Emmeline Part 68

'G.o.dolphin, my Emmeline, is at length returned to your unhappy friend, who has pa.s.sed many, many melancholy days since he left her.

My dear brother appears not only in better health, but in better spirits than when he went from hence. Ought I then to repine? when I see him, and when he tells me that you are well; and that affluence, and with it, I hope, happiness will be your's? The very name of happiness and of Adelina should not come in the same page! Ah! never must they any where meet again. Pardon me for thus recurring to myself: but the mournful topic will intrude! Unhappy Trelawny! he had not quite compleated his twenty-fifth year. Tho' I never either loved or esteemed him, and tho' to my early and hasty marriage I owe all the misery of my life, his death has something shocking in it.

My weak spirits, which have of late been unusually deranged, are sadly affected by it. Yet surely in regard to _him_ I have little to reproach myself. Did he not abandon me to my destiny? did he not plunge headlong into follies from which he resented even an effort to save him? Alas! unless I could have given him that understanding which nature had denied him, my solicitude must ever have been vain! It is some alleviation, too, to my concern, to reflect, that as much of his honour as depended on me, has not, by the breath of public fame, been sullied. And I try to persuade myself, that since his life was useful to n.o.body, and had long been, from intemperance, burthensome to himself, I should not suffer his death to dwell so heavily upon me. Yet in spite of every effort to shake off the melancholy which devours me, it encreases upon me; and to you I may say, for you will hear and pity me, that there exists not at this moment so complete a wretch as your Adelina!

'To my brother William, all gentle and generous as he is, I cannot complain. It were ingrat.i.tude to let him see how little all his tenderness avails towards reconciling me to myself; towards healing the wounds of my depressed spirit, and quieting the murmurs of this feeble heart. Yet methinks to have a friend, in whose compa.s.sionate bosom I might pour out it's weakness and it's sorrows, would mitigate the extreme severity of those sufferings which are now more than I can bear.

'Where have I on earth such a friend but in my Emmeline? And will she refuse to come to me? Ah! wherefore should she refuse it? I shall be alone; for G.o.dolphin is obliged to go immediately to London to settle all the business I shall now ever have with the family of Trelawny, and put it on such a footing as may preclude the necessity of my ever meeting any of them hereafter. He tells me that your affairs advance nothing till Lord Westhaven's return; and that our dear Mrs. Stafford talks of being obliged to go back to her family.

If she must do so, you will not stay in London alone; and where is your company so fondly desired, where can you have such an opportunity of exercising your generous goodness, as in coming hither? Our little boy--do you not long to embrace him? Ah! lovely as he is, why dare I not indulge all the pleasure and all the pride I might feel in seeing him; and wherefore must anguish so keen mingle with tenderness so delicious!

'Ah! my friend, come to me, I entreat, I implore you! The reasons why I cannot see London, are of late multiplied rather than removed, and I can only have the happiness of embracing you here. Hesitate not to oblige me then; for I every hour wish more and more ardently to see you. When I awake from my imperfect slumbers, your presence is the first desire of my heart: I figure you to myself as I wander forth on my solitary walks.

And when I _do_ sleep, the image of my angelic friend, consolatory and gentle, makes me some amends for visions less pleasant, that disturb it.

'Ah! let me not see you in dreams alone; for above all I want you--"when I am alone with poor Adelina." Come, O come; and if it be possible--save me--from myself!

A.T.'

The melancholy tenor of this letter greatly affected Emmeline. She wished almost as eagerly as her friend to be with her. But how could she determine to become an inmate at the house of G.o.dolphin, even tho' he was himself to be absent from it? She communicated, however, Lady Adelina's request to Mrs. Stafford, who could see no objection to any plan which might promote the interest of G.o.dolphin. She represented therefore to Emmeline how very disagreeable it would be to her to be left alone in town, when she should herself be obliged to leave her, as must now soon happen. That there was, in fact, no very proper asylum for her but the house of her uncle, which he seemed not at all disposed to offer her. But that to Lady Adelina's proposal there could be no reasonable objection, especially as G.o.dolphin was not to be there.

Emmeline yet hesitated; till another letter from Stafford, more harsh and unreasonable than the first, obliged her friend to fix on the following Thursday for her departure; the absurd impatience of her husband thus defeating it's own purpose; and Emmeline, partly influenced by her persuasions, and yet more by her own wishes, determined at length to fix the same time for beginning her journey to the Isle of Wight.

There was yet two days to intervene; and Mrs. Stafford was obliged to employ the first of them in the city, among lawyers and creditors of her husband. From scenes so irksome she readily allowed Miss Mowbray to excuse herself; who therefore remained at home, and was engaged in looking over some poems she had purchased, when she heard a rap at the door, and the voice of G.o.dolphin on the stairs enquiring of Le Limosin for Mrs. Stafford. Le Limosin told him that she was from home, but that Mademoiselle Mowbray was in the dining room. He sent up to know if he might be admitted. Emmeline had no pretence for refusing him, and received him with a mixture of confusion and pleasure, which she ineffectually attempted to hide under the ordinary forms of civility.

The eyes of G.o.dolphin were animated by the delight of beholding her. But when she enquired after Lady Adelina, as she almost immediately did, they a.s.sumed a more melancholy expression.

'Adelina is far from being well,' said he. 'Has she not written to you?'

'She has.'

'And has she not preferred a request to you?'

'Yes.'

'What answer do you mean to give it? Will you refuse once more to bless and relieve, by your presence, my unhappy sister?'

'I do not know,' said Emmeline, deeply blushing, 'that I ought, (especially without the concurrence of my uncle,) to consent; yet to contribute to the satisfaction of Lady Adelina--to give _her_ any degree of happiness--what is there I can refuse?'

'Adorable, angelic goodness!' eagerly cried G.o.dolphin. 'Best, as well as loveliest of human creatures! You go then?'

'I intend beginning my journey on Thursday.'

'And you will allow me to see you safe thither?'

'There can surely be no occasion to give you that trouble, Sir,' said Emmeline apprehensively; 'nor ought you to think of it, since Lady Adelina's affairs certainly require your attendance in London.'

'They do; but not so immediately as to prevent my attending you to East Cliff. If you will suffer me to do that, I promise instantly to return.'

'No. I go only attended by my servants or go not at all.'

G.o.dolphin was mortified to find her so determined. And easily discouraged from those hopes which he had indulged rather from the flattering prospects offered to him by Mrs. Stafford than presumption founded on his own remarks, he now again felt all his apprehensions renewed of her latent affection for Delamere. The acute anguish to which those ideas exposed him, and their frequent return, determined him now to attempt knowing at once, whether he had or had not that place in Emmeline's heart which Mrs. Stafford had a.s.sured him he had long possessed.

Sitting down near her, therefore, he said, gravely--'As I may not, Miss Mowbray, soon have again the happiness I now enjoy, will you allow me to address you on a subject which you must long have known to be nearest my heart; but on which you have so anxiously avoided every explanation I have attempted, that I fear intruding too much on your complaisance if I enter upon it.'

Emmeline found she could not avoid hearing him; and sat silent, her heart violently beating. G.o.dolphin went on.--

'From the first moment I beheld you, my heart was your's. I attempted, indeed, at the beginning of our acquaintance--ah! how vainly attempted!--to conquer a pa.s.sion which I believed was rendered hopeless by your prior engagement. While I supposed you the promised wife of Lord Delamere, I concealed, as well as I was able, my sufferings, and never offended you with an hint of their severity. Had you married him, I think I could have carried them in silence to the grave. Those ties, however, Lord Delamere himself broke; and I then thought myself at liberty to solicit your favour. It was for that purpose I took the road to St. Alpin, when the unhappy Delamere stopped me at Besancon.

'When I afterwards related to you his illness; the sorrow, the lively and generous sorrow, you expressed for _him_, and the cold and reserved manner in which you received _me_, made me still believe, that tho' he had relinquished your hand he yet possessed your heart. I saw it with anguish, and continued silent. All that pa.s.sed at Besancon confirmed me in this opinion. I determined to tear myself away, and again conceal in solitude a pa.s.sion, which, while I felt it to be incurable, I feared was hopeless. Accident, however, detaining me at Calais, again threw me in your way; and I heard, that far from having renewed your engagement with Lord Delamere, you had left him to avoid his eager importunity. Dare I add--that _then_, my pity for him was lost in the hopes I presumed to form for myself; and studiously as you have avoided giving me an opportunity of speaking to you, I have yet ventured to flatter myself that you beheld not with anger or scorn, my ardent, my fond attachment.'

From the beginning of this speech to it's conclusion, the encreasing confusion of Emmeline deprived her of all power of answering it. With deepened blushes, and averted eyes, she at first sought for refuge in affecting to be intent on the netting she drew from her work box; but having spoiled a whole row, her trembling hands could no longer go on with it; and as totally her tongue refused to utter the answer, which, by the pause he made, she concluded G.o.dolphin expected. After a moment, however, he went on.

'I have by no means encouraged visions so delightful, without a severe alloy of fear and mistrust. Frequently, your coldness, your unkindness, gives me again to despondence; and every lovely prospect I had suffered my imagination to draw, is lost in clouds and darkness. Yet I am convinced you do not _intend_ to torture me; and that from Miss Mowbray I may expect that candour, that explicit conduct, of which common minds are incapable. Tell me then, dearest and loveliest Emmeline, may I venture to hope that tender bosom is not wholly insensible? Will you hear me with patience, and even with pity?'

'What, Sir, can I say?' faulteringly asked Emmeline. 'I am in a great measure dependant, at least for some time, on Lord Montreville; and till I am of age, have determined to hear nothing on the subject on which you are pleased to address me.'

'Admitting it to be so,' answered G.o.dolphin, 'give me but an hope to live upon till then!'

'I will not deny, Sir,' said Emmeline still more faintly, 'I will not deny that my esteem for your character--my--my'

'Oh! speak!' exclaimed G.o.dolphin eagerly--'speak, and tell me that----'

At this moment Le Limosin hastily came into the room, and said--'_Mademoiselle, le Chevalier de Bellozane demande permission de vous parler._'[39]

G.o.dolphin, vexed at the interruption, and embarra.s.sed at the arrival of the Chevalier, said hastily--'You will not see him?'

'How can I refuse him?' answered she; 'perhaps he comes with some intelligence of your brother--of my dear Lady Westhaven.'

By this time the Chevalier was in the room. Emmeline received him with anxious and confused looks, arising entirely from her apprehensions about Lady Westhaven and Lord Delamere; but the vanity of Bellozane saw in it only a struggle between her real sentiments and her affectation of concealment. She almost instantly, however, enquired after her friends.

'I left them,' said Bellozane, 'almost as soon as you did, and went (because I wanted money and my father wanted to see _me_,) back to St.

Alpin, where I staid almost a fortnight; and having obtained a necessary recruit of cash, I set off for Paris; where (my leave of absence being to expire in another month) I was forced to make interest to obtain a longer permission, in order to throw myself, lovely Miss Mowbray, at your feet, and to pa.s.s the winter in the delights of London, which they tell me I shall like better than Paris.'

Emmeline, disgusted at his presumption and volatility, enquired if he knew nothing since of Lord and Lady Westhaven.

'Oh, yes,' said he, 'I saw them all at Paris, and asked them if they had any commands to you? But I could get nothing from my good cousin but sage advice, and from Lady Westhaven only cold looks and half sentences; and as to poor Delamere, I knew he was too much afraid of my success to be in a better temper with me than the other two; so we had but little conversation.'

'But they are well, Sir?'

'No; Delamere has been detained all this time by illness, at different places. He was better when I saw him; but Lady Westhaven was herself ill, and my cousin was, in looks, the most rueful of the three.'

'But, Sir, when may they be expected in England?'

'That I cannot tell. The last time I saw Lord Westhaven was above a week before I left Paris; and then he said he knew not when his wife would be well enough to begin their journey, but he hoped within a fortnight.'

'Good G.o.d!' thought Emmeline, 'what can have prevented his writing to me all this time?'

G.o.dolphin, after the first compliments pa.s.sed with the Chevalier, had been quite silent. He now, however, asked some questions about his brother; by which he found, that in consequence of endeavouring to discourage Bellozane's voyage to England, Lord Westhaven had offended him, and that a coldness had taken place between them. Bellozane had ceased to consider G.o.dolphin as a rival, when he beheld Lord Delamere in that light; and was now rather pleased to meet him, knowing that his introduction into good company would greatly be promoted by means of such a relation.

'Do you know,' said the Chevalier, addressing himself to Emmeline, 'that I have had some trouble, my fair friend, to find you?'