Adeline Mowbray Part 27

replied Glenmurray rather peevishly. Adeline instantly felt, and regretted, the selfishness of her conduct. To avoid the sight of a disagreeable object, she had given pain to Glenmurray; or, rather, she had not done her utmost to prevent his being exposed to it.

'Forgive me,' said Adeline, bursting into tears: 'I own I thought only of myself, when I forbore to urge his stay. Alas! with you, and you alone, I believe, is the gratification of self always a secondary consideration.'

'You forget that I am a philanthropist,' replied Glenmurray, 'and cannot bear to be praised, even by you, at the expense of my fellow-creatures.

But come, hasten dinner; my breakfast agreed with me so well, that I am impatient for another meal.'

'You certainly are better to-day,' exclaimed Adeline with unwonted cheerfulness.

'My feelings are more tolerable, at least,' replied Glenmurray: and Adeline and the mulatto began to prepare the dinner immediately. How often during her attendance on Glenmurray had she recollected the words of her grandmother, and blessed her for having taught her to be _useful_!

As soon as dinner was over, Glenmurray complained of being drowsy: still he declared he would not go to bed till he had seen the sun set, as he had that day, for the second time since his illness, seen it rise; and therefore, when it was setting, Adeline and Savanna led him into a room adjoining, which had a western aspect. Glenmurray fixed his eyes on the crimson horizon with a peculiar expression; and his lips seemed to murmur, 'For the last time! Let me breathe the evening air, too, once more,' said he.

'It is too chill, dear Glenmurray.'

'It will not hurt me,' replied Glenmurray; and Adeline complied with his request.

'The breeze of evening is not refres.h.i.+ng like that of morning,' he observed; 'but the beauty of the setting is, perhaps, superior to that of the rising sun:--they are both glorious sights, and I have enjoyed them both to-day, nor have I for years experienced so strong a feeling of devotion.'

'Thank G.o.d!' cried Adeline. 'O Glenmurray! there has been one thing only wanting to the completion of our union; and that was, that we should wors.h.i.+p together.'

'Perhaps, had I remained longer here,' replied Glenmurray, 'we might have done so; for, believe me, Adeline, though my feelings have continually hurried me into adoration of the Supreme Being, I have often wished my homage to be as regular and as founded on immutable conviction as it once was: but it is too late now for amendment, though, alas! not for _regret_, _deep_ regret: yet He who reads the heart knows that my intentions were pure, and that I was not fixed in the stubbornness of error.'

'Let us change this discourse,' cried Adeline, seeing on Glenmurray's countenance an expression of uncommon sadness, which he, from a regard to her feelings, struggled to cover. He did indeed feel sadness--a sadness of the most painful nature; and while Adeline hung over him with all the anxious and soothing attention of unbounded love, he seemed to shrink from her embrace with horror, and, turning away his head, feebly murmured. 'O Adeline! this faithful kindness wounds me to the very soul.

Alas! alas! how little have I deserved it!'

If Glenmurray, who had been the means of injuring the woman he loved, merely by following the dictates of his conscience, and a love of what he imagined to be truth, without any view of his own benefit or the gratification of his personal wishes, felt thus acutely the anguish of self-upbraiding,--what ought to be, and what must be, sooner or later, the agony and remorse of that man, who, merely for the gratification of his own illicit desires, has seduced the woman whom he loved from the path of virtue, and ruined for ever her reputation and her peace of mind!

'It is too late now for you to sit at an open window, indeed it is,'

cried Adeline, after having replied to Glenmurray's self-reproaches by the touching language of tears, and incoherent expressions of confiding and unchanged attachment; 'and as you are evidently better to-day, do not, by breathing too much cold air, run the risk of making yourself worse again.'

'Would I were really better! would I could live!' pa.s.sionately exclaimed Glenmurray: 'but indeed I do feel stronger to-night than I have felt for many months.' In a moment the fine eyes of Adeline were raised to heaven with an expression of devout thankfulness; and, eager to make the most of a change so favourable, she hurried Glenmurray back to his chamber, and, with a feeling of renewed hope, sat by to watch his slumbers.

She had not sat long before the door opened, and the little tawny boy entered. He had watched all day to see the good lady, as he called Adeline; but, as she had not left Glenmurray's chamber except to prepare dinner, he had been disappointed: so he was resolved to seek her in her own apartment. He had bought some cakes with the penny which Adeline had given him, and he was eager to give her a piece of them.

'Hus.h.!.+' cried Adeline, as she held out her hand to him; and he in a whisper crying 'Bite,' held his purchase to her lips. Adeline tasted it, said it was very good, and, giving him a halfpenny, the tawny boy disappeared again: the noise he made as he bounded down the stairs woke Glenmurray. Adeline was sitting on the side of the bed; and as he turned round to sleep again he grasped her hand in his, and its feverish touch damped her hopes, and re-awakened her fears. For a short time she mournfully gazed on his flushed cheek, and then, gently sliding off the bed, and dropping on one knee, she addressed the Deity in the language of humble supplication.

Insensibly she ceased to pray in thought only, and the lowly-murmured prayer became audible. Again Glenmurray awoke, and Adeline reproached herself as the cause.

'My rest was uneasy,' cried he, 'and I rejoice that you woke me: besides, I like to hear you--Go on, my dearest girl; there is a something in the breathings of your pious fondness that soothes me,'

added he, pressing the hand he held to his parched lips.

Adeline obeyed: and as she continued, she felt ever and anon, by the pressure of Glenmurray's hand, how much he was affected by what she uttered.

'But must he be taken from me!' she exclaimed in one part of her prayer.

'Father, if it be possible, permit this cup to pa.s.s by me untasted.'

Here she felt the hand of Glenmurray grasp hers most vehemently; and, delighted to think that he had pleasure in hearing her, she went on to breathe forth all the wishes of a trembling yet confiding spirit, till overcome with her own emotions she ceased and arose, and leaning over Glenmurray's pillow was going to take his hand:--but the hand which she pressed returned not her pressure; the eyes were fixed whose approving glance she sought; and the horrid truth rushed at once on her mind, that the last convulsive grasp had been an eternal farewell, and that he had in that grasp expired.

Alas! what preparation however long, what antic.i.p.ation however sure, can enable the mind to bear a shock like this! It came on Adeline like a thunder-stroke: she screamed not; she moved not; but, fixing a dim and gla.s.sy eye on the pale countenance of her lover, she seemed as insensible as poor Glenmurray himself; and hours might have elapsed--hours immediately fatal both to her senses and existence--ere any one had entered the room, since she had given orders to be disturbed by no one, had not the tawny boy, encouraged by his past success, stolen in again, unperceived, to give her a piece of the apple which he had bought with her last bounty.

The delighted boy tripped gaily to the bed-side, holding up his treasure; but he started back, and screamed in all the agony of terror, at the sight which he beheld--the face of Glenmurray ghastly, and the mouth distorted as if in the last agony, and Adeline in the stupor of despair.

The affectionate boy's repeated screams soon summoned the whole family into the room, while he, vainly hanging on Adeline's arm, begged her to speak to him. But nothing could at first rouse Adeline, not even Savanna's loud and extravagant grief. When, however, they tried to force her from the body, she recovered her recollection and her strength; and it was with great difficulty she could be carried out of the room, and kept out when they had accomplished their purpose.

But Savanna was sure that looking at such a sad sight would kill her mistress; for she should die herself if she saw William dead, she declared; and the people of the house agreed with her. They knew not that grief is the best medicine for itself; and that the overcharged heart is often relieved by the sight which standers-by conceive likely to snap the very threads of existence.

As Adeline and Glenmurray had both of them excited some interest in Richmond, the news of the death of the latter was immediately abroad; and it was told to Mrs Pemberton, with a pathetic account of Adeline's distress, just as the carriage was preparing to convey her and her sick friend on their way to Lisbon. It was a relation to call forth all the humanity of Mrs Pemberton's nature. She forgot Adeline's crime in her distress; and knowing she had no female friend with her, she hastened on the errand of pity to the abode of vice. Alas! Mrs Pemberton had learnt but too well to sympathize in grief like that of Adeline. She had seen a beloved husband expire in her arms, and had afterwards followed two children to the grave. But she had taken refuge from sorrow in the active duties of her religion, and was enabled to become a teacher of those truths to others, by which she had so much benefited herself.

Mrs Pemberton entered the room just as Adeline, on her knees, was conjuring the persons with her to allow her to see Glenmurray once more.

Adeline did not at all observe the entrance of Mrs Pemberton, who, in spite of the self-command which her principles and habits gave her, was visibly affected when she beheld the mourner's tearless affliction: and the hands which, on her entrance, were quietly crossed on each other, confining the modest folds of her simple cloak, were suddenly and involuntarily separated by the irresistible impulse of pity; while, catching hold of the wall for support, she leaned against it, covering her face with her hands. 'Let me see him! only let me see him once more!' cried Adeline, gazing on Mrs Pemberton, but unconscious who she was.

'Thou shalt see him,' replied Mrs Pemberton with considerable effort; 'give me thy hand, and I will go with thee to the chamber of death.'

Adeline gave a scream of mournful joy at this permission, and suffered herself to be led into Glenmurray's apartment. As soon as she entered it she sprang to the bed, and, throwing herself beside the corpse, began to contemplate it with an earnestness and firmness which surprised every one. Mrs Pemberton also fixedly gazed on the wan face of Glenmurray: 'And art thou fallen!' she exclaimed, 'thou, wise in thine own conceit, who presumedst, perhaps, sometimes to question even the existence of the Most High, and to set up thy vain chimeras of yesterday against the wisdom and experience of centuries? Child of the dust! child of error!

what art thou now, and whither is thy guilty spirit fled? But balmy is the hand of affliction; and she, thy mourning victim, may learn to bless the hand that chastizes her, nor add to the offences which will weigh down thy soul, a dread responsibility for hers!'

Here she was interrupted by the voice of Adeline; who, in a deep and hollow tone, was addressing the unconscious corpse. 'For G.o.d's sake, speak! for this silence is dreadful--it looks so like death.'

'Poor thing!' said Mrs Pemberton, kneeling beside her, 'and is it even thus with thee? Would thou couldst shed tears, afflicted one!'

'It is very strange,' continued Adeline: 'he loved me so tenderly, and he used to speak and look so tenderly, and now, see how he neglects me!

Glenmurray, my love! for mercy's sake, speak to me!' As she said this, she laid her lips to his: but, feeling on them the icy coldness of death, she started back, screaming in all the violence of phrensy; and, recovered to the full consciousness of her misfortune, she was carried back to her room in violent convulsions.

'Would I could stay and watch over thee!' said Mrs Pemberton, as she gazed on Adeline's distorted countenance; 'for thou, young as thou art, wert well known in the chambers of sorrow and of sickness; and I should rejoice to pay back to thee part of the debt of those whom thy presence so often soothed: but I must leave thee to the care of others.'

'You leave her to my care,' cried Savanna reproachfully,--who felt even her violent sorrow suspended while Mrs Pemberton spoke in accents at once sad yet soothing,--'you leave her to my care, and who watch, who love her more than me?'

'Good Savanna!' replied Mrs Pemberton, pressing the mulatto's hand as she returned to her station beside Adeline, who was fallen into a calm slumber, 'to thy care, with confidence, I commit her. But perhaps there may be an immediate necessity for money, and I had better leave this with thee,' she added, taking out her purse: but Savanna a.s.sured her that Mr Berrendale was sent for, and to him all those concerns were to be left. Mrs Pemberton stood for a few moments looking at Adeline in silence, then slowly left the house.

When Adeline awoke, she seemed so calm and resigned, that her earnest request of being allowed to pa.s.s the night alone was granted, especially as Mrs Pemberton had desired that her wish, even to see Glenmurray again, should be complied with: but the faithful mulatto watched till morning at the door. No bed that night received the weary limbs of Adeline. She threw herself on the ground, and in alternate prayer and phrensy pa.s.sed the first night of her woe: towards morning, however, she fell into a perturbed sleep. But when the light of day darting into the room awakened her to consciousness; and when she recollected that he to whom it usually summoned her existed no longer; that the eyes which but the preceding morning had opened with enthusiastic ardour to hail its beams, were now for ever closed; and that the voice which used to welcome her so tenderly, she should never, never hear again; the forlornness of her situation, the hopelessness of her sorrow burst upon her with a violence too powerful for her reason: and when Berrendale arrived, he found Glenmurray in his shroud, and Adeline in a state of insanity. For six months her phrensy resisted all the efforts of medicine, and the united care which Berrendale's love and Savanna's grateful attachment could bestow; while with Adeline's want of their care seemed to increase their desire of bestowing it, and their affection gathered new strength from the duration of her helpless malady. So true is it, that we become attached more from the aid which we give than that which we receive; and that the love of the obliger is more apt to increase than that of the obliged by the obligation conferred. At length, however, Adeline's reason slowly yet surely returned; and she, by degrees, learnt to contemplate with firmness, and even calmness, the loss which she had sustained. She even looked on Berrendale and his attentions not with anger, but grat.i.tude and complacency; she had even pleasure in observing the likeness he bore Glenmurray; she felt that it endeared him to her. In the first paroxysms of her phrensy, the sight of him threw her into fits of ravings; but as she grew better she had pleasure in seeing him: and when, on her recovery, she heard how much she was indebted to his persevering tenderness, she felt for him a decided regard, which Berrendale tried to flatter himself might be ripened into love.

But he was mistaken; the heart of Adeline was formed to feel violent and lasting attachments only. She had always loved her mother with a tenderness of a most uncommon nature; she had felt for Glenmurray the fondest enthusiasm of pa.s.sion: she was now separated from them both.

But her mother still lived: and though almost hopeless of ever being restored to her society, all her love for her returned; and she pined for that consoling fondness, those soothing attentions, which, in a time of such affliction, a mother on a widowed daughter can alone bestow.

'Yet, surely,' cried she in the solitude of her own room, 'her oath cannot now forbid her to forgive me; for, am I not as WRETCHED IN LOVE, nay more, far more so, than _she_ has been? Yes--yes; I will write to her: besides HE wished me to do so' (meaning Glenmurray, whom she never named); and she did write to her, according to the address which Dr Norberry sent soon after he returned to his own house. Still week after week elapsed, and month after month, but no answer came.

Again she wrote, and again she was disappointed; though her loss, her illness in consequence of it, her pecuniary distress, and the large debt which she had incurred to Berrendale, were all detailed in a manner calculated to move the most obdurate heart. What then could Adeline suppose? Perhaps her mother was ill; perhaps she was dead: and her reason was again on the point of yielding to this horrible supposition, when she received her two letters in a cover, directed in her mother's hand-writing.

At first she was overwhelmed by this dreadful proof of the continuance of Mrs Mowbray's deep resentment; but, ever sanguine, the circ.u.mstance of Mrs Mowbray's having written the address herself appeared to Adeline a favourable symptom; and with renewed hope she wrote to Dr Norberry to become her mediator once more: but to this letter no answer was returned; and Adeline concluded her only friend had died of the fever which Mrs Norberry had mentioned in her letter.

'Then I have lost my only friend!' cried Adeline, wringing her hands in agony, as this idea recurred to her. 'Your only friend?' repeated Berrendale, who happened to be present, 'O Adeline!'

Her heart smote her as he said this. 'My oldest friend I should have said,' she replied, holding out her hand to him; and Berrendale thought himself happy.

But Adeline was far from meaning to give the encouragement which this action seemed to bestow: wholly occupied by her affliction, her mind had lost its energy, and she would not have made an effort to dissipate her grief by employment and exertion, had not that virtuous pride and delicacy, which in happier hours had been the ornament of her character, rebelled against the consciousness of owing pecuniary obligations to the lover whose suit she was determined to reject, and urged her to make some vigorous attempt to maintain herself.

Many were the schemes which occurred to her; but none seemed so practicable as that of keeping a day-school in some village near the metropolis.--True, Glenmurray had said, that her having been his mistress would prevent her obtaining scholars; but his fears, perhaps, were stronger than his justice in this case. These fears, however, she found existed in Berrendale's mind also, though he ventured only to hint them with great caution.

'You think, then, no prudent parents, if my story should be known to them, would send their children to me?' said Adeline to Berrendale.

'I fear--I--that is to say, I am sure they would not.'