Adeline Mowbray Part 42

In a few moments Miss Woodville, conscious that her emotion had betrayed her, and suspecting that Mrs Pemberton had by some means or other received hints of her treachery, confessed that she had intercepted and destroyed letters from Adeline to her mother; and also owned, to the great joy of Mrs Pemberton, that Adeline's last letter, the letter in which she informed Mrs Mowbray, that all the conditions were then fulfilled, without which alone she had sworn never to forgive her, had arrived only two months before; and that it was dated from such a street, and such a number, in London.

'My poor friend will be so happy!' said Mrs Pemberton; and, her own eyes filling with tears of joy, she hastened to find Mrs Mowbray.

'But what will become of _me_?' exclaimed Miss Woodville, detaining her--'_I_ am ruined--ruined for ever!'

'Not so,' replied Mrs Pemberton, 'thou art _saved_,--saved, I trust, for _ever_--Thou hast confessed thy guilt, and made all the atonement now in thy power. Go to thine own room, and I will soon make known to thee thy relation's sentiments towards thee.'

So saying, she hastened to Mrs Mowbray, whom she found giving orders, with eager impatience, to have post horses sent for immediately.

'Then thou art full of expectation, I conclude, from the event of our journey to town?' said Mrs Pemberton, smiling.

'To be sure I am,' replied Mrs Mowbray.

'And so am I,' she answered,--'for I think that I know the present abode of thy daughter.'

Mrs Mowbray started--her friend's countenance expressed more joy and exultation than she had ever seen on it before; and, almost breathless with new hope, she seized her hand and conjured her to explain herself.

The explanation was soon given; and Mrs Mowbray's joy, in consequence of it, unbounded.

'But what is thy will,' observed Mrs Pemberton, 'with regard to thy guilty relation?'

'I cannot--cannot see her again now, if ever;--and she must immediately leave my house.'

'Immediately?'

'Yes,--but I will settle on her a handsome allowance; for my conscience tells me, that, had I behaved like a mother to my child, no one could have been tempted to injure her thus,--I put this unhappy woman into a state of temptation, and she yielded to it:--but I feel only too sensibly, that no one has been such an enemy to my poor Adeline as I have been; nor, conscious of my own offences towards her, dare I resent those of another.'

'I love, I honour thee for what thou hast now uttered,' cried Mrs Pemberton with unusual animation.--'I see that thou art now indeed a Christian; such are the breathings of a truly contrite spirit; and, verily, she who can so easily forgive the crimes of others may hope to have her own forgiven.'

Mrs Pemberton then hastened to speak hope and comfort to the mind of the penitent offender, while Mrs Mowbray ran to meet her servant, who, to her surprise, was returning without horses, for none were to be procured; and Mrs Mowbray saw herself obliged to delay her journey till noon the next day, when she was a.s.sured of having horses from Penrith.

But when, after a long and restless night, she arose in the morning, antic.i.p.ating with painful impatience the hour of her departure, Mrs Pemberton entered her room, and informed her that she had pa.s.sed nearly all the night at Miss Woodville's bed-side, who had been seized with a violent delirium at one o'clock in the morning, and in her ravings was continually calling on Mrs Mowbray, and begging to see her once more.

'I will see her directly,' replied Mrs Mowbray, without a moment's hesitation; and hastened to Miss Woodville's apartment, where she found the medical attendant whom Mrs Pemberton had sent for just arrived. He immediately declared the disorder to be an inflammation on the brain, and left them with little or no hope of her recovery.

Mrs Mowbray, affected beyond measure at the pathetic appeals for pardon addressed to her continually by the unconscious sufferer, took her station at the bed-side; and, hanging over her pillow, watched for the slightest gleam of returning reason, in order to speak the pardon so earnestly implored: and while thus piously engaged, the chaise that was to convey her and her friend to London, and perhaps to Adeline, drove up to the gate.

'Art thou ready?' said Mrs Pemberton, entering the room equipped for her journey.

At this moment the poor invalid reiterated her cries for pardon, and begged Mrs Mowbray not to leave her without p.r.o.nouncing her forgiveness.

Mrs Mowbray burst into tears; and though sure that she was not even conscious of her presence, she felt herself almost unable to forsake her:--still it was in search of her daughter that she was going--nay, perhaps, it was to her daughter that she was hastening; and, as this thought occurred to her, she hurried to the door of the chamber, saying she should be ready in a moment.

But the eye of the phrensied sufferer followed her as she did so, and in a tone of unspeakable agony she begged, she entreated that she might not be left to die in solitude and sorrow, however guilty she might have been.--Then again she implored Mrs Mowbray to speak peace and pardon to her drooping soul; while, unable to withstand these solicitations, though she knew them to be the unconscious ravings of the disorder, she slowly and mournfully returned to the bed-side.

'It is late,' said Mrs Pemberton--'we ought ere now to be on the road.'

'How can I go, and leave this poor creature in such a state?--But then should we find my poor injured child at the end of the journey! Such an expectation as that!--'

'Thou must decide quickly,' replied Mrs Pemberton gently.

'Decide! Then I will go with you.--Yet still should Anna recover her senses before her death, and wish to see me, I should never forgive myself for being absent--it might soothe the anguish of her last moments to know how freely I pardon her.--No, no:--after all, if pleasure awaits me, it is only delaying it a few days; and this, this unhappy girl is on her _death-bed_.--You, you must go _without_ me.'

As she said this, Mrs Pemberton pressed her hand with affectionate eagerness, and murmured out in broken accents, 'I honour thy decision, and may I return with comfort to thee!'

'Yet though I wish you to go,' cried Mrs Mowbray, 'I grieve to expose you to such fatigue and trouble in your weak state of health, and--'

'Say no more,' interrupted Mrs Pemberton, 'I am only doing my duty; and reflect on my happiness if I am allowed to restore the lost sheep to the fold again!'--So saying she set off on her journey, and arrived in London only four days after Adeline had arrived in c.u.mberland.

Mrs Pemberton drove immediately to Adeline's lodgings, but received the same answer as Colonel Mordaunt had received; namely, that she was gone no one knew whither. Still she did not despair of finding her: she, like the Colonel, thought that a mulatto, a lady just recovered from the small-pox, and a child, were likely to be easily traced; and having written to Mrs Mowbray, owning her disappointment, but bidding her not despair, she set off on her journey back, and had succeeded in tracing Adeline as far as an inn on the high North road,--when an event took place which made her further inquiries needless.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Adeline, after several repeated trials, succeeded in writing the following letter to her mother:--

'Dearest of Mothers,

'When this letter reaches you, I shall be no more; and however I may hitherto have offended you, I shall then be able to offend you no longer; and that child, whom you bound yourself by oath never to see or forgive but on the most cruel of conditions while living, dead you may perhaps deign to receive to your pardon and your love.--Nay, my heart tells me that you will do more,--that you will transfer the love which you once felt for me, to my poor helpless orphan; and in full confidence that you will be this indulgent, I bequeath her to you with my dying breath.--O! look on her, my mother, nor shrink from her with disgust, although you see in her my features; but rather rejoice in the resemblance, and fancy that I am restored to you pure, happy, and beloved as I once was.--Yes, yes,--it will be so: I have known a great deal of sorrow--let me then indulge the little ray of pleasure that breaks in upon me when I think that you will not resist my dying prayer, but bestow on my child the long arrears of tenderness due to me.

'Yes, yes, you will receive, you will be kind to her; and by so doing you will make me ample amends for all the sorrow which your harshness caused me when we met last.--That was a dreadful day! How you frowned on me! I did not think you could have frowned so dreadfully--but then I was uninjured by affliction, unaltered by illness. Were you to see me now, you would not have the heart to frown on me: and yet my letters being repeatedly returned, and even the last unnoticed and unanswered, though it told you that even on your own conditions I could now claim your pardon, for that I had been "wretched in love," and had experienced "the anguish of being forsaken, despised, and disgraced in the eye of the world," proves but too surely that the bitterness of resentment is not yet pa.s.sed!--But on my _death-bed_ you promised to see and forgive me--_and I am there, my mother_!! Yet will I not claim that promise;--I will not weaken, by directing it towards myself, the burst of sorrow, of too late regret, of self-upbraidings, and long-restrained affection, which must be directed towards my child when I am not alive to profit by it. No:--though I would give worlds to embrace you once more, for the sake of my child I resign the gratification.

'Oh, mother! you little think that I saw you, only a few days ago, from the stile by the cottage which overlooks your house: you were walking with a lady, and my child was with me (my Editha, for I have called her after you.) You seemed, methought, even cheerful, and I was so selfish that I felt shocked to think I was so entirely forgotten by you; for I was sure that if you thought of me you could not be cheerful. But your companion left you; and then you looked so very sad, that I was wretched from the idea that you were then thinking too much of me, and I wished you to resume your cheerfulness again.

'_I_ was not cheerful, and Editha by her artless prattle wounded me to the very soul.--She wished, she said, to live in that sweet house, and asked why she should not live there? _I could_ have told her why, but dared not do it; but I a.s.sured her, and do not for mercy's sake prove that a.s.surance false!

that she _should_ live there _one day_.

'"But when--when?" she asked.

'"When I am in my grave,"' replied I: and, poor innocent!

throwing herself into my arms with playful fondness, she begged me to go to my grave directly. I feel but too sensibly that her desire will soon be accomplished.

'But must I die unblest by you? True, I am watched by the kindest of human beings! but then she is not my mother--that mother, who, with the joys of my childhood and my home, is so continually recurring to my memory. Oh! I forget all your unkindness, my mother, and remember only your affection. How I should like to feel your hand supporting my head, and see you perform the little offices which sickness requires!--And must I never, never see you more? Yes! you will come, I am sure you will: but come, come quickly, or I shall die without your blessing.

'I have had a fainting fit--but I am recovered, and can address you again.--Oh! teach my Editha to be humble, teach her to be slow to call the experience of ages contemptible prejudices; teach her no opinions that can destroy her sympathies with general society, and make her an alien to the hearts of those amongst whom she lives.

'Be above all things careful that she wanders not in the night of scepticism. But for the support of religion, what, amidst my various sorrows, what would have become of _me_?

'There is something more that I would say. Should my existence be prolonged even but a few days, I shall have to struggle with poverty as well as sickness; and the anxious friend (I will not call her servant) who is now my all of earthly comfort, will scarcely have money sufficient to pay me the last sad duties; and I owe her, my mother, a world of obligation! She will make my last moments easy, and _you_ must reward her. From her you will receive this letter when I am no more, and to your care and protection I bequeath her. She is--my eyes grow dim, and I must leave off for the present.'

On the very evening in which Adeline had written this address to her mother, Mrs Mowbray had received Mrs Pemberton's letter; and as Miss Woodville had been interred that morning, she felt herself at liberty to join Mrs Pemberton in her search after Adeline. While various plans for this purpose presented themselves to her mind, and each of them was dismissed in its turn as fruitless or impracticable,--full of these thoughts she pensively walked along the lawn before her door, till sad and weary she leaned on a little gate at the bottom of it; which, as she did so, swung slowly backwards and forwards, responsive as it were to her feelings.

But, as she continued to muse, and to recall the varied sorrows of her past life, the gate on which she leaned began to vibrate more quickly; till, unable to bear the recollections which a.s.sailed her, she was hastening with almost frantic speed towards the house, when she saw a cottager approaching, to whose sick daughter and helpless family she had long been a bountiful benefactress.

'What is the matter, John?' cried Mrs Mowbray, hastening forward to meet him--'you seem agitated.'