Adeline Mowbray Part 26

'And does your maturer judgment condemn them?'

'Four years cannot have added much to the maturity of my judgment,'

replied Glenmurray: 'but I will own that some of my opinions are changed; and that, though I believe those which are unchanged are right in theory, I think, as the ma.s.s of society could never _at once_ adopt them, they had better remain unacted upon, than that a few lonely individuals should expose themselves to certain distress, by making them the rules of their conduct. You, for instance, you, my Adeline, what misery--!' Here his voice again faltered, and emotion impeded his utterance.

'Live--do but live,' exclaimed Adeline pa.s.sionately, 'and I can know of misery but the name.'

'But I cannot live, I cannot live,' replied Glenmurray, 'and the sooner I die the better;--for thus to waste your youth and health in the dreadful solitude of a sick-room is insupportable to me.'

'O Glenmurray!' replied Adeline, fondly throwing herself on his neck, 'could you but live free from any violent pain, and were neither you nor I ever to leave this room again, believe me, I should not have a wish beyond it. To see you, to hear you, to prove to you how much I love you, would, indeed it would, be happiness sufficient for me!' After this burst of true and heartfelt tenderness, there was a pause of some moments: Glenmurray felt too much to speak, and Adeline was sobbing on his pillow. At length she pathetically again exclaimed, 'Live! only live!

and I am blest!'

'But I _cannot_ live, I _cannot_ live,' again replied Glenmurray; 'and when I die, what will become of you?'

'I care not,' cried Adeline: 'if I lose you, may the same grave receive us!'

'But it _will_ not, my dearest:--grief does not kill; and, entailed as my estate is, I have nothing to leave you: and though richly qualified to undertake the care of children, in order to maintain yourself, your unfortunate connexion, and singular opinions, will be an eternal bar to your being so employed. O Adeline! these cutting fears, these dreadful reflections, are indeed the bitterness of death: but there is one way of alleviating my pangs.'

'Name it,' replied Adeline with quickness.

'But you must promise then to hear me with patience.--Had I been able to live through my illness, I should have conjured you to let me endeavour to restore you to your place in society, and consequently to your usefulness, by making you my wife: and young, and I may add innocent and virtuous, as you are, I doubt not but the world would at length have received you into its favour again.'

'But you must, you will, you shall live,' interrupted Adeline, 'and I shall be your happy wife.'

'Not _mine_' replied Glenmurray, laying an emphasis on the last word.

Adeline started, and, fixing her eyes wildly on his, demanded what he meant.

'I mean,' replied he, 'to prevail on you to make my last moments happy, by promising, some time hence, to give yourself a tender, a respectable, and a legal protector.'

'O Glenmurray!' exclaimed Adeline, 'and can you insult my tenderness for you with such a proposal? If I can even survive you, do you think that I can bear to give you a successor in my affection? or, how can you bear to imagine that I shall?'

'Because my love for you is without selfishness, and I wish you to be happy even though another makes you so. The lover, or the husband, who wishes the woman of his affection to form no second attachment, is, in my opinion, a selfish, contemptible being. Perhaps I do not expect that you will ever feel, for another man, an attachment like that which has subsisted between us--the first affection of young and impa.s.sioned hearts; but I am sure that you may again feel love enough to make yourself and the man of your choice perfectly happy; and I hope and trust that you will be so.'

'And forget you, I suppose?' interrupted Adeline reproachfully.

'Not so: I would have you remember me always, but with a chastized and even a pleasing sorrow; nay, I would wish you to imagine me a sort of guardian spirit watching your actions and enjoying your happiness.'

'I have _listened_ to you,' cried Adeline in a tone of suppressed anguish, 'and, I trust, with tolerable patience: there is one thing yet for me to learn--the name of the object whom you wish me to marry, for I suppose _he_ is found.'

'He is,' returned Glenmurray, 'Berrendale loves you; and he it is whom I wish you to choose.'

'I thought so,' exclaimed Adeline, rising and traversing the room hastily, and wringing her hands.

'But wherefore does his name,' said Glenmurray, 'excite such angry emotion? Perhaps self-love makes me recommend him,' continued he, forcing a smile, 'as he is reckoned like me, and I thought that likeness might make him more agreeable to you.'

'Only the more odious,' impatiently interrupted Adeline. 'To look like you, and not _be_ you, Oh! insupportable idea!' she exclaimed, throwing herself on Glenmurray's pillow, and pressing his burning temples to her cold cheek.

'Adeline,' said Glenmurray solemnly, 'this is, perhaps, the last moment of confidential and uninterrupted intercourse that we shall ever have together;' Adeline started, but spoke not; 'allow me, therefore, to tell you it is my _dying request_, that you would endeavour to dispose your mind in favour of Berrendale, and to become in time his wife.

Circ.u.mstanced as you are, your only chance for happiness is becoming a wife: but it is too certain that few men worthy of you, in the most essential points, will be likely to marry you after your connexion with me.'

'Strange prejudice!' cried Adeline, 'to consider as my disgrace, what I deem my glory!'

Glenmurray continued thus: 'Berrendale himself has a great deal of the old school about him, but I have convinced him that you are not to be cla.s.sed with the frail of your s.e.x; and that you are one of the purest as well as loveliest of human beings.'

'And did he want to be convinced of this?' cried Adeline indignantly; 'and _yet_ you advise me to marry him?'

'My dearest love,' replied Glenmurray, 'in all cases the most we can expect is, to choose the best _possible_ means of happiness. Berrendale is not perfect; but I am convinced that you would commit a fatal error in not making him your husband; and when I tell you it is my _dying request_ that you should do so--'

'If you wish me to retain my senses,' exclaimed Adeline, 'repeat that dreadful phrase no more.'

'I will not say any more at all now,' faintly observed Glenmurray, 'for I am exhausted:--still, as morning begins to dawn, I should like to sit up in my bed and gaze on it, perhaps for--' Here Adeline put her hand to his mouth: Glenmurray kissed it, sighed, and did not finish the sentence.

She then opened the shutters to let in the rising splendour of day, and, turning round towards Glenmurray, almost shrieked with terror at seeing the visible alteration a night had made in his appearance; while the yellow rays of the dawn played on his sallow cheek, and his dark curls, once crisped and glossy, hung faint and moist on his beating temples.

'It is strange, Adeline,' said Glenmurray (but with great effort), 'that, even in my situation, the sight of morning, and the revival as it were of nature, seems to invigorate my whole frame. I long to breathe the freshness of its breeze also.'

Adeline, conscious for the first time that all hope was over, opened the window, and felt even her sick soul and languid frame revived by the chill but refres.h.i.+ng breeze. To Glenmurray it imparted a feeling of physical pleasure, to which he had long been a stranger: 'I breathe freely,' he exclaimed, 'I feel alive again!'--and, strange as it may seem, Adeline's hopes began to revive also.--'I feel as if I could sleep now,' said Glenmurray, 'the feverish restlessness seems abated; but, lest my dreams be disturbed, promise me, ere I lie down again, that you will behave kindly to Berrendale.'

'Impossible! The only tie that bound me to him is broken:--I thought he sincerely sympathized with me in my wishes for your recovery; but now that, as he loves me, his wishes must be in direct opposition to mine,--I cannot, indeed I cannot, endure the sight of him.'

Glenmurray could not reply to this natural observation: he knew that, in a similar situation, his feelings would have been like Adeline's; and, pressing her hand with all the little strength left him, he said 'Poor Berrendale!' and tried to compose himself to sleep; while Adeline, lost in sad contemplation, threw herself in a chair by his bed-side, and anxiously awaited the event of his re-awaking.

But it was not long before Adeline herself, exhausted both in body and mind, fell into a deep sleep; and it was mid-day before she awoke: for no careless, heavy-treading, and hired nurse now watched the slumbers of the unhappy lovers; but the mulatto, stepping light as air, and afraid even of breathing lest she should disturb their repose, had a.s.sumed her station at the bed-side, and taken every precaution lest any noise should awake them. Hers was the service of the heart; and there is none like it.

At twelve o'clock Adeline awoke; and her first glance met the dark eyes of Savanna kindly fixed upon her. Adeline started, not immediately recollecting who it could be; but in a moment the idea of the mulatto, and of the service which she had rendered her, recurred to her mind, and diffused a sensation of pleasure through her frame. 'There is a being whom I have served,' said Adeline to herself, and, extending her hand to Savanna, she started from her seat, invigorated by the thought: but she felt depressed again by the consciousness that she, who had been able to impart so much joy and help to another, was herself a wretch for ever; and in a moment her eyes filled with tears, while the mulatto gazed on her with a look of inquiring solicitude.

'Poor Savanna!' cried Adeline in a low and plaintive tone.

There are moments when the sound of one's own voice has a mournful effect on one's feelings--this was one of those moments to Adeline; the pathos of her own tone overcame her, and she burst into tears: but Glenmurray slept on; and Adeline hoped nothing would suddenly disturb his rest, when Berrendale opened the door with what appeared unnecessary noise, and Glenmurray hastily awoke.

Adeline immediately started from her seat, and, looking at him with great indignation, demanded why he came in in such a manner, when he knew Mr Glenmurray was asleep.

Berrendale, shocked and alarmed at Adeline's words and expression, so unlike her usual manner, stammered out an excuse. 'Another time, Sir', replied Adeline coldly, 'I hope you will be more _careful_.'

'What is the matter?' said Glenmurray, raising himself in the bed. 'Are you scolding, Adeline? If so, let me hear you: I like novelty.'

Here Adeline and Berrendale both hastened to him, and Adeline almost looked with complacency on Berrendale; when Glenmurray, declaring himself wonderfully refreshed by his long sleep, expressed a great desire for his breakfast, and said he had a most voracious appet.i.te.

But to all Berrendale's attentions she returned the most forbidding reserve; nor could she for a moment lose the painful idea, that the death of Glenmurray would be to him a source of joy, not of anguish.

Berrendale was not slow to observe this change in her conduct; and he conceived that, as he knew Glenmurray had mentioned his pretensions to her, his absence would be of more service to his wishes than his presence; and he resolved to leave Richmond that afternoon,--especially as he had a dinner engagement at a tavern in London, which, in spite of love and friends.h.i.+p, he was desirous of keeping.

He was not mistaken in his ideas: the countenance of Adeline a.s.sumed less severity when he mentioned his intention of going away, nor could she express regret at his resolution, even though Glenmurray with anxious earnestness requested him to stay. But Glenmurray entreated in vain: used to consider his own interest and pleasure in preference to that of others, Berrendale resolved to go; and resisted the prayers of a man who had often obliged him with the greatest difficulty to himself.

'Well, then,' said Glenmurray mournfully, 'if you must go, G.o.d bless you! I wish you, Charles, all possible earthly happiness; nay, I have done all I can to ensure it you: but you have disappointed me. I hoped to have joined your hand, in my last moments, to that of this dear girl, and to have bequeathed her in the most solemn manner to your care and tenderness; but no matter, farewell! we shall probably meet no more.'

Here Berrendale's heart failed him, and he almost resolved to stay: but a look of angry repugnance which he saw on Adeline's countenance, even amidst her sorrow, got the better of his kind emotions, by wounding his self-love; and grasping Glenmurray's hand, and saying 'I shall be back in a day or two,' he rushed out of the room.

'I am sorry Mr Berrendale is forced to go,' said Adeline involuntarily when the street door closed after him.

'Had you condescended to tell him so, he would undoubtedly have staid,'