Adeline Mowbray Part 22

An hour, a tedious hour to Adeline, having elapsed, Glenmurray's visitors departed; and by the disappointment that Adeline experienced at hearing the door close on them, she felt that she had had a secret hope of being summoned to be presented to them; and, with a bitter feeling of mortification, she reflected, that she was probably to the man whom she adored a shame and a reproach.

'Yet I should like to see them,' she said, running to the window as the carriage drove up, and the ladies entered it. At that moment they, whether from curiosity to see her, or accident, looked up at the window where she was. Adeline started back indignant and confused; for, thrusting their heads eagerly forward, they looked at her with the bold unfeeling stare of imagined superiority; and Adeline, spite of her reason, sunk abashed and conscious from their gaze.

'And this insult,' exclaimed she, clasping her hands and bursting into tears, 'I experience from Glenmurray's _relations_! I think I could have borne it better from any one else.'

She had not recovered her disorder when Glenmurray entered the room, and, tenderly embracing her, exclaimed, 'Never, never again, my love, will I submit to such a sacrifice as I have now made;' when seeing her in tears, too well aware of the cause, he gave way to such a pa.s.sionate burst of tenderness and regret, that Adeline, terrified at his agitation, though soothed by his fondness, affected the cheerfulness which she did not feel, and promised to drive the intruders from her remembrance.

Had Glenmurray and Adeline known the real character of the unwelcome visitors, neither of them would have regretted that Adeline was not presented to them. One of them was married, and to so accommodating a husband, that his wife's known gallant was his intimate friend; and under the sanction of his protection she was received every where, and visited by every one, as the world did not think proper to be more clear-sighted than the husband himself chose to be. The other lady was a young and attractive widow, who coquetted with many men, but intrigued with only one at a time; for which self-denial she was rewarded by being allowed to pa.s.s unquestioned through the portals of fas.h.i.+onable society.

But these ladies would have scorned to a.s.sociate with Adeline; and Adeline, had she known their private history, would certainly have returned the compliment.

The peace of Adeline was soon after disturbed in another way. Glenmurray finding himself disposed to sleep in the middle of the day, his cough having kept him waking all night, Adeline took her usual walk, and returned by the church-yard. The bell was tolling; and as she pa.s.sed she saw a funeral enter the church-yard, and instantly averted her head.

In so doing her eyes fell on a decent-looking woman, who with a sort of angry earnestness was watching the progress of the procession.

'Aye, there goes your body, you rogue!' she exclaimed indignantly, 'but I wonder where your soul is now?--where I would not be for something.'

Adeline was shocked, and gently observed, 'What crime did the person of whom you are speaking, that you should suppose his soul so painfully disposed of?'

'What crime?' returned the woman: 'crime enough, I think:--why, he ruined a poor girl here in the neighbourhood: and then, because he never chose to make a will, there is she lying-in of a little by-blow, with not a farthing of money to maintain her or the child, and the fellow's money is gone to the heir-at-law, scarce of kin to him, while his own flesh and blood is left to starve.'

Adeline shuddered:--if Glenmurray were to die, she and the child which she bore would, she knew, be beggars.

'Well, miss, or madam, belike, by the look of you,' continued the woman glancing her eye over Adeline's person, 'what say you? Don't you think the fellow's soul is where we should not like to be? However, he had his h.e.l.l here too, to be sure! for, when speechless and unable to move his fingers, he seemed by signs to ask for pen and ink, and he looked in agonies; and there was the poor young woman crying over him, and holding in her arms the poor dest.i.tute baby, who would as he grew up be taught, he must think, to curse the wicked father who begot him, and the naughty mother who bore him!'

Adeline turned very sick, and was forced to seat herself on a tombstone.

'Curse the mother who bore him!' she inwardly repeated,--'and will my child curse me? Rather let me undergo the rites I have despised!' and instantly starting from her seat she ran down the road to her lodgings, resolving to propose to Glenmurray their immediate marriage.

'But is the possession of property, then,' she said to herself as she stopped to take breath, 'so supreme a good, that the want of it, through the means of his mother, should dispose a child to curse that mother?--No: my child shall be taught to consider nothing valuable but virtue, nothing disgraceful but _vice_.--Fool that I am! a bugbear frightened me; and to my foolish fears I was about to sacrifice my own principles, and the respectability of Glenmurray. No--Let his property go to the heir-at-law--let me be forced to labour to support my babe, when its father--' Here a flood of tears put an end to her soliloquy, and slowly and pensively she returned home.

But the conversation of the woman in the church-yard haunted her while waking, and continued to distress her in her dreams that night, and she was resolved to do all she could to relieve the situation of the poor dest.i.tute girl and child, in whose fate she might possibly see an antic.i.p.ation of her own: and as soon as breakfast was over, and Glenmurray was engaged in his studies, she walked out to make the projected inquiries.

The season of the year was uncommonly fine; and the varied scenery visible from the terrace was, at the moment of Adeline's approach to it, glowing with more than common beauty. Adeline stood for some minutes gazing on it in silent delight; when her reverie was interrupted by the sound of boyish merriment, and she saw, at one end of the terrace, some well-dressed boys at play.

'Alas! regardless of their doom The little victims play!'

immediately recurred to her: for, contemplating the probable evils of existence, she was darkly brooding over the imagined fate of her own offspring, should it live to see the light; and the children at their sport, having no care of ills to come, naturally engaged her attention.

But these happy children ceased to interest her, when she saw standing at a distance from the group, and apparently looking at it with an eye of envy, a little boy, even better dressed than the rest; who was sobbing violently, yet evidently trying to conceal his grief. And while she was watching the young mourner attentively, he suddenly threw himself on a seat; and, taking out his handkerchief, indignantly and impatiently wiped away the tears that would no longer be restrained.

'Poor child!' thought Adeline, seating herself beside him; 'and has affliction reached thee so soon!'

The child was beautiful: and his cl.u.s.tering locks seemed to have been combed with so much care; the frill of his s.h.i.+rt was so fine, and had been so very neatly plaited; and his sun-burnt neck and hands were so very very clean, that Adeline was certain he was the darling object of some fond mother's attention. 'And yet he is unhappy!' she inwardly exclaimed. 'When my fate resembled his, how happy I was!' But from the recollections like these she always hastened; and checking the rising sigh, she resolved to enter into conversation with the little boy.

'What is the matter?' she cried.--No answer. 'Why are you not playing with the young gentlemen yonder?'

She had touched the right string:--and bursting into tears, he sobbed out, 'Because they won't let me.'

'No? and why will they not let you?' To this he replied not; but sullenly hung his blus.h.i.+ng face on his bosom.

'Perhaps you have made them angry?' gently asked Adeline. 'Oh! no, no,'

cried the boy; 'but--' 'But what?' Here he turned from her, and with his nail began scratching the arm of the seat.

'Well; this is very strange, and seems very unkind,' cried Adeline: 'I will speak to them.' So saying, she drew near the other children, who had interrupted their play to watch Adeline and their rejected playmate.

'What can be the reason,' said she, 'that you will not let that little boy play with you?' The boys looked down, and said nothing.

'Is he ill-natured?'

'No.'

'Does he not play fair?'

'Yes.'

'Don't you like him?'

'Yes.'

'Then why do you make him unhappy, by not letting him join in your sport?'

'Tell the lady. Jack,' cries one; and Jack, the biggest boy of the party, said: 'Because he is not a gentleman's son like us, and is only a little b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

'Yes,' cried one of the other children; 'and his mamma is so proud she dresses him finer than we are, for all he is base-born: and our papas and mammas don't think him fit company for us.'

They might have gone on for an hour--Adeline could not interrupt them.

The cause of the child's affliction was a dagger in her heart; and, while she listened to the now redoubled sobs of the disgraced and proudly afflicted boy, she was driven almost to phrensy: for 'Such,' she exclaimed, 'may one time or other be the pangs of my child, and so to him may the hours of childhood be embittered!' Again she seated herself by the little mourner--and her tears accompanied his.

'My dear child, you had better go home,' said she, struggling with her feelings; 'your mother will certainly be glad of your company.'

'No, I won't go to her; I don't love her: they say she is a bad woman, and my papa a bad man, because they are not married.'

Again Adeline's horrors returned. 'But, my dear, they love you, no doubt; and you ought to love them,' she replied with effort.

'There, there comes your papa,' cried one of the boys; 'go and cry to him;--go.'

At these words Adeline looked up, and saw an elegant-looking man approaching with a look of anxiety.

'Charles, my dear boy, what has happened?' said he, taking his hand; which the boy sullenly withdrew. 'Come home directly,' continued his father, 'and tell me what is the matter, as we go along.' But again s.n.a.t.c.hing his hand away, the proud and deeply wounded child resentfully pushed the shoulder next him forward, whenever his father tried to take his arm, and elbowed him angrily as he went.

Adeline felt the child's action to the bottom of her heart. It was a volume of reproach to the father; and she sighed to think what the parents, if they had hearts, must feel, when the afflicted boy told the cause of his grief. 'But, unhappy boy, perhaps my child may live to bless you!' she exclaimed, clasping her hands together: 'never, never will I expose my child to the pangs which you have experienced to-day.'

So saying, she returned instantly to her lodgings; and having just strength left to enter Glenmurray's room, she faintly exclaimed: 'For pity's sake, make me your wife to-morrow!' and fell senseless on the floor.

On her recovery she saw Glenmurray pale with agitation, yet with an expression of satisfaction in his countenance, bending over her.

'Adeline! my dearest love!' he whispered as her head lay on his bosom, 'blessed be the words you have spoken, whatever be their cause!

To-morrow you shall be my wife.'

'And then our child will be legitimate, will he not?' she eagerly replied.

'It will.'