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.