Chapter XXIX

Little did Mrs Mowbray think that it was her own child whom she was hastening to relieve; and that, while meditating a kind action, recompense was so near.

Adeline, while trying to finish her letter to her mother, had scarcely traced a few illegible lines, when she fell back insensible on her pillow; and at the moment of Mrs Mowbray's entering the cottage, Savanna, who had uttered the shriek which had excited her curiosity, had convinced herself that she was gone for ever.

The woman who accompanied Mrs Mowbray entered the house first; and opening a back chamber, low-roofed, narrow, and lighted only by one solitary and slender candle, Mrs Mowbray, beheld through the door the lifeless form of the object of her solicitude, which Savanna was contemplating with loud and frantic sorrow.

'Here is a lady come to see what she can do for your mistress,' cried the woman, while Savanna turned hastily round:--'Here she is--here is good Madam Mowbray.'

'Madam Mowbray!' shrieked Savanna, fixing her dark eyes on Mrs Mowbray, and raising her arm in a threatening manner as she approached her: then snatching up the letter which lay on the bed,--'Woman!' she exclaimed, grasping Mrs Mowbray's arm with frightful earnestness, 'read that--'tis for you!'

Mrs Mowbray, speechless with alarm and awe, involuntarily seized the letter--but scarcely had she read the first words, when uttering a deep groan she sprung forward, to clasp the unconscious form before her, and fell beside it equally insensible.

But she recovered almost immediately to a sense of her misery; and while, in speechless agony, she knelt by the bed-side, Savanna, beholding her distress, with a sort of dreadful pleasure exclaimed, 'Ah! have you at last learn to feel?'

'But is she, is she _indeed_ gone?' cried Mrs Mowbray, 'is there _no_ hope?' and instantly seizing the cordial which she had brought with her, assisted by the woman, she endeavoured to force it down the throat of Adeline.

Their endeavours were for some time vain: at length however, she exhibited signs of life, and in a few minutes more she opened her sunk eye, and gazed unconsciously around her.

'My God! I thank you!' exclaimed Mrs Mowbray, falling on her knees; while Savanna, laying her mistress's head on her bosom, sobbed with fearful joy.

'Adeline! my child, my dear, dear child!' cried Mrs Mowbray, seizing her clammy hand.

That voice, those words which she had so long wished to hear, though hopeless of ever hearing them again, seemed to recall the fast fading recollection of Adeline: she raised her head from Savanna's bosom, and, looking earnestly at Mrs Mowbray, faintly smiled, and endeavoured to throw herself into her arms,--but fell back again exhausted on the pillow.

But in a few minutes she recovered so far as to be able to speak; and while she hung round her mother's neck, and gazed upon her with eager and delighted earnestness, she desired Savanna to bring Editha to her immediately.

'Will you, will you--,' said Adeline, vainly trying to speak her wishes, as Savanna put the sleeping girl in Mrs Mowbray's arms: but she easily divined them; and, clasping her to her heart, wept over her convulsively--'She shall be dear to me as my own soul!' said Mrs Mowbray.

'Then I die contented,' replied Adeline.

'Die!' exclaimed Mrs Mowbray hastily: 'no, you must not, shall not die; you must live to see me atone for--'

'It is in vain,' said Adeline faintly. 'I bless God that he allows me to enjoy this consolation--say that you forgive me.'

'Forgive you! Oh, Adeline! for years have I forgiven and pined after you; but a wicked woman intercepted all your letters; and I thought you were dead, or had renounced me for ever.'

'Indeed!' cried Adeline. 'Oh! had I suspected that!'

'Nay more, Mrs Pemberton is now in London, in search of you, in order to bring you back to happiness!' As Mrs Mowbray said this, Savanna, drawing near, took her hand and gently pressed it.

Adeline observed the action, and seeing by it that Savanna's heart relented towards her mother, said, 'I owe that faithful creature more than I can express; but to your care I bequeath her.'

'I will love her as my child,' said Mrs Mowbray, 'and behave to her better than I did to--'

'Hush!' cried Adeline, putting her hand to Mrs Mowbray's lips.

'But you _shall_ live! I will send for Dr Norberry; you shall be moved to my house, and all will be well--all our past grief be forgotten,' returned Mrs Mowbray with almost convulsive eagerness.

Adeline faintly smiled, but repeated that every hope of that kind was over, but that her utmost wish has gratified in seeing her mother, and receiving her full forgiveness.

'But you must live for my sake!' cried Mrs Mowbray: 'and for mine,' sobbed out Savanna.

'Could you not be moved to my house?' said Mrs Mowbray. 'There every indulgence and attention that money can procure shall be yours. Is this a place,--is this poverty--this--' Here her voice failed her, and she burst into tears.

'Mother, dearest mother,' replied Adeline, 'I see you, I am assured of your love again, and I have not a want beside. Still, I could like, I could wish, to be once more under a _parent's roof_.'

In a moment, the cottager who was present, and returning with usury to Mrs Mowbray's daughter the anxious interest which she had taken in his, proposed various means of transporting Adeline to the Lawn; a difficult and a hazardous undertaking: but the poor invalid was willing to risk the danger and the fatigue; and her mother could not but indulge her. At length the cottager, as it was for the _general benefactress_, having with care procured even more assistance than was necessary, Adeline was conveyed on a sort of a litter, along the valley, and found herself once more in the house of her mother; while Savanna, sharing in the joy which Adeline's countenance expressed, threw herself on Mrs Mowbray's neck, and exclaimed, 'Now I forgive you!'

'Mother, dear mother,' cried Adeline, after having for some minutes vainly endeavoured to speak--'I am so happy! no more an outcast, but under my mother's roof!--Nay, I even think I _can_ live now,' added she with a faint smile.

Had Adeline risen from her bed in complete health and vigour, she would scarcely have excited more joy in her mother, and in Savanna, than she did by this expression.

'Can live!' cried Mrs Mowbray, 'O! you shall, you must live.' And an express was sent off immediately to Dr Norberry too, who was removed to Kendal, to be near his elder daughter, lately married in the neighbourhood.

Dr Norberry arrived in a few hours. Mrs Mowbray ran out to meet him; but a welcome died on her tongue, and she could only speak by her tears.

'There, there, my good woman, don't be foolish,' replied he: 'it is very silly to blubber, you know: besides, it can do no good,' giving her a kiss, while the tears trickled down his rough cheek. 'So, the lost sheep is found?'

'But, O! she will be lost again,' faltered Mrs Mowbray; 'I doubt nothing can save her!'

'No!' cried the old man, with a gulp, 'no! not my coming so many miles on purpose?--Well, but where is she?'

'She will see you presently, but begged to be excused for a few minutes.' 'You see,' said he, 'by my dress, what has happened,' gulping as he spoke. 'I have lost the companion of thirty years!--and--and--' here he paused, and after an effort went on to say, that his wife in her last illness had owned that she had suppressed Adeline's letters, and had declared the reason of it--'But, poor soul!' continued the doctor, 'it was the only sin against me, I believe, or any one else, that she ever committed--so I forgave her: and I trust that God will.'

Soon after they were summoned to the sick room, and Dr Norberry beheld with a degree of fearful emotion, which he vainly endeavoured to hide under a cloak of pleasantry, the dreadful ravages which sorrow and sickness had made in the face and form of Adeline.

'So, here you are at last!' cried he, trying to smile while he sobbed audibly, 'and a pretty figure you make, don't you?--But we have you again, and we will not part with you so soon, I can tell you (almost starting as the faint but rapid pulse met his fingers)--that is, I mean,' added he, 'unless it please God.' Mrs Mowbray and Savanna, during this speech, gazed on his countenance in breathless anxiety, and read in it a confirmation of their fears. 'But who's afraid?' cried the doctor, forcing a laugh, while his tone and his looks expressed the extreme of apprehension, and his laugh ended in a sob.

Mrs Mowbray turned away in a sort of desperate silence; but the mulatto still kept her penetrating eye fixed upon him, and with a look so full of woe!

'I'll trouble you, mistress, to take those formidable eyes of yours off my face,' cried the doctor pettishly; 'for I can't stand their inquiry!--But who the devil are you?'

'She is my nurse, my consoler, and my friend,' said Adeline.

'Then she is mine of course,' cried the doctor, 'though she has a terrible stare with her eyes:--but give me your hand, mistress. What is your name?'

'Me be name Savanna,' replied the mulatto; 'and me die and live wid my dear mistress,' she added, bursting into tears.

'Pshaw!' cried the doctor, 'I can't bear this--here I came as a physician, and these blubberers melt me down into an old woman. Adeline, I must order all these people out of the room, and have you to myself, or I can do nothing.'

He was obeyed; and on inquiring into all Adeline's symptoms, he found little to hope and every thing to fear--'But your mind is relieved, and you have youth on your side; and who knows what good air, good food, and good nurses may do for you!'

'Not to mention a good physician,' added Adeline, smiling, 'and a good friend in that physician.'

'This it be to have money,' said Savanna, as she saw the various things prepared and made to tempt Adeline's weak appetite:--'poor Savanna mean as well--her heart make all these, but her hand want power.'

During this state of alarming suspense Mrs Pemberton was hourly expected, as she had written word that she had traced Adeline into Lancashire, and suspected that she was in her mother's neighbourhood.--It may be supposed that Mrs Mowbray, Adeline, and Savanna, looked forward to her arrival with eager impatience; but not so Dr Norberry--he said that no doubt she was a very good sort of woman, but that he did not like pretensions to righteousness over much, and had a particular aversion to a piece of formal drab-coloured morality.

Adeline only laughed at these prejudices, without attempting to confute them; for she knew that Mrs Pemberton's appearance and manners would soon annihilate them. At length she reached the Lawn; and Savanna, who saw her alight, announced her arrival to her mistress, and was commissioned by her to introduce her immediately into the sick chamber.--She did so; but Mrs Pemberton, almost overpowered with joy at the intelligence which awaited her, and ill fortified by Savanna's violent and mixed emotions against the indulgence of her own, begged to compose herself a few moments before she met Adeline: but Savanna was not to be denied; and seizing her hand she led her up to the bedside of the invalid.--Adeline smiled affectionately when she saw her; but Mrs Pemberton started back, and, scarcely staying to take the hand which she offered her, rushed out of the room, to vent in solitude the burst of uncontrollable anguish which the sight of her altered countenance occasioned her.--Alas! her eye had been but too well tutored to read the characters of death in the face, and it was some time before she recovered herself sufficiently to appear before the anxious watchers by the bed of Adeline with that composure which on principle she always endeavoured to display.--At length, however, she re-entered the room, and approaching the poor invalid, kissed in silence her wan flushed cheek.

'I am very different now, my kind friend, to what I was when you _first_ saw me,' said Adeline, faintly smiling.

To the moment when they _last_ met, Adeline had not resolution enough to revert, for then she was mourning by the dead body of Glenmurray.

Mrs Pemberton was silent for a moment; but, making an effort, she replied, 'Thou art now more like what thou wert in _mind_, when I _first_ met thee at Rosevalley, than when I first saw thee at Richmond. At Rosevalley I beheld thee innocent, at Richmond guilty, and here I see thee penitent, and, I hope, resigned to thy fate.'--She spoke the word _resigned_ with emphasis, and Adeline _understood_ her.

'I am indeed resigned,' replied Adeline in a low voice: 'nay, I feel that I am much favoured in being spared so long. But there is one thing that weighs heavily on my mind; Mary Warner is leading a life of shame, and she told me when I last saw her, that she was corrupted by my precept and example: if so--'

'Set thy conscience at rest on that subject,' interrupted Mrs Pemberton: 'while she lived with me, I discovered, long before she ever saw thee, that she had been known to have been faulty.'

'Oh! what a load have you removed from my mind!' replied Adeline. 'Still it would be more relieved, if you would promise to find her out; and she may be heard of at Mr Langley's chambers in the Temple. Offer her a yearly allowance for life, provided she will quit her present vicious habits; I am sure my mother will gladly fulfil my wishes in this respect.'

'And so will I,' replied Mrs Pemberton. 'Is there any thing else that I can do for thee?'

'Yes: I have two pensioners at Richmond,--a poor young woman, and her orphan boy,--an illegitimate child,' she added, deeply sighing, as she recollected what had interested her in their fate. 'I bequeath them to your care: Savanna knows where they are to be found. And now, all that disturbs my thoughts at this awful moment is, the grief which my poor mother and Savanna will feel;--nay, they will be quite unprepared for it; for they persist to hope still, and I believe that even Dr Norberry allows his wishes to deceive his judgment.'

'They will suffer, indeed!' cried Mrs Pemberton: 'but I give thee my word, that I will never leave thy mother, and that Savanna shall be our joint care.'

'It is enough--I shall now die in peace,' said Adeline; and Mrs Pemberton turned away to meet Mrs Mowbray, who, with Dr Norberry at that moment entered the room. Mrs Mowbray met her, and welcomed her audibly and joyfully: but Mrs Pemberton, aware of the blow which impended over her, vainly endeavoured to utter a congratulation; but throwing herself into Mrs Mowbray's extended arms, she forgot her usual self-command, and sobbed loudly on her bosom.

Dr Norberry gazed at the benevolent Quaker with astonishment. True, she was '_drab-coloured_;' but where was the repulsive formality that he had expected? 'This woman can feel like other women, and is as good a hand at a crying-bout as myself.' But Mrs Pemberton did not long give way to so violent an indulgence of her feelings; and gently withdrawing herself from Mrs Mowbray's embrace, she turned to the window, while Mrs Mowbray hastened to the bed-side of Adeline. Mrs Pemberton then turned round again, and, seizing Dr Norberry's hand, which she fervently pressed, said in a faltering voice, 'Would thou couldst _save_ her!'

'And--and _can't_ I? can't I?' replied he, gulping. Mrs Pemberton looked at him with an expression which he could neither mistake nor endure; but muttering in a low tone, 'No! dear, sweet soul! I doubt I can't, I doubt I can't, by the Lord!' he rushed out of the room.

From that moment he never was easy but when he could converse with Mrs Pemberton; for he knew that she, and she only, sympathized in his feelings, as she only knew that Adeline was not likely to recover. The invalid herself observed his attention to her friend, nor could she forbear to rally him on the total disappearance of his prejudices against the fair Quaker; for, such was the influence of Mrs Pemberton's dignified yet winning manners, and such was the respect with which she inspired him, that, if he had his hat on, he always took it off when she entered the room, and never uttered any thing like an oath, without humbly begging her pardon; and he told Adeline, that were all Quakers like Mrs Pemberton, he should be tempted to cry. 'Drab is your only wear.'

Another and another day elapsed, and Adeline still lived.--On the evening of the third day, as she lay half-slumbering with her head on Savanna's arm, and Mrs Mowbray, lulling Editha to sleep on her lap, was watching beside her, glancing her eye alternately with satisfied and silent affection from the child to the mother, whom she thought in a fair way of recovery; while Dr Norberry, stifling an occasional sob, was contemplating the group, and Mrs Pemberton, her hands clasped in each other, seemed lost in devout contemplation, Adeline awoke, and as she gazed on Editha, who was fondly held to Mrs Mowbray's bosom, a smile illumined her sunk countenance. Mrs Mowbray at that moment eagerly and anxiously pressed forward to catch her weak accents, and inquire how she felt. 'I have seen that fond and anxious look before,' she faintly articulated, 'but in happier times! and it assures me that you love me still.'

'Love you still!' replied Mrs Mowbray with passionate fondness:--'never, never were you so dear to me as now!'

Adeline tried to express the joy which flushed her cheek at these words, and lighted up her closing eyes: but she tried in vain. At length she grasped Mrs Mowbray's hand to her lips, and in imperfect accents exclaiming 'I thank thee, blessed Lord!' she laid her head on Savanna's bosom, and expired.

END OF ADELINE MOWBRAY.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

The period spelling has generally been retained along with the often inconsistent hyphenation. Obvious spelling errors (e.g. Patrtick, Diety, solioquy, forigve, loking, pwoerfully) have been silently corrected.

The following additional changes were made to the text, in some of the subtler cases with reference to the 1805 edition. In each instance, the corrected version follows the original.

Adeline was leaning o the arm of a young lady.
Adeline was leaning on the arm of a young lady.

little tricks and minauderies
little tricks and minaudieres

Adeline, bursting into tears, threw himself into his arms
Adeline, bursting into tears, threw herself into his arms

he dreaded to tell her that he could now allow her to call on them
he dreaded to tell her that he could not allow her to call on them

the slight favours by which true love is long contended to be fed
the slight favours by which true love is long contented to be fed

though I think all they say are true
though I think all they say is true

your writing are the lights
your writings are the lights

as a author
as an author

but in the mildst of it Maynard re-entered
but in the midst of it Maynard re-entered

continued to feel his passion
continued to feed his passion

He had brought some cakes with the penny which Adeline had given
He had bought some cakes with the penny which Adeline had given

who felt even her violet sorrow suspended
who felt even her violent sorrow suspended

it was more likely Mr Drury should be mistaken, than
Berrendale to be a villain
it was more likely Mr Drury should be mistaken, than
Berrendale be a villain

Berrendale, (...) scarcely know what to answer
Berrendale, (...) scarcely knew what to answer

though near twelve he did not look about eight years old
though near twelve he did not look above eight years old

no motive less powerful (...) could have enable her to reach
the summit
no motive less powerful (...) could have enabled her to reach
the summit

for mercy's safe, torture me no more
for mercy's sake, torture me no more

she hurried to the door of the chamber, saving she should be ready
she hurried to the door of the chamber, saying she should be ready

Po! dear, sweet soul! I doubt I can't
No! dear, sweet soul! I doubt I can't