Adeline Mowbray Part 35

He uttered this with such volubility, that Adeline could not find an opportunity to interrupt him; but when he concluded, she calmly replied, 'I am willing to believe, Colonel Mordaunt, from a conversation which I once had with you, that you are not aware of the extent of the insult which you are now offering to me. You probably do not know that I have been for years a married woman?'

Colonel Mordaunt started and turned pale at this intelligence; and in a faltering voice replied, that he was indeed a stranger to her present situation;--for that, libertine as he confessed himself to be, he had never yet allowed himself to address the wife of another.

This speech restored him immediately to the confidence of Adeline. 'Then I hope,' cried she, holding out her hand to him, which in spite of his virtue he pa.s.sionately kissed, 'that, as a friend, you will have the kindness to procure me a coach to take me to a lodging a few miles out of town, where I once was before; and that you will be so good as to drive directly to my lodgings, and let my poor maid know what is become of me. I dread to think,' added she bursting into tears, 'of the agony that my unaccountable absence must have occasioned her.'

The colonel, too seriously attached to Adeline to know yet what he wished, or what he hoped on this discovery of her situation, promised to obey her, provided she would allow him to call on her now and then; and Adeline was too full of grat.i.tude to him for the service which he had rendered her, to have resolution enough to deny his request. He then called a coach for himself, and for Adeline, as she insisted on his going immediately to her lodgings; and also begged that he would tell the mulatto to send for advice, and prepare her little girl for inoculation directly.

Adeline drove directly to her old lodgings in the country, where she was most gladly received; and the colonel went to deliver his commission to the mulatto.

He found her in strong hysterics; the tawny boy crying over her, and the woman of the house holding her down on the bed by force, while the little Editha had been conveyed to a neighbour's house, that she might not hear the screams which had surprised and terrified her.

Colonel Mordaunt had opened the door, and was witnessing this distressing scene, before any one was conscious of his presence; but the tawny boy soon discovered him, and crying out--

'Oh! sir, do you bring us news of our friend?' sprang to him, and hung almost breathless on his arm.

Savanna, who was conscious enough to know what pa.s.sed, though too much weakened from her own sufferings and anxieties to be able to struggle with this new affliction, started up on hearing these words, and screamed out 'Does she live? Blessed man! but say so, dat's all,' in a tone so affecting, and with an expression of agonized curiosity so overwhelming to the feelings, that Colonel Mordaunt, whose spirits were not very high, was so choked that he could not immediately answer her; and when at last he faltered out, 'She lives, and is quite well,' the frantic joy of the mulatto overcame him still more. She jumped about his neck, she hugged the tawny boy; and her delight was as extravagant as her grief had been; till exhausted and silent she sunk upon the bed, and was unable for some minutes to listen quietly to the story which Colonel Mordaunt came to relate.

When she was composed enough to listen to it, she did not long remain so; for as soon as she heard that Colonel Mordaunt had met Adeline in her phrensy, and conveyed her to a place of safety, she fell at his feet, embraced his knees, and, making the tawny boy kneel down by her, invoked the blessing of G.o.d on him so fervently and so eloquently that Colonel Mordaunt wept like a child, and, exclaiming, 'Upon my soul, my good woman, I cannot bear this,' was forced to run out of the house to recover his emotion.

When he returned, Savanna said 'Well--now, blessed sir, take me to my dear lady.'

'Indeed,' replied he, 'I must not; you are forbidden to see her.'

'Forbidden!' replied she, her eyes flashing fire; 'and who dare to keep Savanna from her own mistress?--I will see her.'

'Not if she forbids it, Savanna; and if her child's life should be endangered by it?'

'O, no, to be sure not,' cried the tawny boy, who doted upon Editha, and, having fetched her back from the next house, was lulling her to sleep in his arms.

Colonel Mordaunt started at sight of the child, and, stooping down to kiss its rosy cheek, sighed deeply as he turned away again.

'Well,' cried Savanna, 'you talk very strange--me no understand.'

'But you shall, my excellent creature,' replied the colonel, 'immediately.' He then entered on a full explanation to Savanna; who had no sooner heard that her mistress feared that she had been so much exposed to the infection of the small-pox, as to make her certain of giving it to her child, than she exclaimed, 'Oh, my good G.o.d! save and protect her own self! She never have it, and she may get it and die!'

'Surely you must be mistaken,' replied the colonel, 'Mrs Berrendale must have recollected and mentioned her own danger if this be the case.'

'She!' hastily interrupted the mulatto, 'she tink of herself! Never--she only mind others' good. Do you tink, if she be one selfish beast like her husban, Savanna love her so dear? No, Mr Colonel, me know her, and me know though we may save the child we may lose the mother.' Here she began to weep bitterly; while the colonel, more in love than ever with Adeline from these proofs of her goodness, resolved to lose no time in urging her to undergo herself the operation which she desired for Editha.

Then, begging the mulatto to send for a surgeon directly, in spite of the tears of the tawny boy, who thought it cruel to run the risk of spoiling Miss Editha's pretty face, he took his leave, saying to himself, 'What a heart has this Adeline! how capable of feeling affection! for no one can inspire it who is not able to feel it: and this creature is thrown away on a man undeserving her, it seems!'

On this intelligence he continued to muse till he arrived at Adeline's lodgings, to whom he communicated all that had pa.s.sed; and from whom he learned, with great anxiety, that it was but too true that she had never had the small-pox; and that, therefore, she should probably show symptoms of the disease in a few days: consequently, as she considered it too late for her to be inoculated, she should do all that now remained to be done for her security, by low living and good air.

That same evening Colonel Mordaunt returned to Savanna, in hopes of learning from her some further particulars respecting Adeline's husband; as he felt that his conscience would not be much hurt by inducing Adeline to leave the protection of a man who was unworthy of possessing her. Fortunately for his wishes, he could not wish to hear more than Savanna wished to tell every thing relating to her adored lady: and Colonel Mordaunt heard with generous indignation of the perfidious conduct of Berrendale; vowing, at the same time, that his time, his interest, and his fortune, should all be devoted to bring such a villain to justice, and to secure to the injured Editha her rightful inheritance.

The mulatto was in raptures:--she told Colonel Mordaunt that he was a charming man, and infinitely handsomer than Berrendale, though she must own he was very good to look at; and she wished with all her soul that Colonel Mordaunt was married to her lady; for then she believed she would have never known sorrow, but been as happy as the day was long.

Colonel Mordaunt could not hear this without a secret pang. 'Had I followed,' said he mentally, 'the dictates of my heart when I saw Adeline at Bath, I might now, perhaps, instead of being a forlorn unattached being, have been a happy husband and father; and Adeline, instead of having been the mistress of one man, the disowned wife of another, might have been happy and beloved, and as respectable in the eyes of the world as she is in those of her grateful mulatto.'

However, there was some hope left for him yet.--Adeline, he thought, was not a woman likely to be over-scrupulous in her ideas; and might very naturally think herself at liberty to accept the protection of a lover, when, from no fault of hers, she had lost that of her husband.

It is natural to suppose that, while elevated with these hopes, he did not fail to be very constant in his visits to Adeline; and that at length, more led by pa.s.sion than policy, he abruptly, at the end of ten days, informed Adeline that he knew her situation, and that he trusted that she would allow him to hope that in due time his love, which had been proof against time, absence, and disdain, would meet with reward; and that, on his settling a handsome income on her and her child for their joint lives, she would allow him to endeavour to make her as happy as she, and she only, could make him.

To this proposal, which was in form of a letter, Colonel Mordaunt did not receive an immediate answer; nor was it at first likely that he should ever receive an answer to it at all, as Adeline was at the moment of its arrival confined to her bed, according to her expectations, with the disease which she had been but too fearful of imbibing: while the half-distracted mulatto was forced to give up to others the care of the sickening Editha, to watch over the delirious and unconscious Adeline.

But the tawny boy's generous benefactress gave him leave to remain at Adeline's lodgings, in order to calm his fears for Editha, and a.s.sist in amusing and keeping her quiet; and if attention had any share in preserving the life and beauty of Editha, it was to the affectionate tawny boy that she owed them; and he was soon rewarded for all his care and anxiety by seeing his little charge able to play about as usual.

Colonel Mordaunt and the mulatto meanwhile did not obtain so speedy a termination to their anxieties: Adeline's recovery was for a long time a matter of doubt; and her weakness so great after the crisis of the disorder was past, that none ventured to p.r.o.nounce her, even then, out of danger.

But at length she was in a great measure restored to health, and able to determine what line of conduct it was necessary for her to pursue.--To return an answer to Colonel Mordaunt's proposals was certainly her first business; but as she felt that the situation in which he had once known her made his offer less affronting than it would have been under other circ.u.mstances, she resolved to speak to him on the subject with gentleness, not severity; especially as during her illness, to amuse the anxiety that had preyed upon him, he had taken every possible step to procure evidence of the marriage, and gave into Savanna's hands, the first day that he was permitted to see her, an attested certificate of it.

CHAPTER XXI

The first question which Adeline asked on her recovery was, Whether any letter had come by the general-post during her illness; and Savanna gave one to her immediately.

It was the letter so ardently desired; for the direction was in her mother's hand-writing! and she opened it full of eager expectation, while her whole existence seemed to depend on the nature of its contents.

What then must have been her agony on finding that the _enveloppe_ contained nothing but her own letter returned! For some time she spoke not, she breathed not; while Savanna mixed with expressions of terror, at sight of her mistress's distress, poured execrations on the unnatural parent who had so cruelly occasioned it.

After a few days' incessant struggle to overcome the violence of her sorrow, Adeline recovered the shock, in appearance at least: yet to Savanna's self-congratulations she could not help answering (laying her hand on her heart) 'The blow is here, Savanna, and the wound incurable.'

Soon after she thought herself well enough to see Colonel Mordaunt, and to thank him for the recent proof of his attention to her and her interest. But no obligation, however great, could shut the now vigilant eyes of Adeline to the impropriety of receiving further visits from him, or to the guilt of welcoming to her house a man who made open professions to her of illicit love.

She however thought it her duty to see him once more, in order to try to reconcile him to the necessity of the rule of conduct which she was going to lay down for herself; nor was she without hope that the yet recent traces of the disease, to which she had so nearly fallen a victim, would make her appearance so unpleasing to the eyes of her lover, that he would be very willing to absent himself from the house, for some time at least, and probably give up all thoughts of her.

But she did neither herself nor Colonel Mordaunt justice.--She was formed to inspire a real and lasting pa.s.sion--a pa.s.sion that no external change could destroy--since it was founded on the unchanging qualities of the heart and mind: and Colonel Mordaunt felt for her such an attachment in all its force. He had always admired the attractive person and winning graces of Adeline, and felt for her what he denominated love; but that rational though enthusiastic preference, which is deserving of the name of true love, he never felt till he had had an opportunity to appreciate justly the real character of Adeline: still there were times when he felt almost gratified to reflect that she could not legally be his; for, whatever might have been the cause and excuse of her errors, she had erred, and the delicacy of his mind revolted at the idea of marrying the mistress of another.

But when he saw and heard Adeline, this repugnance vanished; and he knew that, could he at those moments lead her to the altar, he should not have hesitated to bind himself to her for ever by the sacred ties which the early errors of her judgment had made her even in his opinion almost unworthy to form.

At length a day was fixed for his interview with Adeline, and with a beating heart he entered the apartment; nor was his emotion diminished when he beheld not only the usual vestiges of her complaint, but symptoms of debility, and a death-like meagreness of aspect, which made him fear that though one malady was conquered, another, even more dangerous, remained. The idea overcame him; and he was forced to turn to the window to hide his emotion: and his manner was so indicative of ardent yet respectful attachment, that Adeline began to feel in spite of herself that her projected task was difficult of execution.

For some minutes neither of them spoke: Mordaunt held the hand which she gave him to his heart, kissed it as she withdrew it, and again turned away his head to conceal a starting tear: while Adeline was not sorry to have a few moments in which to recover herself, before she addressed him on the subject at that time nearest to the heart of both. At length she summoned resolution enough to say:--

'Much as I have been mortified and degraded, Colonel Mordaunt, by the letter which I have received from you, still I rejoice that I did receive it:--in the first place, I rejoice, because I look on all the sufferings and mortifications which I meet with as merciful chastis.e.m.e.nts, as expiations inflicted on me in mercy by the Being whom I adore, for the sins of which I have been guilty; and, in the second place, because it gives me an opportunity of proving, incontrovertibly, my full conviction of the fallacy of my past opinions, and that I became a wife, after my idle declamations against marriage, from change of principle, on a.s.surance of error, and not from interest, or necessity.'

Here she paused, overcome with the effort which she had made; and Colonel Mordaunt would have interrupted her, but, earnestly conjuring him to give her a patient hearing, she proceeded thus:--

'Had the change in my practice been the result of any thing but rational conviction, I should now, unfortunate as I have been in the choice of a husband, regret that ever I formed so foolish a tie, and perhaps be induced to enter into a less sacred connexion, from an idea that that state which forced me to drag out existence in hopeless misery was contrary to reason, justice, and the benefit of society; and that, the sooner its ties were dissolved, the better it would be for individual happiness and for the world at large.'

'And do you not think so?' cried Colonel Mordaunt; 'cannot your own individual experience convince you of it?'

'Far from it,' replied Adeline: 'and I bless G.o.d that it does not: for thence, and thence only, do I begin to be reconciled to myself. I have no doubt that there is a great deal of individual suffering in the marriage state, from a contrariety of temper and other causes; but I believe that the ma.s.s of happiness and virtue is certainly increased by it. Individual suffering, therefore, is no argument for the abolition of marriage, than the accidental bursting of a musket would be for the total abolition of fire-arms.'

'But, surely, dear Mrs Berrendale, you would wish divorce to be made easier than it is?'