Nor was this a difficult matter. Adeline remained in her own apartment all the preceding day, endeavouring, but in vain, to reconcile herself to what she justly termed the degradation of her mother. She felt, alas!

the most painful of all feelings, next to that of self-abas.e.m.e.nt, the consciousness of the abas.e.m.e.nt of one to whom she had all her life looked up with love and veneration. To write to Glenmurray while oppressed by such contending emotions she knew to be impossible; she therefore contented herself with sending a verbal message, importing that he should hear from her the next day: and poor Glenmurray pa.s.sed the rest of that day and the night in a state little better than her own.

The next morning Adeline, who had not closed her eyes till daylight, woke late, and from a sound but unrefreshing sleep. The first object she saw was her maid, smartly dressed, sitting by her bed-side; and she also saw that she had been crying.

'Is my mother ill, Evans?' she exclaimed.

'O! no, Miss Adeline, quite well,' replied the girl, sighing.

'But why are you so much dressed?' demanded Adeline.

'I have been out,' answered the maid.

'Not on unpleasant business?'

'That's as it may be,' she cried, turning away; and Adeline, from delicacy, forebore to press her further.

''Tis very late--is it not?' asked Adeline, 'and time for me to rise!'

'Yes, miss--I believe you had better get up.'

Adeline immediately rose.--'Give me the dark gown I wore yesterday,'

said she.

'I think, miss, you had better put on your new white one,' returned the maid.

'My new white one!' exclaimed Adeline, astonished at an interference so new.

'Yes, miss--I think it will be taken kinder, and look better.'

At these words Adeline's suspicions were awakened. 'I see, Evans,' she cried, 'you have something extraordinary to tell me:--I partly guess; I,--my mother--' Here, unable to proceed, she lay down on the bed which she had just quitted.

'Yes, Miss Adeline--'tis very true; but pray compose yourself, I am sure I have cried enough on your account, that I have.'

'What is true, my good Evans?' said Adeline faintly.

'Why, miss, my lady was married this morning to Sir Patrick O'Carrol!--Mercy on me, how pale you look! I am sure I wish the villain was at the bottom of the sea, so I do.'

'Leave me,' said Adeline faintly, struggling for utterance.

'No--that I will not,' bluntly replied Evans; 'you are not fit to be left; and they are rejoicing below with Sir Pat's great staring servant.

But, for my part, I had rather stay here and cry with you than laugh with them.'

Adeline hid her face in the pillow, incapable of further resistance, and groaned aloud.

'Who should ever have thought my lady would have done so!' continued the maid.--'Only think, miss! they say, and I doubt it is too true, that there have been no writings, or settlements, I think they call them, drawn up; and so Sir Pat have got all, and he is over head and ears in debt, and my lady is to pay him out on't!

At this account, which Adeline feared was a just one, as she had seen no preparations for a wedding going on, and had observed no signs of deeds, or any thing of the kind, she started up in an agony of grief--'Then has my mother given me up, indeed!' she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, 'and the once darling child may soon be a friendless outcast!'

'You want a friend, Miss Adeline!' said the kind girl, bursting into tears.--'Never, while I live, or any of my fellow-servants.' And Adeline, whose heart was bursting with a sense of forlornness and abandonment, felt consoled by the artless sympathy of her attendant; and, giving way to a violent flood of tears, she threw her arms round her neck, and sobbed upon her bosom.

Having thus eased her feelings, she recollected that it was inc.u.mbent on her to exert her fort.i.tude; and that it was a duty which she owed her mother not to condemn her conduct openly herself, nor suffer any one else to do it in her presence: still, at that moment, she could not find in her heart to reprove the observations by which, in spite of her sense of propriety, she had been soothed and gratified; but she hastened to dress herself as became a bridal dinner, and dismissed, as soon as she could, the affectionate Evans from her presence. She then walked up and down her chamber, in order to summon courage to enter the drawing-room.--'But how strange, how cruel it was,' said she, 'that my mother did not come to inform me of this important event herself!'

In this respect, however, Mrs Mowbray had acted kindly. Reluctant, even more than she was willing to confess to her own heart, to meet Adeline alone, she had chosen to conclude that she was still asleep, and had desired she might not be disturbed; but soon after her return from church, being a.s.sured that she was in a sound slumber, she had stolen to her bed-side and put a note under her pillow, acquainting her with what had pa.s.sed: but this note Adeline in her restlessness had, with her pillow, pushed on the floor, and there unseen it had remained. But, as Adeline was pacing to and fro, she luckily observed it; and, by proving that her mother had not been so very neglectful of her, it tended to fortify her mind against the succeeding interview. The note began:--

'My dearest child! to spare you, in your present weak state, the emotion which you would necessarily feel in attending me to the altar, I have resolved to let the ceremony be performed unknown to you. But, my beloved Adeline, I trust that your affection for me will make you rejoice in a step, which you may, perhaps, at present disapprove, when convinced that it was absolutely necessary to my happiness, and can, in no way, be the means of diminishing yours.

'I remain

'Your ever affectionate mother.'

'She loves me still then!' cried Adeline, shedding tears of tenderness, 'and I accused her unjustly.--O my dear mother, if this event should indeed increase your happiness, never shall I repine at not having been able to prevent it.' And then, after taking two or three hasty turns round the room, and bathing her eyes to remove in a degree the traces of her tears, she ventured into the drawing-room.

But the sight of her mother seated by Sir Patrick, his arm encircling her waist, in that very room which had so lately witnessed his profligate attempts on herself, deprived her of the little resolution which she had been able to a.s.sume, and pale and trembling she sunk speechless with emotion on the first chair near her.

Mrs Mowbray, or, as we must at present call her, Lady O'Carrol, was affected by Adeline's distress, and, hastening to her, received the almost fainting girl in her arms; while even Sir Patrick, feeling compa.s.sion for the unhappiness which he could more readily understand than his bride, was eager to hide his confusion by calling for water, drops, and servants.

'I want neither medicine nor a.s.sistance now,' said Adeline, gently raising her head from her mother's shoulder: 'the shock is over, and I shall, I trust, behave in future with proper self-command.'

'Better late than never,' muttered Lady O'Carrol, on whom the word _shock_ had not made a pleasant impression; while Sir Patrick, approaching Adeline, exclaimed, 'If you have not self-command, Miss Mowbray, it is the only command which you cannot boast; for your power of commanding others no one can dispute, who has ever had the happiness of beholding you.'

So saying, he took her hand; and, as her mother's husband, claimed the privilege of saluting her,--a privilege which Adeline, though she almost shrunk with horror from his touch, had _self-command_ enough not to deny him: immediately after he claimed the same favour from his bride; and they resumed their position on the sofa.

But so embarra.s.sing was the situation of all parties that no conversation took place; and Adeline, unable any longer to endure the restraint to which she was obliged, rose, to return to her own room, in order to hide the sorrow which she was on the point of betraying, when her mother in a tone of reproach exclaimed, 'It grieves me to the soul, Miss Mowbray, to perceive that you appear to consider as a day of mourning the day which I consider as the happiest of my life.'

'Oh! my dearest mother!' replied Adeline, returning and approaching her, 'it is the dread of your deceiving yourself, only, that makes me sad at a time like this: if this day in its consequences prove a happy one--'

'And wherefore should you doubt that it will, Miss Mowbray?'

'Miss Mowbray, do you doubt my honour?' cried Sir Patrick hastily.

Adeline instantly fixed her fine eyes on his face with a look which he knew how to interpret, but not how to support: and he cast his to the ground with painful consciousness.

She saw her triumph, and it gave her courage to proceed:--'O sir!' she cried, 'it is in your power to convert all my painful doubts into joyful certainties; make but my mother happy, and I will love and bless you ever.--Promise me, sir,' she continued, her enthusiasm and affection kindling as she spoke, 'promise me to be kind and indulgent to her;--she has never known contradiction; she has been through life the darling object of all who surrounded her; the pride of her parents, her husband, and her child: neglect, injury, and unkindness she would inevitably sink under: and I conjure you (here she dropped on her knees and extended her arms in an att.i.tude of entreaty) by all your hopes of happiness hereafter, to give her reason to continue to name this the happiest day of her life.'

Here she ceased, overcome by the violence of her emotions; but continued her look and att.i.tude of entreaty, full of such sweet earnestness, that the baronet could hardly conceal the variety of feelings which a.s.sailed him; amongst which, pa.s.sion for the lovely object before him predominated. To make a jest of Adeline's seriousness he conceived to be the best way to conceal what he felt; and while Mrs Mowbray, overcome with Adeline's expressions of tenderness, was giving way to them by a flood of tears, and grasping in both hers the clasped hands of Adeline, he cried, in an ironical tone,--'You are the most extraordinary motherly young creature that I ever saw in my life, my dear girl! Instead of your mother giving the nuptial benediction to you, the order of nature is reversed, and you are giving it to her. Upon my word I begin to think, seeing you in that posture, that you are my bride begging a blessing of mamma on our union, and that I ought to be on my knees too.'

So saying, he knelt beside Adeline at Lady O'Carrol's feet, and in a tone of mock solemnity besought her to bless both her affectionate children: and as he did this, he threw his arm round the weeping girl, and pressed her to his bosom. This speech, and this action, at once banished all self-command from the indignant Adeline, and in an instant she sprung from his embrace; and forgetting how much her violence must surprise, if not alarm and offend, her mother, she rushed out of the room, and did not stop till she had reached her own chamber.

When there, she was alarmed lest her conduct should have occasioned both pain and resentment to Lady O'Carrol; and it was with trembling reluctance that she obeyed the summons to dinner; but her fears were groundless. The bride had fallen into one of her reveries during Sir Patrick's strange speech, from which she awakened only at the last words of it, viz. 'affectionate children:' and seeing Sir Patrick at her feet, with a very tender expression on his face, and hearing the words 'affectionate children,' she conceived that he was expressing his hopes of their being blest with progeny, and that a selfish feeling of fear at such a prospect had hurried Adeline out of the room. She was therefore disposed to regard her daughter with pity, but not with resentment, when she entered the dinner-room, and Adeline's tranquillity in a degree returned: but when she retired for the night she could not help owning to herself, that that day, her mother's wedding day, had been the most painful of her existence--and she literally sobbed herself to sleep.

The next morning a new trial awaited her; she had to write a final farewell to Glenmurray. Many letters did she begin, many did she finish, and many did she tear; but recollecting that the longer she delayed sending him one, the longer she kept him in a state of agitating suspense, she resolved to send the last written, even though it appeared to her not quite so strong a transcript of her feelings as the former ones. Whether it was so or not, Glenmurray received it with alternate agony and transport;--with agony because it destroyed every hope of Adeline's being his,--and with transport, because every line breathed the purest and yet most ardent attachment, and convinced him that, however long their separation, the love of Adeline would experience no change.

Many days elapsed before Glenmurray could bear any companion but the letter of Adeline; and during that time she was on the road with the bride and bridegroom to a beautiful seat in Berkshire, called the Pavilion, hired by Sir Patrick, the week before his marriage, of one of his profligate friends. As the road lay through a very fine country, Adeline would have thought the journey a pleasant one, had not the idea of Glenmurray ill and dejected continually haunted her. Sir Patrick appeared to be engrossed by his bride, and she was really wholly wrapt up in him; and at times the beauties of the scenery around had power to engage Adeline's attention: but she immediately recollected how much Glenmurray would have partic.i.p.ated in her delight, and the contemplation of the prospect ended in renewed recollections of him.

CHAPTER IX