Adeline Mowbray Part 33

CHAPTER XIX

It is very certain that when Berrendale left England, though he meant to conceal his marriage entirely, he had not even the slightest wish to contract another; and had any one told him that he was capable of such wicked conduct, he would have answered, like Hazael, 'Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?' But he was then una.s.sailed by temptations:--and habituated as he was to selfish indulgence, it was impossible that to strong temptation he should not fall an immediate victim.

This strong temptation a.s.sailed him soon after his arrival, in the person of a very lovely and rich widow, a relation of his first wife, who, having no children of her own, had long been very fond of his child, then a very fine boy, and with great readiness transferred to the father the affection which she bore the son. For some time conscience and Adeline stood their ground against this new mistress and her immense property; but at length, being pressed by his father-in-law, who wished the match, to a.s.sign a sufficient reason for his coldness to so fine a woman, and not daring to give the true one, he returned the lady's fondness: and though he had not yet courage enough to name the marriage day, it was known that it would some time or other take place.

But all his scruples soon yielded to the dominion which the attractions of the lady, who was well versed in the arts of seduction, obtained over his senses, and to the strong power which the sight of the splendour in which she lived, acquired over his avarice; when, just as every thing was on the point of being concluded, the poor mulatto, who had found her husband dead, arrived almost broken-hearted at the place of Berrendale's abode, and delivered to him letters from Adeline.

Terrified and confounded at her presence, he received her with such evident marks of guilty confusion in his face, that Savanna's apprehensive and suspicious attachment to her mistress took the alarm; and, as she had seen a very fine woman leave the room as she entered, she, on pretence of leaving Berrendale alone to read his letters, repaired to the servants' apartments, where she learnt the intended marriage. Immediately forgetting her own distresses in those of Adeline, she returned to Berrendale, not with the languid, mournful pace with which she had first entered, but with the firm, impetuous and intrepid step of conscious integrity going to confound vice in the moment of its triumph.

Berrendale read his doom, the moment he beheld her, in her dark and fiery eye, and awaited in trembling silence the torrent of reproaches that trembled on her lip. But I shall not repeat what pa.s.sed. Suffice that Berrendale pretended to be moved by what she said, and promised to break off the marriage,--only exacting from Savanna, in return, a promise of not imparting to the servants, or to any one, that he had a wife in England.

In the meanwhile he commended her most affectionately to the care of the steward; and confessing to his intended bride that he had a mistress in England, who had sent the mulatto over to prevent the match if possible, by persuading her he was already married, he conjured her to consent to a private marriage; and to prevent some dreadful scene, occasioned by the revenge of disappointed pa.s.sion, should his mistress, as she had threatened, come over in person, he entreated her to let every splendid preparation for their nuptials be laid aside, in order to deceive Savanna, and induce her to return quietly to England.

The credulous woman, too much in love to believe what she did not wish, consented to all he proposed: but Berrendale, still fearful of the watchful jealousy of Savanna, contrived to find out the master to whom she belonged before she had escaped, early in life, with her first husband to England; and as she had never been made free, as soon as he arrived, he, on a summons from Berrendale, seized her as his property; and poor Savanna, in spite of her cries and struggles, was conveyed some miles up the country.

At length, however, she found means to escape to the coast; and, having discovered an old acquaintance in an English sailor on board a vessel then ready to sail, and who had great influence with the captain, she was by him concealed on board, with the approbation of the commander, and was on her way to England before Berrendale was informed of her escape.

I will not endeavour to describe Adeline's feelings on hearing this narration, and on finding also that Savanna before she left the island had been a.s.sured that Berrendale was really married, though privately, but that the marriage could not long be attempted to be concealed, as the lady even before it took place was likely to become a mother; and, that as a large estate depended on her giving birth to a son, the event of her confinement was looked for with great anxiety.

Still, in the midst of her distress, a sudden thought struck Adeline, which converted her anger into joy, and her sorrow into exultation.

'Yes, my mother may now forgive me without violating any part of her oath,' she exclaimed.--'I am now forsaken, despised and disgraced!'--and instantly she wrote to Mrs Mowbray a letter calculated to call forth all her sympathy and affection. Then, with a mind relieved beyond expression, she sat down to deliberate in what manner she should act to do herself justice as a wife and a mother, cruelly aggrieved in both these intimate relations. Nor could she persuade herself that she should act properly by her child, if she did not proceed vigorously to prove herself Berrendale's wife, and substantiate Editha's claim to his property; and as Mr Langley was, she knew, a very great lawyer, she resolved, in spite of his improper conduct to her, to apply to him again.

Indeed she could not divest herself of a wish to let him know that she was become a wife, and no longer liable to be treated with that freedom with which, as a mistress, he had thought himself at liberty to address her. However, she wished that she had not been obliged to go to him alone; but, as the mulatto was in too weak a state of health to allow of her going out, and she could not speak of business like hers before any one else, she was forced to proceed unaccompanied to the Temple; and on the evening of the day after Savanna's return, she with a beating heart, repaired once more to Mr Langley's chambers.

Luckily, however, she met the tawny boy on her way, and took him for her escort. 'Tell your master,' said she to the servant, 'that Mrs Berrendale wishes to speak to him:' and in a few minutes she was introduced.

'Mrs Berrendale!' cried Langley with a sarcastic smile; 'pray be seated, madam! I hope Mr Berrendale is well.'

'He is in Jamaica, sir,' replied Adeline.

'Indeed!' returned Langley. 'May I presume so far as to ask,--hem, hem,--whether your visit to me be merely of a professional nature?'

'Certainly, sir,' replied Adeline: 'of what other nature should it be?'

Langley replied to this only by a significant smile. At this moment the tawny boy asked leave to walk in the temple gardens; and Adeline, though reluctantly, granted his request.

'Oh! a propos, John,' cried Langley to the servant, 'let Mrs Montgomery know that her friend Miss Mowbray, Mrs Berrendale I mean, is here--she is walking in the garden.'

'My friend Mrs Montgomery, sir! I have no friend of that name.'

'No, my sweet soul? You may not know her by that name; but names change, you know. You, for instance, are Mrs Berrendale now, but when I see you again you may be Mrs Somebody else.'

'Never, sir,' cried Adeline indignantly; 'but, though I do not exactly understand your meaning, I feel as if you meant to insult me, and therefore--'

'Oh no--sit down again, my angel; you are mistaken, and so apt to fly off in a tangent! But--so--that wonderfully handsome man, Berrendale, is off--heh? Your friend and mine, heh! pretty one!'

'If, sir, Mr Berrendale ever considered you as his friend, it is very strange that you should presume to insult his wife.'

'Madam,' replied Langley with a most provoking sneer, 'Mr Berrendale's wife shall always be treated by me with proper respect.'

'Gracious Heaven!' cried Adeline, clasping her hands and looking upwards with tearful eyes, 'when shall my persecutions cease! and how much greater must my offences be than even my remorse paints them, when their consequences still torment me so long after the crime which occasioned them has ceased to exist! But it is Thy will, and I will submit even to indignity with patience.'

There was a touching solemnity in this appeal to Heaven, an expression of truth, which it was so impossible for art to imitate, that Langley felt in a moment the injustice of which he had been guilty, and an apology was on his lips, when the door opened, and a lady rouged like a French countess of the ancien regime, her hair covered with a profusion of brown powder, and dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, ambled into the room; and saying, 'How d'ye do, Miss Mowbray?' threw herself carelessly on the sofa, to the astonishment of Adeline, who did not recollect her, and to the confusion of Langley, who now, impressed with involuntary respect for Adeline, repented of having exposed her to the scene that awaited her: but to prevent it was impossible; he was formed to be a slave of woman, and had not courage to protect another from the insolence to which he tamely yielded himself.

Adeline at first did not answer this soi-disant acquaintance of hers; but, in looking at her more attentively, she exclaimed, 'What do I see?

Is it possible that this can be Mary Warner!'

'Yes, it is, my dear, indeed,' replied she with a loud laugh, 'Mary Warner, alias Mrs Montgomery; as you, you know, are Miss Mowbray, alias Mrs Berrendale.'

Adeline, incapable of speaking, only gazed at her in silence, but with 'a countenance more in sorrow than in anger.'

'But, come sit down, my dear,' cried Mary; 'no ceremony, you know, among friends and equals, you know; and you and I have been mighty familiar, you know, before now. The last time we met you called me _woman_, you know--yes, "woman!" says you--and I have not forgotten it, I a.s.sure you,' she added with a sort of loud hysterical laugh, and a look of the most determined malice.

'Come, come, my dear Montgomery,' said Langley, 'you must forget and forgive;--I dare say Miss Mowbray, that is to say Mrs Berrendale, did not mean--'

'What should you know about the matter, Lang.?' replied Mary; 'I wish you would mind your own business, and let me talk to my dumb friend here.--Well, I suppose you are quite surprised to see how smart I am!--seeing as how I once overheard you say to Glenthingymy, "How very plain Mary is!" though, to be sure, it was never a barrel the better herring, and 'twas the kettle in my mind calling the pot--Heh, Lang.?'

Here was the clue to the inveterate dislike which this unhappy girl had conceived against Adeline. So true is it that little wounds inflicted on the self-love are never forgotten or forgiven, and that it is safer to censure the morals of acquaintances than to ridicule them on their dress, or laugh at a defect in their person. Adeline, indeed, did not mean that her observation should be overheard by the object of it,--still she was hated: but many persons make mortifying remarks purposely, and yet wonder that they have enemies!

Motionless and almost lifeless Adeline continued to stand and to listen, and Mary went on--

'Well, but I thank you for one thing. You taught me that marriage was all nonsense, you know; and so, thought I, Miss Mowbray is a learned lady, she must know best, and so I followed your example--that's all, you know.'

This dreadful information roused the feelings of Adeline even to phrensy, and with a shriek of anguish she seized her hand, and conjured her by all her hopes of mercy to retract what she had said, and not to let her depart with the horrible consciousness of having been the means of plunging a fellow-being into vice and infamy.

A loud unfeeling laugh, and an exclamation of 'The woman is mad,' was all the answer to this.

'This then is the completion of my sufferings,' cried Adeline,--'this only was wanted to complete the misery of my remorse.'

'This is too much,' exclaimed Langley. 'Mary, you know very well that--'

'Hold your tongue, Lang.; you know nothing about the matter: it is all nothing, but that Miss Mowbray, like a lawyer, can change sides, you see, and attack one day what she defended the day before, you know; and she has made you believe that she thinks now being kept a shameful thing.'

'I do believe so,' hastily replied Adeline; 'and if it be true that my sentiments and my example led you to adopt your present guilty mode of life,--oh! save me from the pangs of remorse which I now feel, by letting my present example recall you from the paths of error to those of virtue.'

'Well pleaded,' cried the cold-hearted Mary--'Lang., you could not have done't so well--not up to that.'

'Mrs Montgomery,' said Langley with great severity, 'if you cannot treat Mrs Berrendale with more propriety and respect, I must beg you to leave the room; she is come to speak to me on business, and--'

'I sha'nt stir, for all that: and mark me, Lang., if you turn me out of the room, you know, hang me if ever I enter it again!'

'But your little boy may want you; you have left him now some time.'

'Aye, that may be true, to be sure, poor little dear! Have you any family, Miss Mowbray?'--when, without waiting for an answer, she added, 'My little boy have got the small-pox very bad, and has been likely to die from convulsion fits, you know. Poor dear! I had been nursing it so long that I could not bear the stench of the room, and so I was glad, you know, to come and get a little fresh air in the gardens.'