Chapter I

Whenever Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline were afterwards alone, they could think and speak of nothing but Lady Adelina. The misfortunes in which an unhappy marriage had involved her, her friendless youth, her lovely figure, the settled sorrow and deep regret that she seemed to feel for the error into which her too great sensibility of heart had betrayed her, engaged their tenderest pity, and made them both anxious to give her all the consolation and assistance she was now capable of receiving.

When they considered the uncertainty of her remaining long concealed where she was, and the probability that Fitz-Edward himself might discover her, they saw the necessity of her removal from Woodbury Forest. But it was a proposal they could not yet make--nor had they yet recollected any place where she might be more secure.

Emmeline, who felt herself particularly interested by her misfortunes, and who was more pleased with her conversation the oftener she conversed with her, seldom failed of seeing her every day: but Mrs. Stafford, more apprehensive of observation, could not so frequently visit her; and the precaution of both redoubled, when Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton, and the two Miss Ashwood's, arrived at Woodfield, where they declared an intention of staying the months of June and July.

Thither also, soon after, came the younger Mr. Crofts, who had made an acquaintance with Mr. Stafford in London with the hope of obtaining an invitation, which he eagerly accepted.

Sir Richard Crofts, in the ambition of making a family, had determined to give every advantage to his eldest son, which might authorise him to look up to those alliances that would, he hoped, make his own obscurity forgotten. From the first dawn of his fortune, he had considered Mr. Crofts as it's general heir; and had very plainly told his younger son, that a place under government, which he had procured for him, of about three hundred a year, must be his only dependance; till he should possess two thousand pounds, all the provision he intended making for him at his death--as he meant not to diminish, by a more equal division, the patrimony of his brother. He recommended to him therefore to remedy this deficiency of fortune, by looking out for an affluent wife.

Nature had not eminently qualified him for success in such a project; for his person was short, thick, and ill made, and his face composed of large broad features, two dim grey eyes, and a complexion of a dull sallow white. A vain attempt to look like a gentleman, served only to render the meanness of his figure more remarkable; and the qualities of his heart and understanding were but little calculated to make his personal imperfections forgotten. His heart was selfish, narrow, unfeeling, and at once mean and proud; his understanding beneath mediocrity; and his conversation consisted of quaint scraps of something that he supposed was wit, or at least very like it. And even such attempts to be entertaining, poor as they were, he retailed from the office where he passed the greatest part of his time, and for a subaltern employment in which, his education had been barely such as fitted him. But ignorant as he was, and devoid of every estimable accomplishment, he had an infinite deal of that inferior kind of policy called cunning; and being accustomed to consider his establishment as depending wholly on himself, he had acquired a habit of sacrificing every sentiment and every passion to that one purpose; and would adopt the opinions, and submit to the caprices of others, whenever he thought they could promote it. He had learned the obsequious attention, the indefatigable industry, the humble adulation which is necessary for the under departments of political business: and while such acquisitions gave him hopes of rising in that line, they failed not to contribute to his success in another. He would walk from the extremity of Westminster to Wapping, to smuggle a set of china or of quadrille boxes, for the mother or aunt of an heiress; and would, with great temper, suffer the old ladies to take advantage of him at cards, while he ogled the young ones. Which, together with his being always ready to perform for them petty services, and to flatter them without scruple, had obtained for him the character of 'one of the best creatures breathing.' But whatever favour these various recommendations obtained for him for a time, from the elderly ladies, he lost his ground when his views were discovered; and tho' he had received what he fancied encouragement from two or three young women of fortune on their first emerging from the nursery, yet they had no sooner acquired an handsomer or richer lover, than 'the best creature breathing' was discarded.

He was not however discouraged; and meeting with Mrs. Ashwood at a rout at Lady Montreville's, he was told by Miss Delamere, who was extremely diverted with her airs of elegance, that she was a rich widow who wanted a husband. He enquired into the circumstances of her fortune; and being assured she possessed such an income as would make him easy, he thought some little advantage she had over him in point of age no diminution of her attractions, and found it convenient to fall immediately in love. She listened to him with complaisance; and soon discovered 'that he was not so plain as at first he appeared to be'--soon afterwards, 'that he was rather handsome, and vastly sensible and agreeable.' After which, he made a rapid progress in her heart; and it was concerted between them that he should follow her to Woodfield.

Emmeline and Mrs. Stafford were wearied to death with the party. But the former forbore to complain, and the latter was forced to submit, and to smile, while anguish was frequently at her heart.

Mrs. Ashwood talked of nothing but fashionable parties and fashionable people, to whom her acquaintance with Lord Montreville's family had introduced her; and she now seldom deigned to name an untitled acquaintance--while Crofts hung on her long narratives with affected admiration; and the two elder of her three daughters, who were all in training to be beauties, aped their mother in vanity and impertinence.

The eldest Miss Ashwood, now about fourteen, was an insupportable torment to Emmeline, as she had taken it into her head to form, with her, a sentimental friendship. She had learned all the cant of sentiment from novels; and her mama's lovers had extremely edified her in teaching her to express it. She talked perpetually of delicate embarrassments and exquisite sensibilities, and had probably a lover, as she extremely wanted a confidant; a post which Emmeline with some difficulty declined.--Of 'the sweet novels' she had read, she just understood as much as made her long to become the heroine of such an history herself, and she wanted somebody to listen to her hopes of being so. But Emmeline shrunk from her advances, and repaid her fondness with general and cool civility; tho' Mrs. Ashwood, who loved rather to listen to Crofts than to attend to her daughters, continually promoted the intimacy, in hopes that she would take them off her own hands, and allow them to be the companions of her walks.

This, Emmeline was obliged studiously to evade, as such companions would entirely have prevented her seeing Lady Adelina; and by repeated excuses she not only irritated the curiosity of Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton, but gave the former an additional cause of dislike to that which she had already conceived; inasmuch as she was younger, handsomer, and more admired than herself.

Emmeline received frequent letters from Delamere, as warm and passionate as his personal professions. He told her, that as his mother's health was greatly amended, he intended soon to visit those parts of France with which he was yet unacquainted; and should pass some time in the Northern Provinces, from whence he entreated her to allow him to come only for a few days to England to see her--an indulgence which he said would enable him to bear with more tranquillity the remaining months of his exile.

Tho' now accustomed to consider him as her husband, Emmeline resolutely refused to consent to this breach of his engagement to his father. She had lately seen in her friends, Mrs. Stafford and Lady Adelina, two melancholy instances of the frequent unhappiness of very early marriages; and she had no inclination to hazard her own happiness in hopes of proving an exception. She wished, therefore, rather to delay her union with Delamere two or three years; but to him she never dared hint at such a delay. A clandestine interview it was, however, in her power to decline; and she answered his request by entreating him not to think of such a journey; and represented to him that he could not expect Lord Montreville would finally adhere to _his_ promises, if he himself was careless of fulfilling the conditions on which his Lordship had insisted. Having thus, as she supposed, prevented Delamere from offending his father, and without any immediate uneasiness on her own account, she gave up her mind to the solicitude she could not help feeling for Lady Adelina. This occupied almost all her time when she was alone; and gave her, when in company, an air of absence and reserve.

Tho' Mrs. Ashwood so much encouraged the attention of James Crofts, she had not forgotten Fitz-Edward, whom she had vainly sought at Lady Montreville's, in hopes of renewing an acquaintance which had in it's commencement offered her so much satisfaction. Fitz-Edward had been amused with her absurdity at the moment, but had never thought of her afterwards; nor would he then have bestowed so much time on a woman to him entirely indifferent, had not he been thrown in her way by his desire to befriend Delamere with Emmeline, on one of those days when Lady Adelina insisted on his leaving her, to avoid the appearance of his passing with her all his time. Happy in successful love, his gaiety then knew no bounds; and his agreeable flattery, his lively conversation, his fashionable manners, and his handsome person, had not since been absent from the memory of Mrs. Ashwood. His being sometimes at the house he had borrowed of Delamere, near Woodfield, was one of the principal inducements to her to go thither. She indulged sanguine hopes of securing such a conquest; and evaded giving to Crofts a positive answer, till she had made another essay on the heart of the Colonel.

He came, however, so seldom to Woodfield, that Mrs. Stafford had seen him there only once since her meeting Lady Adelina; and then he appeared to be under encreased dejection, for which she knew now, how to account.

Emmeline had given Mrs. Stafford so indifferent an account of Lady Adelina one evening, that she determined the next morning to see her. She therefore went immediately after breakfast, on pretence of visiting a poor family who had applied to her for assistance; when as Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton and Emmeline, were sitting together, Colonel Fitz-Edward was announced.

He came down to Tylehurst only the evening before; and not knowing there was company at Woodfield, rode over to pass an hour with the two friends, to whom he had frequently been tempted to communicate the source of his melancholy.

Whether it was owing to the consciousness of Lady Adelina's mournful story that arose in the mind of Emmeline, or whether seeing Fitz-Edward again in company with Mrs. Ashwood renewed the memory of what had befallen her when they last met, she blushed deeply the moment she beheld him, and arose from her chair in confusion; then sat down and took out her work, which she had hastily put up; and trying to recover herself, grew still more confused, and trembled and blushed again.

Mrs. Ashwood was in the mean time overwhelming Fitz-Edward with compliments and kind looks, which he answered with the distant civility of a slight acquaintance; and taking a chair close to Emmeline, enquired if she was not well?

She answered that she was perfectly well; and attempted to introduce general conversation. But Fitz-Edward was attentive only to her; and Mrs. Ashwood, extremely piqued at his distant manner, meditated an excuse to get Emmeline out of the room, in hopes of obtaining more notice.

Fitz-Edward, however, having talked apart with Miss Mowbray a short time, arose and took leave, having by his manner convinced Mrs. Ashwood of what she reluctantly believed, that some later attachment had obliterated the impression she had made at their first interview.

'I never saw such a figure in my life,' cried she, 'as Mr. Fitz-Edward. Mercy on me!--he is grown _so_ thin, and _so_ sallow!'

'And _so_ stupid,'interrupted Miss Galton. 'He is in love I fancy.'

Emmeline blushed again; and Mrs. Ashwood casting a malicious look at her, said--'Oh! yes--he doubtless is in love. To men of his gay turn you know it makes no difference, whether a person be actually married or _engaged_.'

Emmeline, uncertain of the meaning of this sarcasm, and unwilling to be provoked to make a tart reply, which she felt herself ready to do, put up her work and left the room.

While she went in search of Mrs. Stafford, to enquire after Lady Adelina, and to relate the conversation that had passed between her and Fitz-Edward, Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton were indulging their natural malignity. Tho' well apprized of Emmeline's engagement to Delamere, yet they hesitated not to impute her confusion, and Fitz-Edward's behaviour, to a passion between them. They believed, that while her elopement with Delamere had beyond retreat entangled her with him, and while his fortune and future title tempted her to marry him, her heart was in possession of Fitz-Edward; and that Delamere was the dupe of his mistress and his friend.

This idea, which could not have occurred to a woman who was not herself capable of all the perfidy it implied, grew immediately familiar with the imagination of Mrs. Ashwood, and embittered the sense of her own disappointment.

Miss Galton, who hated Emmeline more if possible than Mrs. Ashwood, irritated her suspicions by remarks of her own. She observed 'that it was very extraordinary Miss Mowbray should walk out so early in a morning, and so studiously avoid taking any body with her--and that unless she had appointments to which she desired no witness, it was very singular she should chuse to ramble about by herself.'

From these observations, and her evident confusion on seeing him, they concluded that she had daily assignations with Fitz-Edward. They agreed, that it would be no more than common justice to inform Mr. Delamere of their discovery; and this they determined to do as soon as they had certain proofs to produce, with which they concluded a very little trouble and attention would furnish them.

James Crofts, whose success was now indisputable, since of the handsome Colonel there were no hopes, was let into the secret of their suspicions; and readily undertook to assist in detecting the intrigue, for which he assured them he had particular talents. While, therefore, Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton, and James Crofts, were preparing to undermine the peace and character of the innocent, ingenuous Emmeline, she and Mrs. Stafford were meditating how to be useful to the unhappy Lady Adelina. They became every day more interested and more apprehensive for the fate of that devoted young woman, whose health seemed to be such as made it very improbable she should survive the birth of her child. Her spirits, too, were so depressed, that they could not prevail on her to think of her own safety, or to allow them to make any overtures to her family; but, in calm and hopeless languor, she seemed resigned to the horrors of her destiny, and determined to die unlamented and unknown.

Her elder brother, Lord Westhaven, had returned from abroad almost immediately after her concealment. His enquiries on his first arrival in England had only informed him of the embarrassment of Trelawny's affairs, and the inconvenience to which his sister had consequently been exposed; and that after staying some time in England, to settle things as well as she could, she had disappeared, and every body believed was gone to her husband. His Lordship's acquaintance and marriage with Augusta Delamere, almost immediately succeeded; but while it was depending, he was astonished to hear from Lord and Lady Clancarryl that Lady Adelina had never written to them before her departure. He went in search of Fitz-Edward; but could never meet him at home or obtain from his servants any direction where to find him. Fitz-Edward, indeed, purposely avoided him, and had left no address at his lodgings in town, or at Tylehurst.

Lord Westhaven then wrote to Trelawny, but obtained no answer; and growing daily more alarmed at the uncertainty he was in about Lady Adelina, he determined to go, as soon as he was married, to Switzerland; being persuaded that tho' some accident had prevented his receiving her letters, she had found an asylum there, amongst his mother's relations.

Fitz-Edward, with anxiety even more poignant, had sought her with as little success. After the morning when she discharged her lodgings, and left them in an hackney coach with her maid, he could never, with all his unwearied researches, discover any traces of her.

He knew she was not gone to Trelawny; and dreading every thing from her determined sorrow, he passed his whole time between painful and fruitless conjectures, and the tormenting apprehension of hearing of some fatal event. Incessantly reproaching himself for being the betrayer of his trust, and the ruin of a lovely and amiable woman, he gave himself up to regret and despondence. The gay Fitz-Edward, so lately the envy and admiration of the fashionable world, was lost to society, his friends, and himself.

He passed much of his time at Tylehurst; because he could there indulge, without interruption, his melancholy reflections, and only saw Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline, in whose soft and sensible conversation he found a transient alleviation of his sorrow--sorrow which now grew too severe to be longer concealed, and which he resolved to take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging, in hopes of engaging the pity of his fair friends--perhaps their assistance in discovering the unhappy fugitive who caused it.

From Lady Adelina, they had most carefully concealed, that his residence was so near the obscure abode she had chosen. Fatal as he had been to her peace, and conscientiously as she had abstained from naming him after their first conversation, they knew that she still fondly loved him, and that her fears for his safety had assisted her sense of rectitude when she determined to tear herself from him. But were she again to meet him, they feared she would either relapse into her former fatal affection, or conquer it by an effort, which in her precarious state of health might prove immediately fatal.

The request which Fitz-Edward had made to Emmeline, that he might be allowed to see her and Mrs. Stafford together, without any other person being present, they both wished to evade; dreading least they should by their countenances betray the knowledge they had of his unhappy story, and the interest they took in it's catastrophe.

They hoped, therefore, to escape hearing his confession till Lady Adelina should be removed--and to remove her became indispensibly necessary, as Emmeline was convinced she was watched in her visits to the cottage.

Twice she had met James Crofts within half a quarter of a mile of the cottage; and at another time discovered, just as she was about to enter it, that the Miss Ashwoods had followed her almost to the door; which she therefore forbore to enter. These circumstances made both her and Mrs. Stafford solicitous to have Lady Adelina placed in greater security; and, added to Emmeline's uneasiness for her, was the unpleasant situation in which she found herself.

Observed with malicious vigilance by Mrs. Ashwood, James Crofts, Miss Galton, and the two Misses, she felt as awkward as if she really had some secret of her own to hide; and with all the purity and even heroism of virtue, learned the uneasy sensation which ever attends mystery and concealment. The hours which used to pass tranquilly and rationally with Mrs. Stafford, were now dedicated to people whose conversation made her no amends; and if she retired to her own room, it failed not to excite sneers and suspicions. She saw Mrs. Stafford struggling with dejection which she had no power to dissipate or relieve, and obliged to enter into frequent parties of what is called pleasure, tho' to her it gave only fatigue and disgust, to gratify Mrs. Ashwood, who hated all society but a crowd. James Crofts, indeed, helped to keep her in good humour by his excessive adulation; and chiefly by assuring her, that by any man of the least taste, the baby face of Emmeline could be considered only as a foil to her more mature charms, and that her fine dark eyes eclipsed all the eyes in the world. He protested too against Emmeline for affecting knowledge--'It is,' said he, 'a maxim of my father's--and my father is no bad judge--that for a woman to affect literature is the most horrid of all absurdities; and for a woman to know any thing of business, is detestable!'

Mrs. Ashwood laid by her dictionary, determined for the future to spell her own way without it.

Besides the powerful intervention of flattery, James Crofts had another not less successful method of winning the lady's favour. He told her that his brother, who had long cherished a passion in which he was at length likely to be disappointed, was in that case determined never to marry; that he was in an ill state of health; and if he died without posterity, the estate and title of his father would descend to himself.

The elder Crofts, very desirous of seeing a brother established who might otherwise be burthensome or inconvenient to him, suggested this finesse; and secured it's belief by writing frequent and melancholy accounts of his own ill health--an artifice by which he promoted at once his brother's views and his own. He affected the valetudinarian so happily, and complained so much of the ill effect that constant application to business had on his constitution, that nobody doubted of the reality of his sickness. He took care that Miss Delamere should receive an account of it, which he knew she would consider as the consequence of his despairing love; and when he had interested her vanity and of course her compassion, he contrived to obtain leave of absence for three months from the duties of his office, in order to go abroad for the recovery of his health. He hastened to Barege; and soon found means to re-establish himself in the favour of Miss Delamere; from which, absence, and large draughts of flattery dispensed with French adroitness, had a little displaced him. This stratagem put his brother James on so fair a footing with the widow, that he thought her fortune would be secured before she could discover it to be only a stratagem, and that her lover was still likely to continue a younger brother.

James Crofts seeing the necessity of dispatch, became so importunate, that Mrs. Ashwood, despairing of Fitz-Edward, and believing she might not again meet with a man so near a title, for which she had a violent inclination, was prevailed on to promise she would make him happy as soon as she returned to her own house.

It was now the end of June; and Lady Adelina, whose situation grew very critical, had at length yielded to the entreaties of her two friends, and agreed to go wherever they thought she could obtain assistance and concealment in the approaching hour.

Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline, after long and frequent reflections and consultations on the subject, concluded that no situation would be so proper as Bath. In a place resorted to by all sorts of people, less enquiry is excited than in a provincial town, where strangers are objects of curiosity to it's idle inhabitants. To Bath, therefore, it was determined Lady Adelina should go. But when the time of her journey, and her arrangements there, came to be discussed, she expressed so much terror least she should be known, so much anguish at leaving those to whose tender pity she was so greatly indebted, and such melancholy conviction that she should not survive, that the sensible heart of Emmeline could not behold without sharing her agonies; nor was Mrs. Stafford less affected. When they returned home after this interview, Emmeline was pursued by the image of the poor unhappy Adelina. But to give, to the wretched, only barren sympathy, was not in her nature, where more effectual relief was in her power. She thought, that if by her presence she could alleviate the anguish, and soothe the sorrows of the fair mourner, perhaps save her character and her life, and be the means of restoring her to her family, she should perform an action gratifying to her own heart, and acceptable to heaven. The more she reflected on it, the more anxious she became to execute it--and she at length named it to Mrs. Stafford.

Mrs. Stafford, tho' aware of the numberless objections which might have been made to such a plan, could not resolve strenuously to oppose it. She felt infinite compassion for Lady Adelina; but could herself do little to assist her, as her time was not her own and her absence must have been accounted for: but Emmeline was liable to no restraint; and would not only be meritoriously employed in befriending the unhappy, but would escape from the society at Woodfield, which became every day more disagreeable to her. These considerations, particularly the benevolent one of saving an unhappy young woman, over-balanced, in the mind of Mrs. Stafford, the objection that might be made to her accompanying a person under the unfortunate and discreditable circumstances of Lady Adelina; and her heart, too expansive to be closed by the cold hand of prudery against the sighs of weakness or misfortune, assured her that she was right. She knew that Emmeline was of a character to pity, but not to imitate, the erroneous conduct of her friend; and she believed that the reputation of Lady Adelina Trelawny might be rescued from reproach, without communicating any part of it's blemish to the spotless purity of Emmeline Mowbray.