Chapter XXIV

The next morning explained the mystery: for breakfast was scarcely over, when Colonel Mordaunt appeared; and his presence occasioned a blush, from different causes, on the cheeks of all the ladies, and a smile on the countenances of both the gentlemen.

'You left us very abruptly last night,' said Major Douglas.

'I did so,' replied Mordaunt with a sort of grave smile.

'Were you taken ill?' asked Maynard.

'I--I was not quite easy,' answered he: 'but, Miss Douglas, may I request the honour of seeing you alone for a few minutes?'

Again the ladies blushed, and the gentlemen smiled. But Emma's weakness had been temporary: she had convinced herself that Colonel Mordaunt's action had been nothing more than a tribute to what he fancied her generous defence of an unfortunate woman: and with an air of embarrassed dignity she gave him her hand to lead her into an adjoining apartment.

'This is very good of you,' cried Colonel Mordaunt: 'but you are all goodness!--My dear Miss Douglas, had I not gone away as I did last night, I believe I should have fallen down and worshipped you, or committed some other extravagance.'

'Indeed!--What could I say to excite such enthusiasm!' replied Emma deeply blushing.

'What!--Oh, Miss Douglas!'--Then after a few more ohs, and other exclamations, he related to her the whole progress of his acquaintance with an attachment to Adeline, adding as he concluded, 'Now then judge what feelings you must have excited in my bosom:--yes, Miss Douglas, I reverenced you before for your own sake, I now adore you for that of my lost Adeline.'

'So!' thought Emma, 'the kiss of the hand is explained,'--and she sighed as she thought it; nor did she much like the word _reverenced_: but she had ample amends for her mortification by what followed.

'Really,' cried Colonel Mordaunt, gazing very earnestly at her, 'I do not mean to flatter you, but there is something in your countenance that reminds me very strongly of Adeline.'

'Is it possible?' said Emma, her cheeks glowing and her eyes sparkling as she spoke: 'you may not mean to flatter me, but I assure you I am flattered; for I never saw any woman whom in appearance I so much wished to resemble.'

'You do resemble her indeed,' cried Colonel Mordaunt, 'and the likeness grows stronger and stronger.'

Emma blushed deeper and deeper.

'But come,' exclaimed he, 'let us go; and I will--no, _you_ shall--relate to the party in the next room what I have been telling you, for I long to shame those d--'

'Fye!' said Emma smiling, and holding up her hand as if to stop the coming word. And she did stop it; for Colonel Mordaunt conveyed the reproving hand to his lips; and Emma said to herself, as she half frowning withdrew it, 'I am glad my brother was not present.'

Their return to the breakfast-room was welcome to every one, from different causes, as Colonel Mordaunt's motives for requesting a tete-a-tete had given rise to various conjectures. But all conjecture was soon lost in certainty: for Emma Douglas, with more than usual animation of voice and countenance, related what Colonel Mordaunt had authorized her to relate; and the envious sisters heard, with increased resentment, that Adeline, were she unmarried, would be the choice of the man whose affections they were eagerly endeavouring to captivate.

'You can't think,' said Colonel Mordaunt, when Emma had concluded, leaving him charmed with the manner in which she had told his story, and with the generous triumph which sparkled in her eyes at being able to exhibit Adeline's character in so favourable a point of view, 'you can't think how much Miss Douglas reminds me of Mrs Berrendale!'

'Lord!' said Miss Maynard with a toss of the head, 'my brother told us that she was handsome!'

'And so she is,' replied the colonel, provoked at this brutal speech: 'she has one of the finest countenances that I ever saw,--a countenance never distorted by those feelings of envy, and expressions of spite, which so often disfigure some women,--converting even a beauty into a fiend; and in this respect no one will doubt that Miss Douglas resembles her:

'What's female beauty--but an air divine,
Thro' which the mind's all gentle graces shine?'

says one of our first poets: therefore, in Dr Young's opinion, madam,' continued Mordaunt, turning to Emma, 'you would have been a perfect beauty.'

This speech, so truly gratifying to the amiable girl to whom it was addressed, was a dagger in the heart of both the sisters. Nor was Emma's pleasure unalloyed by pain; for she feared that Mordaunt's attentions might become dangerous to her peace of mind, as she could not disguise to herself, that his visits at Mr Maynard's had been the chief cause of her reluctance to return to Scotland whenever their journey home was mentioned. For, always humble in her ideas of her own charms, Emma Douglas could not believe that Mordaunt would ever entertain any feeling for her at all resembling love, except when he fancied that she looked like Adeline.

But however unlikely it seemed that Mordaunt should become attached to her, and however resolved she was to avoid his society, certain it is that he soon found he could be happy in the society of no other woman, since to no other could he talk on the subject nearest his heart; and Emma, though blaming herself daily for her temerity, could not refuse to receive Mordaunt's visits: and her patient attention to his conversation, of which Adeline was commonly the theme, seemed to have a salutary effect on his wounded feelings.

But the time for their departure arrived, much to the joy of Mrs Wallington and her sister, who hoped when Emma was gone to have a chance of being noticed by Mordaunt.

What then must have been their confusion and disappointment, when Colonel Mordaunt begged to be allowed to attend the Douglases on their journey home, as he had never seen the Highlands, and wished to see them in such good company! Major Douglas and his charming wife gave a glad consent to this proposal: but Emma Douglas heard it with more alarm than pleasure; for, though her heart rejoiced at it, her reason condemned it.

A few days, however, convinced her apprehensive delicacy, that, if she loved Colonel Mordaunt, it was not without hope of a return.

Colonel Mordaunt declared that every day seemed to increase her resemblance to Adeline in expression and manner; and in conduct his reason told him that she was her superior; nor could he for a moment hesitate to prefer as a wife, Emma Douglas who had never erred, to Adeline who had.

Colonel Mordaunt felt, to borrow the words of a celebrated female writer,[1] that 'though it is possible to love and esteem a woman who has expiated the faults of her youth by a sincere repentance; and though before God and man her errors may be obliterated; still there exists one being in whose eyes she can never hope to efface them, and that is her lover or her husband.' He felt that no man of acute sensibility can be happy with a woman whose recollections are not pure: she must necessarily be jealous of the opinion which he entertains of her; and he must be often afraid of speaking, lest he utter a sentiment that may wound and mortify her. Besides, he was, on just grounds, more desirous of marrying a woman whom he 'admired, than one whom he forgave;' and therefore, while he addressed Emma, he no longer regretted Adeline.

1: Madame de Stael, _Recueil de Morceaux detaches_, page 208.

In short, he at length ceased to talk of Emma's resemblance to Adeline, but seemed to admire her wholly for her own sake; and having avowed his attachment, and been assured of Emma's in return, by Major Douglas, he came back to England in the ensuing autumn, the happy husband of one of the best of women.