Adeline Mowbray Part 37

This artless remark awakened a thousand mixed and overpowering feelings in the bosom of Adeline; and, after a pause of strong emotion, she exclaimed, catching the little prattler to her heart--'you _shall_ live there, my child!--yes, yes, you _shall_ live there!'

'But when?' resumed Editha.

'When I am in my grave,' answered Adeline.

'And when shall you be there?' replied the unconscious child, fondly caressing her: 'pray, mamma--pray be there soon!'

Adeline turned away, unable to answer her.

'Look--look, mamma!'--resumed Editha: 'there are ladies.--Oh! do let us go there now!--why can't we?'

'Would to G.o.d we could!' replied Adeline; as in one of the ladies she recognized Mrs Mowbray, and stood gazing on her till her eyes ached again: but what she felt on seeing her she will herself describe in the succeeding pages: and I shall only add, that, as soon as Mrs Mowbray returned into the house, Adeline, wrapped in a long and mournful reverie, returned, full of a new plan, to her lodgings.

There is no love so disinterested as parental love; and Adeline had all the keen sensibilities of a parent. To make, therefore, 'a.s.surance doubly sure' that Mrs Mowbray should receive and should love her orphan when she was no more, she resolved to give up the gratification to which she had looked forward, the hope, before she died, of obtaining her forgiveness--that she might not weaken, by directing any part of them to herself, those feelings of remorse, fruitless tenderness, and useless regret in her mother's bosom, which she wished should be concentrated on her child.

'No,' said Adeline to herself, 'I am sure that she will not refuse to receive my orphan to her love and protection when I am no more, and am become alike insensible of reproaches and of blessings; and I think that she will love my child the more tenderly, because to me she will be unable to express the compunction which, sooner or later, she will feel from the recollection of her conduct towards me: therefore, I will make no demands on her love for myself; but, in a letter to be given her after my decease, bequeath my orphan to her care;'--and with this determination she returned from her ride.

'Have you see her?' said Savanna, running out to meet her.

'Yes--but not spoken to her; nor shall I see her again.'

'What--I suppose she see you, and not speak?'

'Oh, no; she did not see me, nor shall I urge her to see me: my plans are altered,' replied Adeline.

'And we go back to town and Colonel Mordaunt?'

'No,' resumed Adeline, sighing deeply, and preparing to write to Mrs Mowbray.

But it is necessary that we should for a short time go back to Berrendale, and relate that, while Adeline and Editha were confined with the small-pox, Mr Drury received a summons from his employer in Jamaica to go over thither, to be intrusted with some particular business: in consequence of this he resolved to call again on Adeline, and inquire whether she still persisted in styling herself Mrs Berrendale; as he concluded that Berrendale would be very glad of all the information relative to her and her child which he could possibly procure, whether his curiosity on the subject proceeded from fear or love.

It so happened, that as soon as Editha, as well as her mother, was in the height of the disorder, Mr Drury called; and finding that they were both very bad, he thought that his friend Berrendale was likely to get rid of both his enc.u.mbrances at once; and being eager to communicate good news to a man whose influence in the island might be a benefit to him, he every day called to inquire concerning their health.

The second floor in the house where Adeline lodged was then occupied by a young woman in indigent circ.u.mstances, who, as well as her child, had sickened with the distemper the very day that Editha was inoculated: and when Drury, just as he was setting off for Portsmouth, ran to gain the latest intelligence of the invalids, a charwoman, who attended to the door, not being acquainted with the name of the poor young woman and her little girl, concluding that Mr Drury, by Mrs Berrendale and miss who were ill with the small-pox, meant them, replied to his inquiries,--'Ah, poor things! it is all over with them, they died last night.'

On which, not staying for any further intelligence, Drury set off for Portsmouth, and arrived at Jamaica just as Berrendale was going to remit to Adeline a draft for a hundred pounds. For Adeline and the injury which he had done her, had been for some days constantly present to his thoughts. He had been ill; and as indigestion, the cause of his complaints, is apt to occasion disturbed dreams, he had in his dreams been haunted by the image of Glenmurray, who, with a threatening aspect, had reproached him with cruelty and base ingrat.i.tude to him, in deserting in such a manner the wife whom he had bequeathed to him.

The constant recurrence of these dreams had depressed his spirits and excited his remorse so much, that he could calm his feelings in no other way than by writing a kind letter to Adeline, and enclosing her a draft on his banker. This letter was on the point of being sent when Drury arrived, and, with very little ceremony, informed him that Adeline was dead.

'Dead!' exclaimed Berrendale, falling almost sensless on his couch: 'Dead!--Oh! for G.o.d's sake, tell me of what she died!--Surely, surely, she--' Here his voice failed him.

Drury coolly replied, that she and her child both died of the small-pox.

'But _when_? my dear fellow!--when? Say that they died nine months ago'

(that was previous to his marriage) 'and you make me your friend for life!'

Drury, so _bribed_, would have said _any thing_; and, with all the coolness possible, he replied, 'Then be my friend for life:--they died rather better than nine months ago.'

Berrendale, being then convinced that bigamy was not likely to be proved against him, soon forgot, in the joy which this thought occasioned him, remorse for his conduct to Adeline, and regret for her early fate: besides, he concluded that he saved 100 by the means; for he knew not that the delicate mind of Adeline would have scorned to owe pecuniary obligations to the husband who had basely and unwarrantably deserted her.

But he was soon undeceived on this subject, by a letter which Colonel Mordaunt wrote in confidence to a friend in Jamaica, begging him to inquire concerning Mr Berrendale's second marriage; and to inform him privately that his injured wife had zealous and powerful friends in England, who were continually urging her to prosecute him for bigamy.

This intelligence had a fatal effect on the health of Berrendale; for though the violent temper and overbearing disposition of his second wife had often made him regret the gentle and compliant Adeline, and a separation from her, consequently, would be a blessing, still he feared to encounter the disgrace of a prosecution, and still more the anger of his West Indian wife; who, it was not improbable, might even attack his life in the first moment of ungoverned pa.s.sion.

And to these fears he soon fell a sacrifice; for a frame debilitated by intemperance could not support the a.s.saults made on it by the continued apprehensions which Colonel Mordaunt's friend had excited in him; and he died in that gentleman's presence, whom in his last moments he had summoned to his apartment to witness a will, by which he owned Adeline Mowbray to be his lawful wife, and left Editha, his acknowledged and only heir, a very considerable fortune.

But this circ.u.mstance, an account of which, with the will, was transmitted to Colonel Mordaunt, did not take place till long after Adeline took up her abode in c.u.mberland.

CHAPTER XXIII

But to return to Colonel Mordaunt. Though Adeline had said that he must discontinue his visits, he resolved to disobey her; and the next morning, as soon as he thought she had breakfasted, he repaired to her lodgings; where he heard, with mixed sorrow and indignation, that she had set off in a post-chaise at six o'clock, and was gone no one knew whither.

'But, surely she has left some note or message for me!' exclaimed Colonel Mordaunt.

'Neither the one nor the other,' was the answer; and he returned home in no very enviable state of mind.

Various, indeed, and contradictory were his feelings: yet still affection was uppermost; and he could not but respect in Adeline the conduct which drove him to despair. Nor was self-love backward to suggest to him, that had not Adeline felt his presence and attentions to be dangerous, she would not so suddenly have withdrawn from them; and this idea was the only one on which he could at all bear to dwell: for, when he reflected that day after day might pa.s.s without his either seeing or hearing from her, existence seemed to become suddenly a burthen, and he wandered from place to place with joyless and unceasing restlessness.

At one time he resolved to pursue her; but the next, piqued at not having received from her even a note of farewell, he determined to endeavour to forget her: and this was certainly the wiser plan of the two: but the succeeding moment he determined to let a week pa.s.s, in hopes of receiving a letter from her, and, in case he did not, to set off in search of her, being a.s.sured of succeeding in his search of her, because the singularity of Savanna's appearance, and the traces of the small-pox visible in the face of Adeline, made them liable to be observed, and easy for him to describe.

But before the week elapsed, from agitation of mind, and from having exposed himself unnecessarily to cold, by lying on damp gra.s.s at midnight, after having heated himself by immoderate walking, Colonel Mordaunt became ill of a fever; and when, after a confinement of several weeks, he was restored to health, he despaired of being able to learn tidings of the fugitives; and disappointed and dejected, he sought in the gayest scenes of the metropolis and its environs to drown the remembrances, from which in solitude he had vainly endeavoured to fly.

At this time a faded but attractive woman of quality, with whom he had formerly been intimate, returned from abroad, and, meeting Colonel Mordaunt at the house of a mutual friend, endeavoured to revive in him his former attachment: but it was a difficult task for a woman, who had never been able to touch the heart, to excite an attachment in a man already sentimentally devoted to another.

Her advances, however, flattered Colonel Mordaunt, and her society amused him, till, at length, their intimacy was renewed on its former footing: but soon tired of his mistress, and displeased with himself, he took an abrupt leave of her, and throwing himself into his post-chaise, retired to the seat of a relation in Herefordshire.

Near this gentleman's house lived Mr Maynard and his two sisters, who had taken up their abode there immediately on their return from Portugal. Major Douglas, his wife, and Emma Douglas, were then on a visit to them. Mordaunt had known Major Douglas in early life; and as soon as he found that he was in the neighbourhood, he rode over to renew his acquaintance with him; and received so cordial a welcome, not only from the major, but the master of the house and his sisters, that he was strongly induced to repeat his visits, and not a day pa.s.sed in which he was not, during some part of it, a guest at Mr Maynard's.

Mrs Wallington and Miss Maynard, indeed, received him with such pointed marks of distinction and preference, as to make it visible to every observer that it was not as a friend only they were desirous of considering Colonel Mordaunt; while, by spiteful looks and acrimonious remarks directed to each other, the sisters expressed the jealousy which rankled in their hearts, whenever he seemed by design or inadvertency to make one of them the particular object of his attention.

Of Emma Douglas's chance for his favour, they were not at all fearful:--they thought her too plain, and too unattractive, to be capable of rivalling them; especially in the favour of an officer, a man of fashion; and therefore they beheld without emotion the attention which Colonel Mordaunt paid to her whenever she spoke, and the deference which he evidently felt for her opinion, as her remarks on whatever subject she conversed were formed always to interest, and often to instruct.

One evening, while Major Douglas was amusing himself in looking over some magazines which had lately been bound up together, and had not yet been deposited in Mr Maynard's library, he suddenly started, laid down the book, and turning to the window, with an exclamation of--'Poor fellow!'--pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes, as if meaning to disperse an involuntary tear.

'What makes you exclaim "Poor fellow?"' asked his lovely wife: 'have you met with an affecting story in those magazines?'

'No, Louisa,' replied he, 'but I met in the obituary with a confirmation of the death of an old friend, which I suspected must have happened by this time, though I never knew it before; I see by this magazine that poor Glenmurray died a very few months after we saw him at Perpignan.'

'Poor fellow!' exclaimed Mrs Douglas.

'I wish I knew what is become of his interesting companion, Miss Mowbray,' said Emma Douglas.

'I wish I did too,' secretly sighed Colonel Mordaunt: but his heart palpitated so violently at this unexpected mention of the woman for whom he still pined in secret, that he had not resolution to say that he knew her.

'Become of her!' cried Miss Maynard sneeringly: 'you need not wonder, I think, what her fate is: no doubt Mr Glenmurray's _interesting companion_ has not lost her companionable qualities, and is a companion still.'