Chapter XXII: Lady Adelaide’s Woe

Break—break—break—
On thy cold, gray sands, oh sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.—_Tennyson._

Adelaide, almost heart-broken by her first, bitter sorrow, recovered very slowly from the effects of her brain fever. To avoid meeting with Orville, she confined herself to her own room, except at such hours as she knew him to be absent, when she would creep down-stairs and steal out to the broad water’s side and wander far away along the solitary beach, out of sight and hearing of every human creature. Here seated upon a cold, gray stone, a bleached tree-stump, or a mass of dried seaweed, she sat and watched the sea like breadth of water, finding strange solace in the thoughts suggested by the dull, leaden hue, and the troubled, yet monotonous motion and moaning of the waves.

It was like her own life!

Why is it that extreme sufferers, broken-hearted or crazed, so frequently shun the society of even their nearest friends, and seek solace in the deepest solitudes of nature—in the darkest forest’s shades, in the wildest mountain’s gorge, by the bleakest ocean shore? A metaphysical treatise might be written in answer.

Adelaide, in addition to reasons common to all the wretched, had especial ones of her own for avoiding her kind.

Friends and acquaintances, she felt, looked upon her with compassion alloyed by suspicion and distrust—even as upon a girl, morbidly sensitive, highly eccentric, and very unsafe, who was at any moment liable to lunacy.

Even the servants watched her with wonder and pity! Lady Elizabeth, grown impatient of her long-continued avoidance of Orville, characterized her conduct as a sullen resentment altogether unjustifiable and intolerable.

Mr. Deville, of all others, only knew of the cause of her illness and despair; and with him she refused to speak. Had she been of age, and mistress of herself and fortune, she would have left the house; but being still under the bonds of minority, she was forced to remain. But her resolution, to hold no communication with Orville while she should be compelled to remain under his roof, she thought was fixed as fate.

It was while affairs were in this position, that Orville, one morning, opening the Baltimore paper, was suddenly arrested by the sight of the following obituary:

On Sunday the fifteenth instant, at the residence of her father, died
suddenly of organic disease of the heart, Leonora, only daughter of
Arthur Delaforêt, Esq., in the sixteenth year of her age.

It was a tremendous shock; but, oh! what a relief!

The unhappy girl who seemed destined to be his curse through life was dead, he thought—dead, not by his act, not by her own hand, by fate! Her sorrows and his embarrassments were forever at an end! Adelaide would now have no excuse for repudiating her wifely obligations. He was impatient to inform her that the obstacle _she_ had chosen to raise against the consummation of their marriage, was removed by the hand of destiny, and that therefore she must have no further conscientious scruples to becoming his wife in fact as she was in name. Yet the selfish and impetuous youth perceived the propriety, nay, the necessity, while informing Adelaide of the event, of waiting some time for her to recover from the shock, and to comprehend the event, before urging it as a motive for the consummation of their marriage.

It was an overclouded day, about the first of September, that Adelaide, quietly as usual, left the house and wandered down to the solitary shore. It was late in the evening, and the tide was coming in. The surface of the water was of a deep, dull gray, in harmony with the clouded heavens, in unison with her own sad heart.

“It is the tenth wave,” she said, as she watched a long, dark ridge, rolling as it rose and rising as it rolled, onward towards the shore, where it broke with a heavy sound, and covered her with a shower of foam.

“It is gone! It hurried on, joyous, confident, triumphant, to embrace the earth, broke itself upon the sands, and fell back again! Here comes another, as joyous, as confident, as triumphant; but like the other, and all the others, it will break and fall back—there, it is broken! another emblem of the vanity of human aspirations,” she said, as the last wave was shattered in thunder at her feet.

The tide continued to advance upon the beach, the waves raising their crested heads, throwing out their arms of surf, leaping and grasping upon the shore as though they would snatch and carry off some priceless treasure, or make good an everlasting foothold.

As she gazed, other and wilder fancies crossed her mind.

“How like sentient beings are these waves! They seem as conscious of me as I of them! How they spring at me, as if to catch me in their embrace! How they lift their white hands to me! How they beckon! Now I would only have to sit still here for a few minutes longer, and they would embrace and carry me away from this troubled earth, down, down, down to the deep stillness of the middle sea! I would only have to sit still—the wooing waves would do the rest. Shall I sit quiescent, oh eager waves, and let you have your will?”

“_Adelaide!_”

Though the name was pronounced so softly close to her ear, Adelaide sprang to her feet in alarm, and turned sharply around to confront—_Orville Deville_.

“Oh, Orville! oh, Mr. Deville, is this well? I only ask for peace, yet it is denied me; I avoid you, yet you follow me!”

“Adelaide, your garments are wet with surf!”

“Not wetter than my fate with tears!”

“Adelaide, the next wave will break over your head!”

“Many waves have broken over me, even here! I like! I like the physical shock, it numbs mental pain!”

“Adelaide, come away! I have a very important communication to make to you, but I cannot make it here, not while you sit in wet clothes. THE WAVE!” he suddenly exclaimed, as he hastily snatched her from before a black ridge of water rolling in towards the shore. It was too late! the wave leaped and broke in thunder over both! It required all his strength to withstand the shock and hold her firmly. When the tumult was over he bore her far up the bank and sat her down.

He was as thoroughly drenched as herself.

“So, Adelaide,” he said, “may every wave of sorrow from which I cannot save you, break over us _both_! I hail this as an omen—the rude baptism of our union!”

“Oh, why do you distress me with such talk, when you know this can never, never be?” she said, in despairing tones.

“Dear Adelaide, come home, get on dry garments, and then I will make you a communication.”

She allowed him to take her hand and raise her to her feet, but declining further assistance, she walked home. That evening after supper, he sent a note to her room, begging her, if she were sufficiently rested, to give him a meeting in the library, for the purpose of imparting to her the intelligence he waited to convey.

“Tell your master that I will come,” she said to the boy who brought the note.

And waiting only long enough to compose her nerves, she arose and proceeded to the library, where she found Mr. Deville. He placed a chair for her, seated himself and quietly handed her the paper, pointing out at the same time the obituary notice.

She started as her eyes fell upon the paragraph. She grew pale as she read. And when she had concluded, she raised her eyes, full of solemn questioning, to the face of Orville Deville.

“So you perceive, Adelaide,” he said, “that the miserable girl whom you chose to exalt into the importance of an obstacle to our complete union is removed!”

“Oh! but this is dreadful! dreadful! Orville! Poor thing! poor thing! And who knows _how_ she died!”

“She died—not by her own desperate hand—not through me—but by disease—disease of the heart!”

“_Of the heart?_ Ah! yes, the chord most strained the soonest snaps! _poor heart!_”

“You afflict yourself without cause, dear Adelaide! Hers was _organic_ disease of the heart, a fatal malady, sure to kill even amid the happiest circumstances.”

“And hers were most wretched.”

“Adelaide, she died last month! May she rest in peace! Do not you trouble your tender heart vainly!”

“And are not _you_ troubled at her untimely death?”

“I am sorry; yet I think it best that it happened so! best for all concerned!”

“Oh, Orville! Oh, Orville! You speak so of _her_, of her who thought herself your wife, and who was such in truth and justice!”

“Adelaide! you are a monomaniac on that point! how is it possible that she or any other woman than yourself could be my wife! Yes, my dear, _you_, and _only_ you, are mine, even as I am yours, and _only_ yours; but I did not come here to urge unwelcome claims: I came only to inform you of the death of a poor girl in whose fate you deigned to take some interest,” said Mr. Deville, rising to leave the room, and permit her to reflect upon the new phase the supposed death of Lionne had put upon their affairs.

As he passed out of the library, he encountered his mother in the hall.

“You have been holding another interview with Adelaide?”

“Yes, madam.”

“And by your gloomy looks an unpleasant one.”

“Rather so!”

“I will tell you what, Orville, you had better travel.”

“Travel, madam?”

“Yes!—Cease to woo your unwilling bride and leave the neighborhood.”

“Ah, to what good purpose, my dear mother, since I should take my unhappy passion along with me?”

“Why, of course, to this good purpose: to bring Adelaide to her senses. The girl is really devotedly attached to you, and has been so from her childhood; but she is now full of bitter and sullen resentment, and so long as you stay and importune her, she will avoid you.”

Now, of course, Orville Deville knew that his mother, in her ignorance of the true state of the case, misjudged Adelaide, and yet, upon the whole, he thought her advice good. She continued:

“By withdrawing yourself from her presence you will bring her to the knowledge of her own heart, and of your importance to her happiness.”

Orville dropped his head upon his breast and reflected deeply. And the longer he thought it over, the better he liked his mother’s counsel.

“I see,” continued that lady, “that you are inclined to follow my advice. Do so. Leave home for a season, and when you return I will guarantee a kinder treatment for you from Adelaide.”

“I think you are right, madam. I will be guided by your counsels,” said Orville.

Orville Deville lost no time in preparing for his journey. He was ready for departure almost before he had quite made up his mind in what direction he should travel. Finally it was determined, between his mother and himself, that he should first visit the Canadian Provinces, where he should spend the earlier portion of the autumn; that he should then proceed southward and spend the winter in the French colonies of Louisiana and Mississippi; that in the spring it should depend upon his own inclination whether he should extend his travels or return home.

His approaching departure was announced to Adelaide by his mother, in a manner likely to fill the mind of that young lady with self-reproach.

Entering the bride’s room early one morning, the mother of Orville sat down, and, putting a handkerchief to her eyes, said—

“Well, Adelaide, I hope that you will now be content! You have succeeded in banishing my son and your husband from his home!”

“From his home!—I, madam?” exclaimed the poor bride, in wonder and in sorrow.

“Ay, _you_! Your continued coldness has driven him away. He leaves home to-morrow, to travel how _far_, or how _long_, I cannot tell—to return _when_, if _ever_, I do not know!” and the lady, unused to betray emotion, dropped her face into her handkerchief and wept bitterly.

Adelaide had shed many, many tears; yet it seemed dreadful to her to see Orville’s mother weep. It appeared to her tender, conscientious, and devout heart as unfilial, cruel, sacrilegious, to sit and look upon the matron’s tears and not seek to stay them, at any sacrifice save that of principle.

“Oh, heaven help me! What shall I do?” she exclaimed, going and sinking at the feet and clasping the knees of the lady. “Madam! madam! oh, do not let me drive him away! do not! Let _me_ go, rather! Oh, if you had permitted me to stay away when I went, this might all have been prevented. Dear madam, it is not yet too late!—let me go!”

“You are mad, Adelaide, to think of such a thing! Go! where should you go? and _why_ should you go? It is not to be thought of! Your frenzied proposal does not even merit a serious reply! Do not affront me again by making it!” said the lady, agitated between rage and grief.

“Oh, then, _what_ can I do for you, or him? You know that I would _die_ for either!”

“It is not a question of dying, but of _living_ and _loving_—if that be not too late. You are Orville’s wife; give him your love! become _his_ in _reality_ as you are in _right_!”

“Oh, Lady Elizabeth, I would do any thing that is right, but——”

“I see! speak no more! you will do any thing but _just what we wish_! any thing but _just what is your duty_! You would _die_ for us! very fine—nobody asks you; but my son, your husband, begs you to love him, and you refuse! yes, he _prays_ for rights which he might _demand_, yet _you_, who would die for him, refuse his reasonable prayer. Go to, Lady Adelaide, I will believe no more of your professions; nor will my son plead again, nor will his mother sue for him.” And rising in anger, the lady threw off the caressing arms of Adelaide, and left the room.

“_Is_ it my duty to submit to his love? Oh, if I could think it was, how happy I should be! And—perhaps it may be so. We have been long married, and the poor, wild girl, who innocently divided us, is dead! Is it my duty now to give myself up to my husband? Oh, wavering heart, cease! inclination sets too strongly that way to let reason and conscience have fair play! I must wait—wait for more light,” said Adelaide, as she sat deeply reflecting upon her own strange position and obligations.

Her question of duty was one that might have puzzled older and wiser heads. She was very young and inexperienced, and her difficulty was one upon which she could not seek counsel of any human being, not even of Orville’s mother, without an exposure of her husband’s sin, which she was determined never to make—no, not to his parent!

“I will pray God to direct me!” she said; “but alas! we pray God to guide us, and then we follow our own inclinations and throw the responsibility upon him! Heaven save us from self-deception!”

So she meditated, struggled and prayed, with a purpose single to do right.

That night poor Adelaide spent in prayer, rather than in sleep.

In the morning she met the family at breakfast, with the humble, subdued, and deprecating air of one who felt herself the cause of the approaching separation.

The meal passed almost in silence. Lady Elizabeth’s tear-stained cheeks, Mr. Deville’s grave brow, and Adelaide’s pensive face, cast a deep gloom over the impending parting.

Mr. Deville suddenly broke up the sitting by rising and saying that to meet the packet-boat at Belle Haven, it was time he should be in the saddle. He took an affectionate leave of his mother, and then advanced to his bride, whose hand only he raised in silence to his lips. With her whole form drooping to faintness, Adelaide submitted to this slight caress. And the minute after, when she raised her eyes, he was gone.

“Oh, may God guide me aright, and then whatever may be my duty, may he forgive and bless my husband with great happiness,” she said.

When Orville was gone, his mother, true to her promise, gave over importuning Adelaide upon the subject of their estrangement, but her manner as well as her feelings towards her daughter-in-law underwent a great change. She grew cold and distant to Adelaide. And not the least of the poor young bride’s distress, was the displeasure of one between whom and herself had always existed the most tender, filial and maternal love—who had always been a most affectionate mother to herself, but who was still dearer to her heart as the mother of her husband.

But though Lady Elizabeth lectured Adelaide no more upon the subject of her “wifely duties,” yet she took care that the young bride should learn her responsibilities from other sources.

She took old Doctor Wilmot, the pastor of their parish, into her confidence; told him under the seal of secrecy that a lover’s quarrel had arisen between her children, which had terminated in a permanent estrangement on the part of the bride, and a long journey on that of the bridegroom; gave him to understand that the chief difficulty of reconciliation lay with the young lady; and finally implored his counsel.

Doctor Wilmot, who had known Adelaide from childhood, gave his opinion as follows——

“Madam, your youthful daughter-in-law has a deeply religious nature; her duty to God is her first consideration; her duty to all his creatures grows out of that. She cannot be ruled through her passions or her self-interest; because both these are subordinate to her Christian principles; she can only be governed through her conscience and her affections. The matter in hand is one too delicate to admit of my personal interference, even as the pastor and counsellor of the young lady; but I will find a way.”

Accordingly, the next Sabbath, good old Doctor Wilmot announced a course of sermons on the subject of domestic duties.

His introductory discourse, rather a dull one, was addressed to husbands, and gave umbrage, more or less, to every married man present. His second was preached from the text, “Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands even as unto the Lord,” and because his heart, for his “pet lamb’s” sake, was in his subject, this discourse, in all respects, surpassed the first.

Adelaide listened, and in her unsuspicious simplicity and meek reverence, she received every expressed opinion of this preacher as pure gospel-truth.

She went home more disturbed because more hopeful saying to herself—“I almost believe it to be my duty, as well as my happiness, to yield to Orville.”

The next day, while she was turning this subject over in her heart, as the conspirators knew that she would—the old clergyman called.

Lady Elizabeth was out of the way.

Adelaide received him in the breakfast-room. She turned the conversation on the sermon of the day before, and in the course of their discussion she put several supposititious cases to her pastor for his adjudication. As, for instance, in such and such circumstances of the husband, what should be the wife’s course?

All these cases had reference to her own difficulty, and they received answers that eased her conscience and pleased her heart. And before the interview was ended Adelaide was almost persuaded to permit herself to be happy.