Emmeline Part 25

'You frighten me to death,' said Emmeline. 'Tell me, colonel, what ought I to do?'

'Go to him,' returned Fitz-Edward; 'speak to him only a moment, and I am persuaded he will be calm. I will go with you; and then there can be nothing wrong in it.'

'I _will_ go, then,' said she, rising and giving Fitz-Edward her hand, which trembled extremely.

'But it is very cold,' remarked he: 'had not you better take a cloak?'

'There is my long _pelisse_ in the back parlour,' answered she.

Fitz-Edward fetched it, wrapt her in it, and led her down stairs; and by a garden door, they reached a sort of back stable-yard, where rubbish and stable-litter was usually thrown, and which opened into a bye-lane, where the garden-wall formed a sudden angle. Delamere received her with transport, which he tried to check; and reproached her for refusing to come down to him.

Seizing the opportunity, as soon as he would give her leave to speak, she very forcibly represented to him the distress of his family at his absence, and the particular uneasiness it inflicted on his sister Augusta.

'I knew not,' said Delamere, 'that she was come home.'

Emmeline told him she was, and related the purport of her letter, and again besought him to put an end to the uncertainty and anxiety of his family.

Delamere heard her with some impatience; and holding her hands in his, vehemently answered--'It is to no purpose that my father either threatens or persuades me. He has long known my resolution; and the unhappiness which you so warmly describe arises solely from his and my mother's own unreasonable and capricious prejudice--prejudice founded in pride and avarice. I do not think myself accountable for distress to which they may so easily put an end. But as to Augusta, who really loves me, I will write to her to make her easy. Now Emmeline, since I have listened to you, and answered all you have to urge, hear my final determination--_If you_ still continue firm in your chimerical and romantic obstinacy, which you call honour, _I_ go from hence this evening, never to return--you condemn me to perpetual exile--you give me up to despair!'

He called aloud, and a post-chaise and four, which had been concealed by the projection of the wall, attended by two servants, drove round.

'There,' continued Delamere, 'there is the vehicle which I have prepared to carry me from hence. You know whether I easily relinquish a resolution once formed. If then you wish to save my father and mother from the anguish of repentance when there will be no remedy--if you desire to save from the frenzy of desperation the brother of your Augusta, and to s.n.a.t.c.h from the extremity of wretchedness the man who lives but to adore you, go with me--go with me to Scotland!'

Astonished and terrified at the impetuosity with which he pressed this unexpected proposal, Emmeline would have replied, but words were a moment wanting. Fitz-Edward taking advantage of her silence, used every argument which Delamere had omitted, to determine her.

'No! no!' cried she--'never! never! I have pa.s.sed my honour to Lord Montreville. It is sacred--I cannot, I will not forfeit it!'

'The time will come,' said Fitz-Edward, 'believe me it will, when Lord Montreville will not only be reconciled to you, but'----

'And what shall reconcile me to myself? Let me go back to the house, Mr.

Delamere; or from this moment I shall consider you as having taken advantage of my unprotected state, and even of my indiscreet confidence, to offer me the grossest outrage. Let me go, Sir!' (struggling to get her hand from Fitz-Edward) 'Let me go! Mr. Delamere.'

'What! to be driven into the arms of Rochely? No, never, Emmeline!

never! I _know_ I am _not_ indifferent to you. I feel that I cannot live without you; nay, by heaven I will not! But if I suffer this opportunity to escape, I deserve indeed to lose you.'

They all this while approached the chaise. Delamere had hired servants, whom he had instructed what to do. They were ready at the door of the carriage. Emmeline attempted in vain to retreat. Delamere threw his arms around her; and a.s.sisted by Fitz-Edward, lifted her into it with a sort of gentle violence. He leaped in after her, and the chaise was driven away instantly.

Fitz-Edward, to whom this scene was wholly unexpected, returned to the company he had left with Mrs. Ashwood. He had not any notion of Delamere's design when he went to him, but heartily concurred in its execution; and tho' he did not believe Delamere intended to marry Emmeline, yet his morals were such, that he congratulated himself on the share he had had in putting her into his power, and went back with the air of a man vastly satisfied with the success of his exploit.

'Goodness! colonel,' exclaimed Mrs. Ashwood, 'supper has been waiting for you this half hour. Upon my word we began to suspect that you and Miss Mowbray were gone together. But pray where is she?'

'Miss Mowbray, Madam! I really have not been so happy as to be of her party.'

'Why, where in the world can she be?' continued Mrs. Ashwood. 'However, as the colonel is come we will go to supper. [_The company were standing round the table._] I suppose Miss Mowbray will come presently; she has a pretty romantic notion of contemplation by moonlight.'

Supper, however, was almost over, and Miss Mowbray did not appear. Mrs.

Ashwood, engaged wholly by the gallant colonel, thought not of her; but Rochely remarked that her absence was somewhat singular.

'So it is I declare,' said Miss Galton; 'do Mrs. Ashwood send and enquire for her again.'

The chambers, the drawing-room, dressing-room, closets, and garden were again searched. Miss Mowbray was not to be found! Mrs. Ashwood was alarmed--Rochely in dismay--and the whole company confusedly broke up; each retiring with their several conjectures on the sudden disappearance of the fair Emmeline.

CHAPTER IV

For some moments after Emmeline found herself in the chaise, astonishment and terror deprived her of speech and even of recollection.

While Delamere, no longer able to command his transports at having at length as he hoped secured her, gave way to the wildest joy, and congratulated himself that he had thus forced her to break a promise which only injustice he said could have extorted, and only timidity and ill-grounded prejudice have induced her to keep.

'Do you then hope, Sir,' said Emmeline, 'that I shall patiently become the victim of your rashness? Is this the respect you have sworn ever to observe towards me? Is this the protection you have so often told me I should find from you? And is it thus you intend to atone for all the insults of your family which you have so repeatedly protested you would never forgive? by inflicting a far greater insult; by ruining my character; by degrading me in my own eyes; and forcing me either to violate my word solemnly given to your father, or be looked upon as a lost and abandoned creature, undone by your inhuman art. I must now, indeed, seem to _deserve_ your mother's anger, and the scorn of your sister; and must be supposed every way wretched and contemptible.'

A shower of tears fell from her eyes, and her heart seemed bursting with the pain these cruel reflections gave her.

Delamere, by all the soothing tenderness of persuasion, by all the rhetoric of ardent pa.s.sion, tried to subdue her anger, and silence her scruples; but the more her mind dwelt on the circ.u.mstances of her situation, the more it recoiled from the necessity of entering under such compulsion into an indissoluble engagement. The rash violence of the measure which had put her in Delamere's power, while it convinced her of his pa.s.sion, yet told her, that a man who would hazard every thing for his own gratification now, would hardly hereafter submit to any restraint; and that the bonds in which he was so eager to engage, would with equal violence be broken, when any new face should make a new impression, or when time had diminished the influence of those attractions that now enchanted him.

Formed of the softer elements, and with a mind calculated for select friendship and domestic felicity, rather than for the tumult of fashionable life and the parade of t.i.tled magnificence, Emmeline coveted not his rank, nor valued his riches. No woman perhaps can help having some regard for a man, who she knows ardently and sincerely loves her; and Emmeline had felt all that sort of weakness for Delamere; who in the bloom of life, with fortune, t.i.tle, person and talents that might have commanded the loveliest and most affluent daughter of prosperity, had forsaken every thing for her, and even secluded himself from the companions of his former pleasures, and the indulgences his fortune and rank afforded him, to pa.s.s his youth in unsuccessful endeavours to obtain her.

The partiality this consideration gave her towards him, and the favourable comparison she was perpetually making between him and the men she had seen since her residence near London, had created in her bosom a sentiment warmer perhaps than friendship; yet it was not that violent love, which carrying every thing before it, leaves the mind no longer at liberty to see any fault in the beloved object, or any impropriety in whatever can secure it's success, and which, scorning future consequences, risks every thing for it's present indulgence.

Still artless and ingenuous as when she first left the remote castle where she had been brought up, Emmeline had not been able to conceal this affection from Delamere. Her eyes, her manner, the circ.u.mstance of the picture, and a thousand nameless inadvertences, had told it him repeatedly; but now, when he seemed to have taken an ungenerous advantage of that regard, it lost much of it's force, and resentment and disdain succeeded.

Delamere tried to appease her by protestations of inviolable respect, of eternal esteem, and unalterable love. But there was something of triumph even in his humblest entreaties, that served but to encrease the anger Emmeline felt; and she told him that the only way to convince her he had for her those sentiments he pretended, was to carry her back immediately to Mrs. Ashwood's, or rather to Lord Montreville, there to acknowledge the attempt he had made, and that it's failure had been solely owing to her determined adherence to her word.

Delamere, presuming on his ascendancy over her, attempted to interest her pa.s.sions rather than tranquillize her reason. He represented to her how great would be her triumph when he presented her as his wife to the imperious Lady Montreville, who had treated her with so much unmerited scorn, and set her above the haughty f.a.n.n.y Delamere, who had insulted her with fancied superiority.

But Emmeline had in her breast none of those pa.s.sions that find their gratification in humbling an enemy. Too generous for revenge; too gentle for premeditated resentment; she saw these circ.u.mstances in a very different light, and felt that she should be rather mortified than elated by being forced into a family who wished to reject her.

Sir Richard Crofts, the object of Delamere's hatred and detestation, was the subject of those acrimonious reflections that his respect for his father and mother prevented his throwing on them. The influence of this man had, he said, made Lord Montreville deaf to the voice of nature, and forgetful of his own honour; while he was plunged into the dark and discreditable labyrinth of political intrigue, and acquired an habit of subterfuge and duplicity unworthy a n.o.bleman, a gentleman, or a man.

Emmeline cared nothing about Sir Richard Crofts, and could not enter into the bitterness of his resentment towards him. Nothing he had yet been able to urge had shaken her resolution not to become his wife, even tho' he should oblige her to go with him into Scotland.

The ruder pa.s.sions of anger and resentment had no influence over her mind. While he argued with warmth, or ran into reproaches, Emmeline found she had nothing to fear. But tho' he could not rouse her pride, or awaken her dislike against his family, but rather found them recoil on himself; he hoped in that sensibility of temper and that softness of heart to which he owed all the attention she had ever shewn him, he should find a sure resource. In her pity, an advocate for his fault--in her love, an inducement not only to forgive but to reward him.

And when he pleaded for compa.s.sion and forgiveness, the heart of Emmeline felt itself no longer invulnerable. But against this dangerous attack she endeavoured to fortify that sensible heart, by considering the probable event of her yielding to it.

'If I marry Delamere contrary to the consent of his family, who shall a.s.sure me that his violent and haughty spirit will bear without anguish and regret, that inferior and confined fortune to which his father's displeasure will condemn him? His love, too ardent perhaps to last, will decline; while the inconveniences of a narrow fortune will encrease; and I, who shall be the cause of these inconveniences, shall also be the victim. He will lament the infatuation which has estranged him from his family, and thrown him, for some years at least, out of the rank in which he has been used to appear; and recovered from the delirium of love, will behold with coldness, perhaps with hatred, her to whom he will impute his distresses. To whom can I then appeal? Not to my _own_ heart, for it will condemn me for suffering myself to be precipitated into a measure against my judgment; nor to _his_ family, who may answer, "thy folly be upon thine own head;" and _I_ have _no_ father, _no_ brother to console and receive me, if he should drive me from him as impetuously as now he would force me to be his. I shall be deprived even of the melancholy consolation of knowing I have not _deserved_ the neglect which I fear I shall never be able to _bear_. But if my steady refusal now, induces him to return, it is possible that Lord Montreville, convinced at once of my adherence to the promise given him, and of the improbability of Delamere's desisting, may consent to receive me into his family; or if the inveterate prejudice of his wife still prevents his doing so, I shall surely regain his confidence and esteem.

He will not refuse to consider me as his brother's daughter, and as such, he will enable me to pa.s.s my days in easy competence with Mrs.

Stafford; a prospect infinitely preferable in my eyes to the splendid visions offered me by Delamere, if they cannot be realized but at the expence of truth and integrity.'

Confirmed in her determination by reflections like these, Emmeline was able to hear, without betraying any symptoms of the emotion she felt, the animated and pa.s.sionate protestations of her lover. She a.s.sumed all the coldness and reserve which his headlong and inconsiderate attempt deserved. She told him that his want of respect and consideration had forfeited all the claim he might otherwise have had to her regard and esteem; that she certainly would quit him the moment she was able; and that tho' she might not be fortunate enough to do so before they reached Scotland, yet it would not be in his power to compel her to be his wife.

Delamere for some time imputed this language to sudden resentment; and again by the humblest submissions sought to obtain her forgiveness and to excite her pity. But having nearly exhausted her spirits by what she had already said, she gave very little reply to his entreaties. Her silence was however more expressive than her words. She took from him her hand, as often as he attempted to hold it, and would not suffer him to wipe away the tears that fell from her eyes; while to his arguments and persuasions she coldly answered, when she answered at all, '_that she was determined_:' and they arrived at Barnet before he had obtained the smallest concession in his favour.

Delamere had undertaken this enterprize rather in despair, than from any hope of it's success, since he did not believe Emmeline would come out to him when he requested it; and had she been either alone, or only with Mrs. Ashwood, she certainly had not done it. Chance had befriended him in collecting a room full of company, and still more in sending Rochely among them. His abrupt approach while she read Delamere's note, had hurried her out of her usual presence of mind; and Fitz-Edward, whom mere accident had brought to Mrs. Ashwood's house, and whom she had taken with her in hopes of his influencing Delamere to return to his father, had contributed to her involuntary error.