Adeline Mowbray Part 44

Dr Norberry arrived in a few hours. Mrs Mowbray ran out to meet him; but a welcome died on her tongue, and she could only speak by her tears.

'There, there, my good woman, don't be foolish,' replied he: 'it is very silly to blubber, you know: besides, it can do no good,' giving her a kiss, while the tears trickled down his rough cheek. 'So, the lost sheep is found?'

'But, O! she will be lost again,' faltered Mrs Mowbray; 'I doubt nothing can save her!'

'No!' cried the old man, with a gulp, 'no! not my coming so many miles on purpose?--Well, but where is she?'

'She will see you presently, but begged to be excused for a few minutes.' 'You see,' said he, 'by my dress, what has happened,' gulping as he spoke. 'I have lost the companion of thirty years!--and--and--'

here he paused, and after an effort went on to say, that his wife in her last illness had owned that she had suppressed Adeline's letters, and had declared the reason of it--'But, poor soul!' continued the doctor, 'it was the only sin against me, I believe, or any one else, that she ever committed--so I forgave her: and I trust that G.o.d will.'

Soon after they were summoned to the sick room, and Dr Norberry beheld with a degree of fearful emotion, which he vainly endeavoured to hide under a cloak of pleasantry, the dreadful ravages which sorrow and sickness had made in the face and form of Adeline.

'So, here you are at last!' cried he, trying to smile while he sobbed audibly, 'and a pretty figure you make, don't you?--But we have you again, and we will not part with you so soon, I can tell you (almost starting as the faint but rapid pulse met his fingers)--that is, I mean,' added he, 'unless it please G.o.d.' Mrs Mowbray and Savanna, during this speech, gazed on his countenance in breathless anxiety, and read in it a confirmation of their fears. 'But who's afraid?' cried the doctor, forcing a laugh, while his tone and his looks expressed the extreme of apprehension, and his laugh ended in a sob.

Mrs Mowbray turned away in a sort of desperate silence; but the mulatto still kept her penetrating eye fixed upon him, and with a look so full of woe!

'I'll trouble you, mistress, to take those formidable eyes of yours off my face,' cried the doctor pettishly; 'for I can't stand their inquiry!--But who the devil are you?'

'She is my nurse, my consoler, and my friend,' said Adeline.

'Then she is mine of course,' cried the doctor, 'though she has a terrible stare with her eyes:--but give me your hand, mistress. What is your name?'

'Me be name Savanna,' replied the mulatto; 'and me die and live wid my dear mistress,' she added, bursting into tears.

'Pshaw!' cried the doctor, 'I can't bear this--here I came as a physician, and these blubberers melt me down into an old woman. Adeline, I must order all these people out of the room, and have you to myself, or I can do nothing.'

He was obeyed; and on inquiring into all Adeline's symptoms, he found little to hope and every thing to fear--'But your mind is relieved, and you have youth on your side; and who knows what good air, good food, and good nurses may do for you!'

'Not to mention a good physician,' added Adeline, smiling, 'and a good friend in that physician.'

'This it be to have money,' said Savanna, as she saw the various things prepared and made to tempt Adeline's weak appet.i.te:--'poor Savanna mean as well--her heart make all these, but her hand want power.'

During this state of alarming suspense Mrs Pemberton was hourly expected, as she had written word that she had traced Adeline into Lancashire, and suspected that she was in her mother's neighbourhood.--It may be supposed that Mrs Mowbray, Adeline, and Savanna, looked forward to her arrival with eager impatience; but not so Dr Norberry--he said that no doubt she was a very good sort of woman, but that he did not like pretensions to righteousness over much, and had a particular aversion to a piece of formal drab-coloured morality.

Adeline only laughed at these prejudices, without attempting to confute them; for she knew that Mrs Pemberton's appearance and manners would soon annihilate them. At length she reached the Lawn; and Savanna, who saw her alight, announced her arrival to her mistress, and was commissioned by her to introduce her immediately into the sick chamber.--She did so; but Mrs Pemberton, almost overpowered with joy at the intelligence which awaited her, and ill fortified by Savanna's violent and mixed emotions against the indulgence of her own, begged to compose herself a few moments before she met Adeline: but Savanna was not to be denied; and seizing her hand she led her up to the bedside of the invalid.--Adeline smiled affectionately when she saw her; but Mrs Pemberton started back, and, scarcely staying to take the hand which she offered her, rushed out of the room, to vent in solitude the burst of uncontrollable anguish which the sight of her altered countenance occasioned her.--Alas! her eye had been but too well tutored to read the characters of death in the face, and it was some time before she recovered herself sufficiently to appear before the anxious watchers by the bed of Adeline with that composure which on principle she always endeavoured to display.--At length, however, she re-entered the room, and approaching the poor invalid, kissed in silence her wan flushed cheek.

'I am very different now, my kind friend, to what I was when you _first_ saw me,' said Adeline, faintly smiling.

To the moment when they _last_ met, Adeline had not resolution enough to revert, for then she was mourning by the dead body of Glenmurray.

Mrs Pemberton was silent for a moment; but, making an effort, she replied, 'Thou art now more like what thou wert in _mind_, when I _first_ met thee at Rosevalley, than when I first saw thee at Richmond.

At Rosevalley I beheld thee innocent, at Richmond guilty, and here I see thee penitent, and, I hope, resigned to thy fate.'--She spoke the word _resigned_ with emphasis, and Adeline _understood_ her.

'I am indeed resigned,' replied Adeline in a low voice: 'nay, I feel that I am much favoured in being spared so long. But there is one thing that weighs heavily on my mind; Mary Warner is leading a life of shame, and she told me when I last saw her, that she was corrupted by my precept and example: if so--'

'Set thy conscience at rest on that subject,' interrupted Mrs Pemberton: 'while she lived with me, I discovered, long before she ever saw thee, that she had been known to have been faulty.'

'Oh! what a load have you removed from my mind!' replied Adeline. 'Still it would be more relieved, if you would promise to find her out; and she may be heard of at Mr Langley's chambers in the Temple. Offer her a yearly allowance for life, provided she will quit her present vicious habits; I am sure my mother will gladly fulfil my wishes in this respect.'

'And so will I,' replied Mrs Pemberton. 'Is there any thing else that I can do for thee?'

'Yes: I have two pensioners at Richmond,--a poor young woman, and her orphan boy,--an illegitimate child,' she added, deeply sighing, as she recollected what had interested her in their fate. 'I bequeath them to your care: Savanna knows where they are to be found. And now, all that disturbs my thoughts at this awful moment is, the grief which my poor mother and Savanna will feel;--nay, they will be quite unprepared for it; for they persist to hope still, and I believe that even Dr Norberry allows his wishes to deceive his judgment.'

'They will suffer, indeed!' cried Mrs Pemberton: 'but I give thee my word, that I will never leave thy mother, and that Savanna shall be our joint care.'

'It is enough--I shall now die in peace,' said Adeline; and Mrs Pemberton turned away to meet Mrs Mowbray, who, with Dr Norberry at that moment entered the room. Mrs Mowbray met her, and welcomed her audibly and joyfully: but Mrs Pemberton, aware of the blow which impended over her, vainly endeavoured to utter a congratulation; but throwing herself into Mrs Mowbray's extended arms, she forgot her usual self-command, and sobbed loudly on her bosom.

Dr Norberry gazed at the benevolent Quaker with astonishment. True, she was '_drab-coloured_;' but where was the repulsive formality that he had expected? 'This woman can feel like other women, and is as good a hand at a crying-bout as myself.' But Mrs Pemberton did not long give way to so violent an indulgence of her feelings; and gently withdrawing herself from Mrs Mowbray's embrace, she turned to the window, while Mrs Mowbray hastened to the bed-side of Adeline. Mrs Pemberton then turned round again, and, seizing Dr Norberry's hand, which she fervently pressed, said in a faltering voice, 'Would thou couldst _save_ her!'

'And--and _can't_ I? can't I?' replied he, gulping. Mrs Pemberton looked at him with an expression which he could neither mistake nor endure; but muttering in a low tone, 'No! dear, sweet soul! I doubt I can't, I doubt I can't, by the Lord!' he rushed out of the room.

From that moment he never was easy but when he could converse with Mrs Pemberton; for he knew that she, and she only, sympathized in his feelings, as she only knew that Adeline was not likely to recover. The invalid herself observed his attention to her friend, nor could she forbear to rally him on the total disappearance of his prejudices against the fair Quaker; for, such was the influence of Mrs Pemberton's dignified yet winning manners, and such was the respect with which she inspired him, that, if he had his hat on, he always took it off when she entered the room, and never uttered any thing like an oath, without humbly begging her pardon; and he told Adeline, that were all Quakers like Mrs Pemberton, he should be tempted to cry. 'Drab is your only wear.'

Another and another day elapsed, and Adeline still lived.--On the evening of the third day, as she lay half-slumbering with her head on Savanna's arm, and Mrs Mowbray, lulling Editha to sleep on her lap, was watching beside her, glancing her eye alternately with satisfied and silent affection from the child to the mother, whom she thought in a fair way of recovery; while Dr Norberry, stifling an occasional sob, was contemplating the group, and Mrs Pemberton, her hands clasped in each other, seemed lost in devout contemplation, Adeline awoke, and as she gazed on Editha, who was fondly held to Mrs Mowbray's bosom, a smile illumined her sunk countenance. Mrs Mowbray at that moment eagerly and anxiously pressed forward to catch her weak accents, and inquire how she felt. 'I have seen that fond and anxious look before,' she faintly articulated, 'but in happier times! and it a.s.sures me that you love me still.'

'Love you still!' replied Mrs Mowbray with pa.s.sionate fondness:--'never, never were you so dear to me as now!'

Adeline tried to express the joy which flushed her cheek at these words, and lighted up her closing eyes: but she tried in vain. At length she grasped Mrs Mowbray's hand to her lips, and in imperfect accents exclaiming 'I thank thee, blessed Lord!' she laid her head on Savanna's bosom, and expired.

END OF ADELINE MOWBRAY.