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 passed 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 assent 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 attitude 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, embarrassed 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 passion 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 compassionate friend.

'She will do now,' cried he exultingly to Mrs Mowbray: 'You need alarm yourself no longer.'

But alarm was perhaps a feeling of enjoyment, to the sensations which then took possession of Mrs Mowbray. The apparent danger of Adeline had awakened her long dormant tenderness: but she had just bound herself by an oath not to give way to it, except under circumstances the most unwelcome and affecting, and had therefore embittered her future days with remorse and unavailing regret.--For some minutes she stood looking wildly and mournfully on Adeline, longing to clasp her to her bosom, and pronounce her pardon, but not daring to violate her oath. At length, 'I cannot bear this torment,' she exclaimed, and rushed out of the room: and when in another apartment, she recollected, and uttered a scream of agony as she did so, that she had seen Adeline probably for the last time; for, voluntarily, she was now to see her no more.

The same recollections occurred to Adeline; and as the door closed on her mother, she raised herself up, and looked eagerly to catch the last glimpse of her gown, as the door shut it from her sight. 'Let us go away directly now,' said she, 'for the air of this room is not good for me.'

The doctor, affected beyond measure at the expression of quiet despair with which she spoke, went out to order a coach; and Adeline instantly rose, and kissed with fond devotion the chair on which her mother had sat. Suddenly she heard a deep sigh--it came from the next room--perhaps it came from her mother; perhaps she could still see her again: and with cautious step she knelt down and looked through the key-hole of the door.

She did see her mother once more. Mrs Mowbray was lying on the bed, beating the ground with her foot, and sighing as if her heart would break.

'O that I dare go in to her!' said Adeline to herself: 'but I can at least bid her farewell here.' She then put her mouth to the aperture, and exclaimed, 'Mother, dearest mother! since we meet now for the last time--' (Mrs Mowbray started from the bed) 'let me thank you for all the affection, all the kindness which you lavished on me during eighteen happy years. I shall never cease to love and pray for you.' (Mrs Mowbray sobbed aloud.) 'Perhaps, you will some day or other think you have been harsh to me, and may wish that you had not taken so cruel a vow.' (Mrs Mowbray beat her breast in agony: the moment of repentance was already come.) 'It may therefore be a comfort to you at such moments to know, that I sincerely, and from the bottom of my heart, forgive this rash action:--and now, my dearest mother, hear my parting prayers for your happiness!'

At this moment a noise in the next room convinced Adeline that her mother had fallen down in a fainting fit, and the doctor entered the room.

'What have I done?' she exclaimed. 'Go to her this instant.'--He obeyed. Raising up Mrs Mowbray in his arms, he laid her on the bed, while Adeline bent over her in silent anguish, with all the sorrow of filial anxiety. But when the remedies which Dr Norberry administered began to take effect, she exclaimed, 'For the last time! Cruel, but most dear mother!' and pressed her head to her bosom, and kissed her pale lips with almost frantic emotion.

Mrs Mowbray opened her eyes; they met those of Adeline and instantly closed again.

'She has looked at me for the last time,' said Adeline; 'and now this one kiss, my mother, and farewell for ever!' So saying she rushed out of the room, and did not stop till she reached the coach, which Glenmurray had called, and springing into it, was received into the arms of Glenmurray.

'You, are my all now,' said she. 'You have long been mine,' replied he: but respecting the anguish and disappointment depicted on her countenance, he forbore to ask for an explanation; and resting her pale cheek on his bosom, they reached the inn in silence.

Adeline had walked up and down the room a number of times, had as often looked out of the window, before Dr Norberry, whom she had been anxiously expecting and looking for, made his appearance. 'Thank God, you are come at last!' said she, seizing his hand as he entered.

'I left Mrs Mowbray,' replied he, 'much better both in mind and body.'

'A blessed hearing! replied Adeline.

'And you, my child, how are you?' asked the doctor affectionately.

'I know not yet,' answered Adeline mournfully: 'as yet I am stunned by the blow which I have received; but pray tell me what has passed between you and my mother since we left the hotel.'

'What has passed?' cried Dr Norberry, starting from his chair, taking two hasty strides across the room, pulling up the cape of his coat, and muttering an oath between his shut teeth--'Why, this passed:--The deluded woman renounced her daughter; and her friend, her old and faithful friend, has renounced her.'

'Oh! my poor mother!' exclaimed Adeline.

'Girl! girl! don't be foolish,' replied the doctor; 'keep your pity for more deserving objects; and, as the wisest thing you can do, endeavour to forget your mother.'

'Forget her! Never.'

'Well, well, you will be wiser in time; and now you shall hear all that passed. When she recovered entirely, and found that you were gone, she gave way to an agony of sorrow, such as I never before witnessed; for I believe that I never beheld before the agony of remorse.'

'My poor mother!' cried Adeline, again bursting into tears.

'What! again!' exclaimed the doctor. (Adeline motioned to him to go on, and he continued.) 'At sight of this, I was weak enough to pity her; and, with the greatest simplicity, I told her, that I was glad to see that she felt penitent for her conduct, since penitence paved the way to amendment; when, to my great surprise, all the vanished fierceness and haughtiness of her look returned, and she told me, that so far from repenting she approved of her conduct; and that remorse had no share in her sorrow; that she wept from consciousness of misery inflicted by the faults of others, not her own.'

'Oh! Dr Norberry,' cried Adeline reproachfully, 'I doubt, by awakening her pride, you destroyed the tenderness returning towards me.'

'May be so. However, so much the better; for anger is a less painful state of mind to endure than that of remorse: and while she thinks herself only injured and aggrieved, she will be less unhappy.'

'Then,' continued Adeline in a faltering voice, 'I care not how long she hates me.'

Dr Norberry looked at Adeline a moment with tears in his eyes, and evidently gulped down a rising sob, 'Good child! good child!' he at length articulated. 'But she'll forget and forgive all in time, I do not doubt.'

'Impossible: remember her oath.'

'And do you really suppose that she will think herself bound to keep so silly and rash an oath; an oath made in the heat of passion?'

'Undoubtedly I do; and I know, that were she to break it, she would never be otherwise than wretched all her life after. Therefore, unless Glenmurray forsakes me (she added, trying to smile archly as she spoke), and this I am not happy enough to expect, I look on our separation in this world to be eternal.'

'You do?--Then, poor devil! how miserable she will be, when her present resentment shall subside! Well; when that time comes I may perhaps see her again,' added the doctor, gulping again.

'Heaven bless you for that intention!' cried Adeline. 'But how could you ever have the heart to renounce her?'

'Girl! you are almost as provoking as your mother. Why, how could I have the heart to do otherwise, when she whitewashed herself and blackened you? To be sure, it did cause me a twinge or two to do it; and had she been an iota less haughty, I should have turned back and said, "Kiss and be friends again." But she seemed so provokingly anxious to get rid of me, and waved me with her hand to the door in such a tragedy queen sort of a manner, that, having told her very civilly to go to the devil her own way, I gulped down a sort of a tender choking in my throat, and made as rapid an exit as possible. And now another trial awaits me. I came to town, at some inconvenience to myself, to try to do you service. I have failed, and I have now no further business here: so we must part, and I know not when we shall meet again. For I rarely leave home, and may not see you again for years.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Adeline, 'Surely,' looking at Glenmurray, 'we might settle in Dr Norberry's neighbourhood?'

Glenmurray said nothing, but looked at the doctor; who seemed confused, and was silent.

'Look ye, my dear girl,' said he at length: 'the idea of your settling near me occurred to me, but--' here he took two hasty strides across the room--'in short, that's an impossible thing; so I beg you to think no more about it. If, indeed, you mean to marry Mr Glenmurray--'

'Which I shall not do,' replied Adeline coldly.

'There again, now!' cried the doctor pettishly: 'you, in your way, are quite as obstinate and ridiculous as your mother. However, I hope you will know better in time. But it grows late--'tis time I should be in my chaise, and I hear it driving up. Mr Glenmurray,' continued he in an altered tone of voice, 'to your care and your tenderness I leave this poor child; and, zounds, man! if you will but burn your books before her face, and swear they are stuff, why, 'sdeath, I say, I would come to town on purpose to do you homage.--Adeline, my child, God bless you! I have loved you from your infancy, and I wish, from my soul, that I left you in a better situation. But you will write to me, heh?'

'Undoubtedly.'

'Well, one kiss:--don't be jealous, Glenmurray. Your hand, man.--Woons, what a hand! My dear fellow, take care of yourself, for that poor child's sake: get the advice which I recommended, and good air.' A rising sob interrupted him--he hemmed it off, and ran into his chaise.