Adeline Mowbray Part 17

When Adeline recovered, she ardently conjured Dr Norberry to procure her an interview with her mother; contending that it was absolutely impossible to suppose, that the sight of a child so long and tenderly loved should not renew a little of her now dormant affection.

'But you were her rival, as well as her child; remember that. However, you look so ill, that now, if ever, she will forgive you, I think: therefore I will go back to Mrs Mowbray; and while I am there do you come, ask for me, and follow the servant into the room.'

'I will,' replied Adeline: and leaning on the arm of her lover, she slowly followed the doctor to her mother's hotel.

CHAPTER XVI

'This is the most awful moment of my life,' said Adeline.

'And the most anxious one of mine,' replied Glenmurray. 'If Mrs Mowbray forgives you, it will be probably on condition that--'

'Whatever be the conditions, I must accept them,' said Adeline.

'True,' returned Glenmurray, wiping the cold dews of weakness from his forehead: 'but no matter--at any rate, I should not have been with you long.'

Adeline, with a look of agony, pressed the arm she held to her bosom.

Glenmurray's heart smote him immediately--he felt he had been ungenerous; and, while the hectic of a moment pa.s.sed across his cheek, he added, 'But I do not do myself justice in saying so. I believe my best chance of recovery is the certainty of your being easy. Let me but see you happy, and so disinterested is my affection, as I have often told you, that I shall cheerfully a.s.sent to any thing that may ensure your happiness.'

'And can you think,' answered Adeline, 'that my happiness can be independent of yours? Do you not see that I am only trying to prepare my mind for being called upon to surrender my inclinations to my duty?'

At this moment they found themselves at the door of the hotel. Neither of them spoke; the moment of trial was come; and both were unable to encounter it firmly. At last Adeline grasped her lover's hand, bade him wait for her at the end of the street, and with some degree of firmness she entered the vestibule, and asked for Dr Norberry.

Dr Norberry, meanwhile, with the best intentions in the world, had but ill prepared Mrs Mowbray's mind for the intended visit. He had again talked to her of her daughter; and urged the propriety of forgiving her; but he had at the same time renewed his animadversions on her own conduct.

'You know not, Dr Norberry,' observed Mrs Mowbray, 'the pains I took with the education of that girl; and I expected to be repaid for it by being styled the happiest as well as best of mothers.'

'And so you would, perhaps, had you not wished to be a wife as well as mother.'

'No more on that subject, sir,' haughtily returned Mrs Mowbray.--'Yes, --Adeline was indeed my joy, my pride.'

'Aye, and pride will have a fall; and a pretty tumble yours has had, to be sure, my old friend; and it has broke its knees--never to be sound again.'

At this unpropitious moment 'a lady to Dr Norberry' was announced, and Adeline tottered into the room.

'What strange intrusion is this?' cried Mrs Mowbray: 'who is this woman?'

Adeline threw back her veil, and falling on her knees, stretched out her arms in an att.i.tude of entreaty: speak she could not, but her countenance was sufficiently expressive of her meaning; and her pale sunk cheek spoke forcibly to the heart of her mother.--At this moment, when a struggle which might have ended favourably for Adeline was taking place in the mind of Mrs Mowbray, Dr Norberry injudiciously exclaimed,

'There,--there she is! Look at her, poor soul! There is little fear, I think, of her ever rivalling you again.'

At these words Mrs Mowbray darted an angry look at the doctor, and desired him to take away that woman; who came, no doubt instigated by him, to insult her.

'Take her away,' she said, 'and never let me see her again.'

'O my mother, hear me, in pity hear me!' exclaimed Adeline.

'As it is for the last time, I will hear you,' replied Mrs Mowbray; 'for never, no never will I behold you more! Hear me vow--'

'Mother, for mercy's sake, make not a vow so terrible!' cried Adeline, gathering courage from despair, and approaching her: 'I have grievously erred, and will cheerfully devote the rest of my life to endeavour, by the most submissive obedience and attention, to atone for my past guilt.'

'Atone for it! Impossible; for the misery which I owe to you, no submission, no future conduct can make me amends. Away! I say: your presence conjures up recollections which distract me, and I solemnly swear--'

'Hold, hold, if you have any mercy in your nature,' cried Adeline almost frantic: 'this is, I feel but too sensibly, the most awful and important moment of my life: on the result of this interview depends my future happiness or misery. Hear me, O my mother! You, who can so easily resolve to tear the heart of a child that adores you, hear me! reflect that, if you vow to abandon me for ever, you blast all the happiness and prospects of my life; and at nineteen 'tis hard to be deprived of happiness for ever. True, I may not long survive the anguish of being renounced by my mother, a mother whom I love with even enthusiastic fondness; but then could you ever know peace again with the conviction of having caused my death? Oh! no, Save then yourself and me from these miseries, by forgiving my past errors, and deigning sometimes to see and converse with me!'

The eager and animated volubility with which Adeline spoke made it impossible to interrupt her, even had Mrs Mowbray been inclined to do so: but she was not; nor, when Adeline had done speaking, could she find in her heart to break silence.

It was evident to Dr Norberry that Mrs Mowbray's countenance expressed a degree of softness which augured well for her daughter; and, as if conscious that it did so, she covered her face suddenly with her handkerchief.

'Now then is the time,' thought the doctor. 'Go nearer her, my child,'

said he in a low voice to Adeline, 'embrace her knees.'

Adeline rose, and approached Mrs Mowbray; she seized her hand, she pressed it to her lips. Mrs Mowbray's bosom heaved violently: she almost returned the pressure of Adeline's hand.

'Victory, victory!' muttered the doctor to himself, cutting a caper behind Mrs Mowbray's chair.

Mrs Mowbray took the handkerchief from her face.

'My mother, my dear mother! look on me, look on me with kindness only one moment, and only say that you do not hate me!'

Mrs Mowbray turned round and fixed her eyes on Adeline with a look of kindness, and Adeline's began to sparkle with delight; when, as she threw back her cloak, which, hanging over her arm, embarra.s.sed her as she knelt to embrace her mother's knees, Mrs Mowbray's eyes glanced from her face to her shape.

In an instant the fierceness of her look returned: 'Shame to thy race, disgrace to thy family!' she exclaimed, spurning her kneeling child from her: 'and canst thou, while conscious of carrying in thy bosom the proof of thy infamy, dare to solicit and expect my pardon?--Hence! ere I load thee with maledictions.'

Adeline wrapped her cloak round her, and sunk terrified and desponding to the ground.

'Why, what a ridiculous caprice is this!' cried the doctor. 'Is it a greater crime to be in a family way, than to live with a man as his mistress?--You knew your daughter had done the last: therefore it is nonsense to be so affected at the former.--Come, come, forget and forgive!'

'Never: and if you do not leave the house with her this moment, I will not stay in it. My injuries are so great that they cannot admit forgiveness.'

'What a horrible, unforgiving spirit yours must be!' cried Dr Norberry: 'and after all, I tell you again, that Adeline has something to forgive and forget too; and she sets you an example of Christian charity in coming hither to console and comfort you, poor forsaken woman as you are!'

'Forsaken!' exclaimed Mrs Mowbray: 'aye; why, and for whom, was I forsaken? There's the pang! and yet you wonder that I cannot instantly forgive and receive the woman who injured me where I was most vulnerable.'

'O my mother!' cried Adeline, almost indignantly, 'and can that wretch, though dead, still have power to influence my fate in this dreadful manner? and can you still regret the loss of the affection of that man whose addresses were a disgrace to you?'

At these unguarded words, and too just reproaches, Mrs Mowbray lost all self-command; and, in a voice almost inarticulate with rage, exclaimed:--'I loved that wretch, as you are pleased to call him. I gloried in the addresses which you are pleased to call my disgrace. But he loved you--he left me for you--and on your account he made me endure the pangs of being forsaken and despised by the man whom I adored. Then mark my words: I solemnly swear,' dropping on her knees as she spoke, 'by all my hopes of happiness hereafter, that until you shall have experienced the anguish of having lost the man whom you adore, till _you_ shall have been as wretched in love, and as disgraced in the eye of the world, as I have been, I never will see you more, or pardon your many sins against me--No--not even were you on your death-bed. Yet, no; I am wrong there--Yes; on your death-bed,' she added, her voice faltering as she spoke, and pa.s.sion giving way in a degree to the dictates of returning nature,--'Yes, there; there I should--I should forgive you.'

'Then I feel that you will forgive me soon,' faintly articulated Adeline sinking on the ground; while Mrs Mowbray was leaving the room, and Dr Norberry was standing motionless with horror, from the rash oath which he had just heard. But Adeline's fall aroused him from his stupor.

'For pity's sake, do not go and leave your daughter dying!' cried he: 'your vow does not forbid you to continue to see her now.' Mrs Mowbray turned back, and started with horror at beholding the countenance of Adeline.

'Is she really dying?' cried she eagerly, 'and have I killed her?' These words, spoken in a faltering tone, and with a look of anxiety, seemed to recall the fleeting spirit of Adeline. She looked up at her mother, a sort of smile quivered on her lip; and faintly articulating 'I am better,' she burst into a convulsive flood of tears, and laid her head on the bosom of her compa.s.sionate friend.