate to complete his happiness; observing, that if she thought it too early after the loss of so near a relation, she might have the ceremony performed with such privacy, that only the respective families need know of its celebration. Emmeline, having now no longer a subterfuge, was obliged to let G.o.dolphin take his own way. He exerted himself so anxiously to get the deeds completed, that before the end of three weeks they were finished. Lord and Lady Clancarryl prolonged their stay on purpose; and they, together with Lady Adelina and Fitz-Edward, were present at the ceremony. When it was over, Lord and Lady Clancarryl took an affectionate leave of the bride and bridegroom, and set out for Ireland, accompanied by Fitz-Edward; who, with the most painful reluctance tearing himself from Lady Adelina by her express desire, was yet allowed to carry with him the hope, that at the end of her mourning she would relent, and accede to the entreaties of all her family.

G.o.dolphin, his Emmeline, his sister and her little boy, took immediately afterwards the road to East Cliff. They continued there the months of May and June; where, about six weeks after their marriage, they were visited by Lord and Lady Westhaven; the latter having never left her father 'till then, and being impatient to return to him, tho' she a.s.sured Mrs. G.o.dolphin that he was much calmer and more composed than they had at first expected. In the filial attention of his youngest daughter he found all the consolation his misfortunes would admit of on this side the grave; and Emmeline, who had deeply lamented the lingering and hopeless anguish to which her uncle was condemned, heard with satisfaction that resignation was, however slowly, blunting the anguish he had endured; and that having relinquished for ever all those ambitious pursuits to which he had sacrificed solid happiness, he thought only of rewarding the piety and tenderness of his youngest daughter; and heard of the happiness of his niece with pleasure. When Lord and Lady Westhaven left East Cliff, Mr. and Mrs. G.o.dolphin and Lady Adelina went to Mowbray Castle; where Mrs. Stafford received them with transport, and where they were surrounded by numberless tenants and dependants, who blessed the hour of it's restoration to it's benevolent and lovely mistress, as well as that which had given her to a man, who had a heart as n.o.bly enlarged, and a spirit generously liberal, as her own.

The comfortable establishment of Mrs. Stafford at Woodfield, was a point which Emmeline had much at heart; and G.o.dolphin, who knew it was now almost her first wish, took his measures with so much success, that it was soon accomplished. Mrs. Stafford, however, at their united request, consented to stay with them while they remained at Mowbray Castle; and Emmeline had the delightful a.s.surances of having made her happy, as well as of having greatly contributed to the restored tranquillity of Lady Adelina.

Mowbray Castle, ever so peculiarly dear to Mrs. G.o.dolphin, and where she was now blessed with her beloved husband and her charming friends, brought however to her mind the mournful remembrance of poor Delamere; and the tears of rapture with which the greatness of her own happiness sometimes filled her eyes, were mingled with those of sorrow for his untimely death. She considered him as the victim of his mother's fatal fondness and his father's ambition: yet that his early death was not immediately owing to his violent pa.s.sion for her, was a great consolation; and with only the one source of regret which his premature fate occasioned, and which being without remedy yielded inevitably to time; she saw an infinite deal for which to be grateful, and failed not to offer her humble acknowledgments to that Providence, who, from dependance and indigence, had raised her to the highest affluence; given her, in the tenderest of husbands, the best, the most generous and most amiable of men; and had bestowed on her the means and the inclination to deserve, by virtue and beneficence, that heaven, where only she can enjoy more perfect and lasting felicity.