Chapter XIX

It is very certain that when Berrendale left England, though he meant to conceal his marriage entirely, he had not even the slightest wish to contract another; and had any one told him that he was capable of such wicked conduct, he would have answered, like Hazael, 'Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?' But he was then unassailed by temptations:--and habituated as he was to selfish indulgence, it was impossible that to strong temptation he should not fall an immediate victim.

This strong temptation assailed him soon after his arrival, in the person of a very lovely and rich widow, a relation of his first wife, who, having no children of her own, had long been very fond of his child, then a very fine boy, and with great readiness transferred to the father the affection which she bore the son. For some time conscience and Adeline stood their ground against this new mistress and her immense property; but at length, being pressed by his father-in-law, who wished the match, to assign a sufficient reason for his coldness to so fine a woman, and not daring to give the true one, he returned the lady's fondness: and though he had not yet courage enough to name the marriage day, it was known that it would some time or other take place.

But all his scruples soon yielded to the dominion which the attractions of the lady, who was well versed in the arts of seduction, obtained over his senses, and to the strong power which the sight of the splendour in which she lived, acquired over his avarice; when, just as every thing was on the point of being concluded, the poor mulatto, who had found her husband dead, arrived almost broken-hearted at the place of Berrendale's abode, and delivered to him letters from Adeline.

Terrified and confounded at her presence, he received her with such evident marks of guilty confusion in his face, that Savanna's apprehensive and suspicious attachment to her mistress took the alarm; and, as she had seen a very fine woman leave the room as she entered, she, on pretence of leaving Berrendale alone to read his letters, repaired to the servants' apartments, where she learnt the intended marriage. Immediately forgetting her own distresses in those of Adeline, she returned to Berrendale, not with the languid, mournful pace with which she had first entered, but with the firm, impetuous and intrepid step of conscious integrity going to confound vice in the moment of its triumph.

Berrendale read his doom, the moment he beheld her, in her dark and fiery eye, and awaited in trembling silence the torrent of reproaches that trembled on her lip. But I shall not repeat what passed. Suffice that Berrendale pretended to be moved by what she said, and promised to break off the marriage,--only exacting from Savanna, in return, a promise of not imparting to the servants, or to any one, that he had a wife in England.

In the meanwhile he commended her most affectionately to the care of the steward; and confessing to his intended bride that he had a mistress in England, who had sent the mulatto over to prevent the match if possible, by persuading her he was already married, he conjured her to consent to a private marriage; and to prevent some dreadful scene, occasioned by the revenge of disappointed passion, should his mistress, as she had threatened, come over in person, he entreated her to let every splendid preparation for their nuptials be laid aside, in order to deceive Savanna, and induce her to return quietly to England.

The credulous woman, too much in love to believe what she did not wish, consented to all he proposed: but Berrendale, still fearful of the watchful jealousy of Savanna, contrived to find out the master to whom she belonged before she had escaped, early in life, with her first husband to England; and as she had never been made free, as soon as he arrived, he, on a summons from Berrendale, seized her as his property; and poor Savanna, in spite of her cries and struggles, was conveyed some miles up the country.

At length, however, she found means to escape to the coast; and, having discovered an old acquaintance in an English sailor on board a vessel then ready to sail, and who had great influence with the captain, she was by him concealed on board, with the approbation of the commander, and was on her way to England before Berrendale was informed of her escape.

I will not endeavour to describe Adeline's feelings on hearing this narration, and on finding also that Savanna before she left the island had been assured that Berrendale was really married, though privately, but that the marriage could not long be attempted to be concealed, as the lady even before it took place was likely to become a mother; and, that as a large estate depended on her giving birth to a son, the event of her confinement was looked for with great anxiety.

Still, in the midst of her distress, a sudden thought struck Adeline, which converted her anger into joy, and her sorrow into exultation. 'Yes, my mother may now forgive me without violating any part of her oath,' she exclaimed.--'I am now forsaken, despised and disgraced!'--and instantly she wrote to Mrs Mowbray a letter calculated to call forth all her sympathy and affection. Then, with a mind relieved beyond expression, she sat down to deliberate in what manner she should act to do herself justice as a wife and a mother, cruelly aggrieved in both these intimate relations. Nor could she persuade herself that she should act properly by her child, if she did not proceed vigorously to prove herself Berrendale's wife, and substantiate Editha's claim to his property; and as Mr Langley was, she knew, a very great lawyer, she resolved, in spite of his improper conduct to her, to apply to him again.

Indeed she could not divest herself of a wish to let him know that she was become a wife, and no longer liable to be treated with that freedom with which, as a mistress, he had thought himself at liberty to address her. However, she wished that she had not been obliged to go to him alone; but, as the mulatto was in too weak a state of health to allow of her going out, and she could not speak of business like hers before any one else, she was forced to proceed unaccompanied to the Temple; and on the evening of the day after Savanna's return, she with a beating heart, repaired once more to Mr Langley's chambers.

Luckily, however, she met the tawny boy on her way, and took him for her escort. 'Tell your master,' said she to the servant, 'that Mrs Berrendale wishes to speak to him:' and in a few minutes she was introduced.

'Mrs Berrendale!' cried Langley with a sarcastic smile; 'pray be seated, madam! I hope Mr Berrendale is well.'

'He is in Jamaica, sir,' replied Adeline.

'Indeed!' returned Langley. 'May I presume so far as to ask,--hem, hem,--whether your visit to me be merely of a professional nature?'

'Certainly, sir,' replied Adeline: 'of what other nature should it be?'

Langley replied to this only by a significant smile. At this moment the tawny boy asked leave to walk in the temple gardens; and Adeline, though reluctantly, granted his request.

'Oh! a propos, John,' cried Langley to the servant, 'let Mrs Montgomery know that her friend Miss Mowbray, Mrs Berrendale I mean, is here--she is walking in the garden.'

'My friend Mrs Montgomery, sir! I have no friend of that name.'

'No, my sweet soul? You may not know her by that name; but names change, you know. You, for instance, are Mrs Berrendale now, but when I see you again you may be Mrs Somebody else.'

'Never, sir,' cried Adeline indignantly; 'but, though I do not exactly understand your meaning, I feel as if you meant to insult me, and therefore--'

'Oh no--sit down again, my angel; you are mistaken, and so apt to fly off in a tangent! But--so--that wonderfully handsome man, Berrendale, is off--heh? Your friend and mine, heh! pretty one!'

'If, sir, Mr Berrendale ever considered you as his friend, it is very strange that you should presume to insult his wife.'

'Madam,' replied Langley with a most provoking sneer, 'Mr Berrendale's wife shall always be treated by me with proper respect.'

'Gracious Heaven!' cried Adeline, clasping her hands and looking upwards with tearful eyes, 'when shall my persecutions cease! and how much greater must my offences be than even my remorse paints them, when their consequences still torment me so long after the crime which occasioned them has ceased to exist! But it is Thy will, and I will submit even to indignity with patience.'

There was a touching solemnity in this appeal to Heaven, an expression of truth, which it was so impossible for art to imitate, that Langley felt in a moment the injustice of which he had been guilty, and an apology was on his lips, when the door opened, and a lady rouged like a French countess of the ancien regime, her hair covered with a profusion of brown powder, and dressed in the height of fashion, ambled into the room; and saying, 'How d'ye do, Miss Mowbray?' threw herself carelessly on the sofa, to the astonishment of Adeline, who did not recollect her, and to the confusion of Langley, who now, impressed with involuntary respect for Adeline, repented of having exposed her to the scene that awaited her: but to prevent it was impossible; he was formed to be a slave of woman, and had not courage to protect another from the insolence to which he tamely yielded himself.

Adeline at first did not answer this soi-disant acquaintance of hers; but, in looking at her more attentively, she exclaimed, 'What do I see? Is it possible that this can be Mary Warner!'

'Yes, it is, my dear, indeed,' replied she with a loud laugh, 'Mary Warner, alias Mrs Montgomery; as you, you know, are Miss Mowbray, alias Mrs Berrendale.'

Adeline, incapable of speaking, only gazed at her in silence, but with 'a countenance more in sorrow than in anger.'

'But, come sit down, my dear,' cried Mary; 'no ceremony, you know, among friends and equals, you know; and you and I have been mighty familiar, you know, before now. The last time we met you called me _woman_, you know--yes, "woman!" says you--and I have not forgotten it, I assure you,' she added with a sort of loud hysterical laugh, and a look of the most determined malice.

'Come, come, my dear Montgomery,' said Langley, 'you must forget and forgive;--I dare say Miss Mowbray, that is to say Mrs Berrendale, did not mean--'

'What should you know about the matter, Lang.?' replied Mary; 'I wish you would mind your own business, and let me talk to my dumb friend here.--Well, I suppose you are quite surprised to see how smart I am!--seeing as how I once overheard you say to Glenthingymy, "How very plain Mary is!" though, to be sure, it was never a barrel the better herring, and 'twas the kettle in my mind calling the pot--Heh, Lang.?'

Here was the clue to the inveterate dislike which this unhappy girl had conceived against Adeline. So true is it that little wounds inflicted on the self-love are never forgotten or forgiven, and that it is safer to censure the morals of acquaintances than to ridicule them on their dress, or laugh at a defect in their person. Adeline, indeed, did not mean that her observation should be overheard by the object of it,--still she was hated: but many persons make mortifying remarks purposely, and yet wonder that they have enemies!

Motionless and almost lifeless Adeline continued to stand and to listen, and Mary went on--

'Well, but I thank you for one thing. You taught me that marriage was all nonsense, you know; and so, thought I, Miss Mowbray is a learned lady, she must know best, and so I followed your example--that's all, you know.'

This dreadful information roused the feelings of Adeline even to phrensy, and with a shriek of anguish she seized her hand, and conjured her by all her hopes of mercy to retract what she had said, and not to let her depart with the horrible consciousness of having been the means of plunging a fellow-being into vice and infamy.

A loud unfeeling laugh, and an exclamation of 'The woman is mad,' was all the answer to this.

'This then is the completion of my sufferings,' cried Adeline,--'this only was wanted to complete the misery of my remorse.'

'This is too much,' exclaimed Langley. 'Mary, you know very well that--'

'Hold your tongue, Lang.; you know nothing about the matter: it is all nothing, but that Miss Mowbray, like a lawyer, can change sides, you see, and attack one day what she defended the day before, you know; and she has made you believe that she thinks now being kept a shameful thing.'

'I do believe so,' hastily replied Adeline; 'and if it be true that my sentiments and my example led you to adopt your present guilty mode of life,--oh! save me from the pangs of remorse which I now feel, by letting my present example recall you from the paths of error to those of virtue.'

'Well pleaded,' cried the cold-hearted Mary--'Lang., you could not have done't so well--not up to that.'

'Mrs Montgomery,' said Langley with great severity, 'if you cannot treat Mrs Berrendale with more propriety and respect, I must beg you to leave the room; she is come to speak to me on business, and--'

'I sha'nt stir, for all that: and mark me, Lang., if you turn me out of the room, you know, hang me if ever I enter it again!'

'But your little boy may want you; you have left him now some time.'

'Aye, that may be true, to be sure, poor little dear! Have you any family, Miss Mowbray?'--when, without waiting for an answer, she added, 'My little boy have got the small-pox very bad, and has been likely to die from convulsion fits, you know. Poor dear! I had been nursing it so long that I could not bear the stench of the room, and so I was glad, you know, to come and get a little fresh air in the gardens.'

At this speech Adeline's fortitude entirely gave way. _Her_ child had not had the small-pox, and she had been for some minutes in reach of the infection; and with a look of horror, forgetting her business, and every thing but Editha, she was on the point of leaving the room, when a servant hastily entered, and told Mary that her little boy was dead.

At hearing this, even her cold heart was moved, and throwing herself back on the sofa she fell into a strong hysteric; while Adeline, losing all remembrance of her insolence in her distress, flew to her assistance; and, in pity for a mother weeping the loss of her infant, forgot for a moment that she was endangering the life of her own child.

Mr Langley, mean time, though grieved for the death of the infant, was alive to the generous forgiving disposition which Adeline evinced; and could not help exclaiming. 'Oh, Mrs Berrendale! forgive us! we deserved not such kindness at your hands:' and Adeline, wanting to loosen the tight stays of Mary, and not choosing to undress her before such a witness, coldly begged him to withdraw, advising him at the same time to go and see whether the child was really dead, as it might possibly only appear so.

Revived by this possibility, Mr Langley left Mary to the care of Adeline, and left the room. But whether it was that Mary had a mind to impress her lover and the father of her child with an idea of her sensibility, or whether she had overheard Adeline's supposition, certain it is, that as soon as Langley went away, and Adeline began to unlace her stays, she hastily recovered, and declared her stays should remain as they were: but still exclaiming about her poor dear Benny, she kept her arms closely clasped round Adeline's waist, and reposed her head on her bosom.

Adeline's fears and pity for her being thus allayed, she began to have leisure to feel and fear for herself; and the idea, that, by being in such close contact with Mary, she was imbibing so much of the disease as must inevitably communicate it to Editha, recurred so forcibly to her mind, that, begging for mercy's sake she would loose her hold, she endeavoured to break from the arms of her tormentor.

But in vain.--As soon as Mary saw that Adeline wished to leave her, she was the more eager to hold her fast; and protesting she should die if she had the barbarity to leave her alone, she only hugged her the closer. 'Well, then, I'll try to stay till Mr Langley returns,' cried Adeline: but some minutes elapsed, and Mr Langley did not return; and then Adeline, recollecting that when he did return he would come fresh fraught with the pestilence from the dead body of his infant, could no longer master her feelings, but screaming wildly,--'I shall be the death of my child; let me go,'--she struggled with the determined Mary. 'You will drive me mad if you detain me,' cried Adeline.

'You will drive me mad if you go,' replied Mary, giving way to a violent hysterical scream, while with successful strength she parried all Adeline's endeavours to break from her. But what can resist the strength of phrensy and despair? Adeline, at length worked up to madness by the fatal control exercised over her, by one great effort threw the sobbing Mary from her, and, darting down stairs with the rapidity of phrensy, nearly knocked down Mr Langley in her passage, who was coming to announce the restoration of the little boy.

She soon reached Fleet-street, and was on her road home before Langley and Mary had recovered their consternation: but she suddenly recollected that homewards she must not proceed; that she carried death about her; and wholly bewildered by this insupportable idea, she ran along the Strand, muttering the incoherencies of phrensy as she went, till she was intercepted in her passage by some young men of _ton_, who had been dining together, and, being half intoxicated, were on their way to the theatre.

Two of these gentlemen, with extended arms, prevented her further progress.

'Where are you going, my pretty girl,' cried one, 'in this hurry? shall I see you home? heh!'

'Home!' replied Adeline; 'name it not. My child! my child! thy mother has destroyed thee.'

'So!' cried another, 'actress, by all that's tragical!'

'Unhand me!' exclaimed Adeline wildly. 'Do not you know, poor babe, that I carry death and infection about with me!'

'The devil you do!' returned the gentleman; 'then the sooner you take yourself off the better.'

'I believe the poor soul is mad,' said a third, making way for Adeline to pass.

'But,' cried the first who spoke, catching hold of her, 'if so, there is method and meaning in her madness; for she called Jaby here a poor babe, and we all know he is little better.'

By this time Adeline was in a state of complete phrensy, and was again darting down the street in spite of the gentleman's efforts to hold her, when another gentleman, whom curiosity had induced to stop and listen to what passed, suddenly seized hold of her arm, and exclaimed, 'Good Heavens! what can this mean? It is--it can be no other than Miss Mowbray.'

At the sound of her own name Adeline started: but in a moment her senses were quite lost again; and the gentleman, who was no other than Colonel Mordaunt, being fully aware of her situation, after reproving the young men for sporting with distress so apparent, called a coach which happened to be passing, and desired to know whither he should have the honour of conducting her.

But she was too lost to be able to answer the question: he therefore, lifting her into the coach, desired the man to drive towards Dover-street; and when there, he ordered him to drive to Margaret-street, Oxford-street; when, not being able to obtain one coherent word from Adeline, and nothing but expressions of agony, terror, and self-condemnation, he desired him to stop at such a house, and, conducting Adeline up stairs, desired the first assistance to be procured immediately.

It was not to his own lodgings that Colonel Mordaunt had conducted Adeline, but to the house of a convenient friend of his, who, though not generally known as such, and bearing a tolerably good character in the world, was very kind to the tender distresses of her friends, and had no objection to assist the meetings of two fond lovers.

It is to be supposed, then, that she was surprised at seeing Colonel Mordaunt with a companion, who was an object of pity and horror rather than of love: but she did not want humanity; and when the colonel recommended Adeline to her tenderest care, she with great readiness ordered a bed to be prepared, and assisted in prevailing on Adeline to lie down on it. In a short time a physician and a surgeon arrived; and Adeline, having been bled and made to swallow strong opiates, was undressed by her attentive landlady; and though still in a state of unconsciousness, she fell into a sound sleep which lasted till morning.

But Colonel Mordaunt passed a sleepless night. The sight of Adeline, even frantic and wretched as she appeared, had revived the passion which he had conceived for her; and if on her awaking the next morning she should appear perfectly rational, and her phrensy merely the result of some great fright which she had received, he resolved to renew his addresses, and take advantage of the opportunity now offered him, while she was as it were in his power.

But to return to the Temple.--Soon after Mr Langley had entered his own room, and while Mary and he were commenting on the frantic behaviour of Adeline, the tawny boy came back from his walk, and heard with marks of emotion, apparently beyond his age, (for though near twelve he did not look above eight years old,) of the sudden and frantic disappearance of Adeline.

'Oh! my dear friend,' cried he, 'if, you are not gone home you will break my poor mother's heart!'

'And who is your mother?'

'Her name is Savanna; and she lives with Mrs Berrendale.'

'Mrs Berrendale!' cried Mary, 'Miss Mowbray you mean.'

'No, I do not; her name was Mowbray, but is now Berrendale.'

'What! is she really married?' asked Langley.

'Yes to be sure.'

'But how do you know that she is?'

'Oh! because I went to church with them, and my mother cooked the wedding-dinner, and I ate plum-pudding and drank punch, and we were very merry,--only my mother cried, because my father could not come.'

'Very circumstantial evidence indeed!' cried Langley, 'and I am very sorry that I did not know so much before. So you and your mother love this extraordinary fine woman, Mrs Berrendale, heh?'

'Love her! To be sure--we should be very wicked if we did not. Did you never hear the story of the pineapple?' said the tawny boy.

'Not I. What was it?' and the tawny boy, delighted to tell the story, with sparkling eyes sat down to relate it.

'You must know, Mr Glenmurray longed for a pineapple.'

'Mrs Glenmurray you mean,' said Mary laughing immoderately.

'I know what I say,' replied the tawny boy angrily; 'and so Miss Adeline, as she was then called, went out to buy one;--well, and so she met my poor father going to prison, and I was crying after her, and so--' Here he paused, and bursting into tears exclaimed, 'And perhaps she is crying herself now, and I must go and see for her directly.'

'Do so, my fine fellow,' cried Langley: 'you had better go home, tell your mother what has passed, and to-morrow' (accompanying him down stairs, and speaking in a low voice) 'I will either write a note of apology or call on Mrs Berrendale myself.'

The tawny boy instantly set off, running as fast as he could, telling Langley first, that if any harm had happened to his friend, both he and his mother should lie down and die. And this further proof of Adeline's merit did not tend to calm Langley's remorse for having exposed her to the various distresses which she had undergone at his chambers.