Emmeline Part 48

'Merciful heaven!--and can it then never be?'

Alarmed at the suddenness of an exclamation so causeless, Lady Adelina looked terrified and her friends amazed.

'What, brother?--what are you speaking of?' enquired she.

'I beg your pardon,' said G.o.dolphin, instantly recollecting himself, and blushing for this unguarded sally--'I beg your pardon. I was thinking of some business I have to settle; but I do not deserve to be forgiven for suffering my mind in such company to dwell on any thing but the pleasure I enjoy; and for yielding to a foolish custom I have acquired of uttering aloud whatever is immediately in my mind; an habit,' added he, smiling, 'that has grown upon me by living so much alone. Since Lady Adelina is now fixed with me, I hope I shall cease to speak and think like an hermit, and be again humanized. Adelina, my love, you look fatigued.'

'Ah!' replied she, 'of what fatigue can I be sensible when with those who I most love and value; and from whom, to-morrow--to-morrow I must part!'

'I doubt that extremely,' said G.o.dolphin, trying to carry the conversation entirely from his own strange behaviour. 'If I have any skill in the weather, to-morrow will bring a gale of wind, which will opportunely make prisoners of our two fair friends for another day.'

'How infinitely,' cried Lady Adelina, 'shall I be obliged to it.'

The rising of the wind during the whole evening had made G.o.dolphin's conjecture highly probable. Mrs. Stafford, impatient to return to her children, whom she never willingly left wholly in the care of servants, heard it's encreasing violence with regret. Emmeline tried to do so too; but she could not prevail on herself to lament a circ.u.mstance likely to keep her another day with Lady Adelina and her little boy. She wanted too to see a little of this beautiful island, of which she had heard so much; and found several other reasons for wishing to remain, without allowing herself to suppose that G.o.dolphin had on these wishes the smallest influence.

CHAPTER X

Early the next morning, Emmeline arose; and looking towards the sea, saw a still encreasing tempest gathering visibly over it. She wandered over the house; which tho' not large was chearful and elegant, and she fancied every thing in it bore testimony to the taste and temper of its master. The garden charmed her still more; surrounded by copse-wood and ever-greens, and which seemed equally adapted to use and pleasure. The country behind it, tho' divested of its foliage and verdure, appeared more beautiful than any she had seen since she left Wales; and with uncommon avidity she enjoyed, even amid the heavy gloom of an impending storm, the great and magnificent spectacle afforded by the sea. By reminding her of her early pleasures at Mowbray Castle, it brought back a thousand half-obliterated and agreeable, tho' melancholy images to her mind; while its grandeur gratified her taste for the sublime.

As she was indulging these contemplations, the wind suddenly blew with astonishing violence; and before Mrs. Stafford arose, the sea was become so tempestuous and impracticable, that eagerly as she wished to return to her children she could not think of braving it.

G.o.dolphin had seen Emmeline wandering along the cliff, and had resolutely denied himself the pleasure of joining her; for from what had pa.s.sed the evening before, he began to doubt his own power to forbear speaking to her of the subject that filled his heart.

They now met at breakfast; and Emmeline was charmed with her walk, tho'

she had been driven from it by the turbulence of the weather, which by this time had arisen to an hurricane. When their breakfast ended, Mrs.

Stafford followed Lady Adelina, who wanted to consult her on something that related to the little boy; G.o.dolphin went out to give some orders; and Emmeline retired to a bow window which looked towards the sea.

Could she have divested her mind of its apprehensions that what formed for her a magnificent and sublime scene brought shipwreck and destruction to many others, she would have been highly pleased with a sight of the ocean in its present tremendous state. Lost in contemplating the awful spectacle, she did not see or hear G.o.dolphin; who imagining she had left the room with his sister, had returned, and with his arms crossed, and his eyes fixed on her face, stood on the other side of the window like a statue.

The gust grew more vehement, and deafened her with it's fury; while the mountainous waves it had raised, burst thundering against the rocks and seemed to shake their very foundation. Emmeline, at the picture her imagination drew of their united powers of desolation, shuddered involuntarily and sighed.

'What disturbs Miss Mowbray?' said G.o.dolphin.

Emmeline, unwilling to acknowledge that she had been so extremely absent as not to know he was in the room, answered, without expressing her surprise to see him there--'I was thinking how fatal this storm which we are contemplating, may be to the fortunes and probably the lives of thousands.'

'The gale,' returned G.o.dolphin, 'is heavy, but by no means of such fatal power as you apprehend. I have been at sea in several infinitely more violent, and shall probably be in many others.'

'I hope not,' answered Emmeline, without knowing what she said--'Surely you do not mean it?'

'A professional man,' said he, smiling, and flattered by the eagerness with which she spoke, 'has, you know, no will of his own. I certainly should not seek danger; but it is not possible in such service as ours to avoid it.'

'Why then do you not quit it?'

'If I intended to give you a high idea of my _prudence_, I should say, because I am a younger brother. But to speak honestly, that is not my only motive; my fortune, limited as it is, is enough for all my wishes, and will probably suffice for any I shall _now_ ever form; but a man of my age ought not surely to waste in torpid idleness, or trifling dissipation, time that may be usefully employed. Besides, I love the profession to which I have been brought up, and, by engaging in which, I owe a life to my country if ever it should be called for.'

'G.o.d forbid it ever should!' said Emmeline, with quickness; 'for then,'

continued she, hesitating and blushing, 'what would poor Lady Adelina do? and what would become of my dear little boy?'

G.o.dolphin, charmed yet pained by this artless expression of sensibility, and thrown almost off his guard by the idea of not being wholly indifferent to her, answered mournfully--'To them, indeed, my life may be of some value; but to myself it is of none. Ah, Miss Mowbray! it might have been worth preserving had I----But wherefore presume I to trouble you on a subject so hopeless? I know not what has tempted me to intrude on your thoughts the incoherences of a mind ill at ease. Pardon me--and suffer not my folly to deprive me of the happiness of being your friend, which is all I will ever pretend to.'

He turned away, and hastened out of the room; leaving Emmeline in such confusion that it was not 'till Mrs. Stafford came to call her to Lady Adelina's dressing-room, that she remembered where she was, and the necessity of recollecting her scattered thoughts. When they met at dinner, she could not encounter the eyes of G.o.dolphin without the deepest blushes: Lady Adelina, given wholly up to the idea of their approaching separation, and Mrs. Stafford, occupied by uneasiness of her own, did not attend to the singularity of her manner.

The latter had never beheld such a tempest as was now raging; and she could not look towards the sea, whose high and foaming billows were breaking so near them, without shivering at the terrifying recollection, that in a very few hours her children, all she held dear on earth, would be exposed to this capricious and furious element. Tho' of the steadiest resolution in any trial that merely regarded herself, she was a coward when these dear objects of her fondness were in question; and she could not help expressing to Mr. G.o.dolphin some part of her apprehensions.

'As I have gained some credit,' answered he, 'for my sagacity in foreseeing the gale, I might perhaps as well not hazard the loss of it, by another prophecy, for which you, Lady Adelina, will not thank me.--It will be fine, I am afraid, to-morrow.'

'And the day following we embark for France,' said Mrs. Stafford; 'how providential that we could not sail yesterday!'

'Your heart fails you, my dear Mrs. Stafford,' replied G.o.dolphin, 'and I do not wonder at it. But I will tell you what you shall allow me to do: I will attend you to-morrow to Southampton, where in the character of a veteran seaman I will direct your departure, (as the whole pacquet is yours) according to the appearance of the weather; and to indulge me still farther, you shall suffer me to see you landed at Havre. Adelina, I know, will be wretched 'till she hears you are safe on the other side; and will therefore willingly spare me to bring her such intelligence; and give me at the same time a fortunate opportunity of being useful to you.'

Mrs. Stafford, secretly rejoiced at a proposal which would secure them a protector and as much safety as depended on human skill, could not conceal her wish to a.s.sent to it; tho' she expressed great reluctance to give him so much trouble.

G.o.dolphin then consulted the eyes of Emmeline, which on meeting his were cast down; but he could not find that they expressed any displeasure at his offer: he therefore a.s.sured Mrs. Stafford that he should consider it as a pleasurable scheme with a party to whom he was indifferent; 'but when,' added he, 'it gives me the means of being of the least use to you, to Miss Mowbray, and your children, I shall find in it not only pleasure but happiness. Alas! how poorly it will repay the twentieth part of the obligation we owe you!'

It was settled therefore that Mr. G.o.dolphin was to cross the channel with them. Again Emmeline tried to be sorry, and again found herself incapable of feeling any thing but satisfaction in hearing that he would be yet longer with them.

During the rest of the evening, he tried to a.s.sume a degree of chearfulness; and did in some measure feel it in the prospect of this farther temporary indulgence.

Lady Adelina, unable to conceal her concern, drooped without any effort to imitate him; and when they parted for the night, could not help deploring in terms of piercing regret their approaching separation.

The a.s.surances G.o.dolphin had given them of a favourable morning were fulfilled. They found that tho' there was yet a considerable swell, the wind had subsided entirely, and that they might safely cross to Southampton. The boat that was to convey them was ready; and Emmeline could not take leave of Lady Adelina without sharing the anguish which she could not mitigate. They embraced silently and in tears; and Emmeline pressed to her heart the little boy, to whom she was tenderly attached.

G.o.dolphin was a silent spectator of this melancholy farewel. The softness of Emmeline's heart was to him her greatest charm, and he could hardly help repeating, in the words of Louis XIV--'She has so much sensibility that it must be an exquisite pleasure to be beloved by her!'

He sighed in remembering that such could not be his happiness; then wishing to shorten a scene which so violently affected the unsettled spirits of Lady Adelina, he would have led Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline away; but Lady Adelina insisted on following them to the sh.o.r.e; smiled thro' her tears; and promised to behave better. Silently they walked to the sea-side. Mrs. Stafford hastily embracing her, was handed into the boat by G.o.dolphin; who then advancing with forced gaiety to Emmeline, about whom his sister still fondly hung, said--'Come, come, I must have no more adieus--as if you were never to meet again.'

'Ah! who can tell,' answered Lady Adelina, 'that we ever shall!'

Emmeline spoke not; but kissing the hand of her weeping friend, gave her own to G.o.dolphin; while Lady Adelina, resting on the arm of her woman, and overwhelmed with sorrow, suffered the boat to depart.

It rowed swiftly away; favoured by the tide. Lady Adelina remained on the sh.o.r.e as long as she could distinguish it; and then slowly and reluctantly returned to solitude and tears: while her two friends, attended by her brother, landed safely at Southampton, where he busied himself in settling every thing for their departure the next morning in the pacquet which they had hired, and which now lay ready to receive them.

During their pa.s.sage to Havre, which was short and prosperous, the attention of G.o.dolphin was equally divided between Mrs. Stafford, her children, and Emmeline. But when he a.s.sisted the latter to leave the vessel, he could not forbear pressing her to his heart, while in a deep sigh he bade adieu to the happiness of being with her; for he concluded she would not long remain single, and after she was married he determined never more to trust himself with the dangerous pleasure of beholding her.

He had never mentioned the name of Delamere; and knew not that he was returned to England. Having once been a.s.sured of her engagement, he was unable to enquire into the circ.u.mstances of what had destroyed his happiness. He knew they were to be married in March, and that Delamere had promised to remain on the Continent 'till that period. He doubted not, therefore, but that Emmeline, in compliance with the entreaties of her lover, had consented to accompany Mrs. Stafford to France, and by her presence to charm away the months that yet intervened; after which he supposed they would be immediately united.

Notwithstanding some remarks he had made on the interest she seemed to take in regard to himself, he imputed it merely to her general sensibility and to his relationship to Lady Adelina. He supposed that Delamere possessed her heart; and tho' it was the only possession on earth that would give him any chance of happiness, he envied this happy lover without hating him. He could not blame him for loving her, who was in his own opinion irresistible; nor for having used the opportunity his good fortune had given him of winning her affections. The longer he conversed with her, the more he was convinced that Delamere, in being as he believed master of that heart, was the most fortunate of human beings. But tho' he had not resolution enough to refuse himself the melancholy yet pleasing gratification of contemplating perfections which he thought could never be his, and tho' he could not help sometimes betraying the fondness which that indulgence hourly encreased, he never seriously meditated supplanting the happy Delamere. He did not think that to attempt it was honourable; and his integrity would have prevented the trial, had he supposed it possible to succeed.

Mrs. Stafford had at first seen with concern that G.o.dolphin, whom she sincerely esteemed, was nourishing for her friend a pa.s.sion which could only serve to make him unhappy. But she now saw it's progress rather with pleasure than regret. She was piqued at the groundless jealousy and rash injustice of Delamere towards Emmeline: and disappointed and disgusted at Lord Montreville's conduct towards herself; sickening at the little sincerity of the latter, and doubtful of the temper of the former, she feared that if the alliance took place, her friend would find less happiness than splendour: and she looked with partial eyes on G.o.dolphin; who in morals, manners, and temper, was equally unexceptionable, and whose fortune, tho' inferior to his birth, was yet enough for happiness in that style of life which she knew better calculated for the temper and taste of Emmeline than the parade and grandeur she might share with Delamere.

G.o.dolphin had no parents to accept her with disdainful and cold acquiescence--no sister to treat her with supercilious condescension.--But all his family, tho' of a rank superior to that of Delamere, would receive her with transport, and treat her with the respect and affection she deserved.

Mrs. Stafford, however, spoke not to Emmeline of this revolution in her sentiments, but chose rather to let the affair take it's course than to be in any degree answerable for it's consequences.

The hour in which G.o.dolphin was to leave them now approached. Unable to determine on bidding Emmeline farewel, he would still have lingered with her, and would have gone on with them to Rouen, where Stafford waited their arrival: but this, Mrs. Stafford was compelled to decline; fearing least this extraordinary attention in a stranger should induce her husband to make enquiry into their first acquaintance, and by that means lead to discoveries which could not fail of being injurious to Lady Adelina.