Savanna was going to remonstrate, but the words 'short remainder of my
days' distressed her so much, that tears choked her words; and she
obeyed in silence her mistress's orders to pack up, except when she
indulged in a few exclamations against her lady's cruelty in going away
without taking leave of Colonel Mordaunt, who, sweet gentleman, would
break his heart at her departure, especially as he was not to know
whither she was going. A postchaise was at the door the next morning at
six o'clock; and as Adeline had not much luggage, having left the chief
part of her furniture to be divided between the mistresses of her two
lodgings, in return for their kind attention to her and her child, she
took an affectionate leave of her landlady, and desired the post-boy
to drive a mile on the road before him: and when he had done so, she
ordered him to go on to Barnet; while the disappointed mulatto thanked
God that the tawny boy was gone to Scotland with his protectress, as it
prevented her having the mortification of leaving him behind her, as
well as the colonel.--'O had I such a lover,' cried she, (her eyes
filling with tears,) 'me never leave him, nor he me!' and for the first
time she thought her angel-lady hard-hearted.
For some miles they proceeded in silence, for Adeline was too much
engrossed to speak; and the little Editha, being fast asleep in the
mulatto's arms, did not draw her mother out of the reverie into which she
had fallen.
'And where now?' said the mulatto, when the chaise stopped.
'To the next stage on the high north road.' And on they went again; nor
did they stop, except for refreshments, till they had travelled thirty
miles; when Adeline, worn out with fatigue, staid all night at the
inn where the chaise stopped, and the next morning they resumed their
journey, but not their silence. The mulatto could no longer restrain her
curiosity; and she begged to know whither they were going, and why they
were to be buried in the country?
Adeline, sighing deeply, answered, that they were going to live in
Cumberland; and then sunk into silence again, as she could not give the
mulatto her true reasons for the plan that she was pursuing without
wounding her affectionate heart in a manner wholly incurable. The truth
was, that Adeline supposed herself to be declining: she thought that
she experienced those dreadful languors, those sensations of internal
weakness, which, however veiled to the eye of the observer, speak in
forcible language to the heart of the conscious sufferer. Indeed,
Adeline had long struggled, but in vain, against feelings of a most
overwhelming nature; amongst which, remorse and horror, for having led
by her example and precepts an innocent girl into a life of infamy, were
the most painfully predominant: for, believing Mary Warner's assertion
when she saw her at Mr Langley's chambers, she looked upon that unhappy
girl's guilt as the consequence of her own; and mourned, incessantly
mourned, over the fatal errors of her early judgment, which had made
her, though an idolater of virtue, a practical assistant to the cause
of vice. When Adeline imagined the term of her existence to be drawing
nigh, her mother, her obdurate but still dear mother, regained her
wonted ascendancy over her affections; and to her, the approach of
death seemed fraught with satisfaction. For that parent, so long, so
repeatedly deaf to her prayers, and to the detail of those sufferings
which she had made one of the conditions of her forgiveness, had
promised to see and to forgive her on her _death-bed_; and her heart
yearned, fondly yearned, for the moment when she should be pressed to
the bosom of a relenting parent.
To Cumberland, therefore, she was resolved to hasten, and into the very
neighbourhood of Mrs Mowbray; while, as the chaise wheeled them along to
the place of their destination, even the prattle of her child could not
always withdraw her from the abstraction into which she was plunged, as
the scenes of her early years thronged upon her memory, and with them
the recollection of those proofs of a mother's fondness, for a renewal
of which, even in the society of Glenmurray, she had constantly and
despondingly sighed.
As they approached Penrith, her emotion redoubled, and she involuntarily
exclaimed--'Cruel, but still dear, mother, you little think your child
is so near!'
'Heaven save me!' cried Savanna; 'are we to go and be near dat woman?'
'Yes,' replied Adeline. 'Did she not say she would forgive me on my
death-bed?'
'But you not there yet, dear missess,' sobbed Savanna; 'you not there of
long years!'
'Savanna,' returned Adeline, 'I should die contented to purchase my
mother's blessing and forgiveness.'
Savanna, speechless with contending emotions, could not express by words
the feeling of mixed sorrow and indignation which overwhelmed her; but
she replied by putting Editha in Adeline's arms; then articulating with
effort, 'Look there!' she sobbed aloud.
'I understand you,' said Adeline, kissing away the tears gathering in
Editha's eyes, at sight of Savanna's distress: 'but perhaps I think my
death would be of more service to my child than my life.'
'And to me too, I suppose,' replied Savanna reproachfully. 'Well,--me go
to Scotland; for no one love me but the tawny boy.'
'You will stay and close my eyes first, I hope!' observed Adeline
mournfully.
In a moment Savanna's resentment vanished. 'Me will live and die vid
you,' she replied, her tears redoubling, while Adeline again sunk into
thoughtful silence.
As soon as they reached Penrith, Adeline inquired for lodgings out
of the town, on that side nearest to her mother's abode; and was so
fortunate, as she esteemed herself, to procure two apartments at a small
house within two miles of Mrs Mowbray's.
'Then I breathe once more the same air with my mother!' exclaimed
Adeline as she took possession of her lodging. 'Savanna, methinks I
breathe freer already!'
'Me more choked,' replied the mulatto, and turned sullenly away.
'Nay, I--I feel so much better, that to-morrow I will--I will take a
walk,' said Adeline hesitatingly.
'And where?' asked Savanna eagerly.
'Oh, to-night I shall only walk to bed,' replied Adeline smiling; and
with unusual cheerfulness she retired to rest.
The next morning she arose early; and being informed that a stile near a
peasant's cottage commanded a view of Mrs Mowbray's house, she hired a
man and cart to convey her to the bottom of the hill, and with Editha by
her side she set out to indulge her feelings by gazing on the house
which contained her mother.
When they alighted, Editha gaily endeavoured to climb the hill, and
urged her mother to follow her; but Adeline, rendered weak by illness
and breathless by emotion, felt the ascent so difficult, that no motive
less powerful than the one which actuated her could have enabled her to
reach the summit.
At length, however, she did reach it:--and the lawn before Mrs Mowbray's
white house, her hay-fields, and the running stream at the bottom of
it, burst in all their beauty on her view.--'And this is my mother's
dwelling!' exclaimed Adeline: 'and there was I born: and near here--'
shall I die, she would have added, but her voice failed her.
'Oh! what a pretty house and garden!' cried Editha in the unformed
accents of childhood;--'how I should like to live there!'
This artless remark awakened a thousand mixed and overpowering feelings
in the bosom of Adeline; and, after a pause of strong emotion, she
exclaimed, catching the little prattler to her heart--'you _shall_ live
there, my child!--yes, yes, you _shall_ live there!'
'But when?' resumed Editha.
'When I am in my grave,' answered Adeline.
'And when shall you be there?' replied the unconscious child, fondly
caressing her: 'pray, mamma--pray be there soon!'
Adeline turned away, unable to answer her.
'Look--look, mamma!'--resumed Editha: 'there are ladies.--Oh! do let us
go there now!--why can't we?'
'Would to God we could!' replied Adeline; as in one of the ladies she
recognized Mrs Mowbray, and stood gazing on her till her eyes ached
again: but what she felt on seeing her she will herself describe in the
succeeding pages: and I shall only add, that, as soon as Mrs Mowbray
returned into the house, Adeline, wrapped in a long and mournful
reverie, returned, full of a new plan, to her lodgings.
There is no love so disinterested as parental love; and Adeline had all
the keen sensibilities of a parent. To make, therefore, 'assurance
doubly sure' that Mrs Mowbray should receive and should love her orphan
when she was no more, she resolved to give up the gratification to which
she had looked forward, the hope, before she died, of obtaining her
forgiveness--that she might not weaken, by directing any part of them to
herself, those feelings of remorse, fruitless tenderness, and useless
regret in her mother's bosom, which she wished should be concentrated on
her child.
'No,' said Adeline to herself, 'I am sure that she will not refuse to
receive my orphan to her love and protection when I am no more, and am
become alike insensible of reproaches and of blessings; and I think that
she will love my child the more tenderly, because to me she will be
unable to express the compunction which, sooner or later, she will feel
from the recollection of her conduct towards me: therefore, I will make
no demands on her love for myself; but, in a letter to be given her
after my decease, bequeath my orphan to her care;'--and with this
determination she returned from her ride.
'Have you see her?' said Savanna, running out to meet her.
'Yes--but not spoken to her; nor shall I see her again.'
'What--I suppose she see you, and not speak?'
'Oh, no; she did not see me, nor shall I urge her to see me: my plans
are altered,' replied Adeline.
'And we go back to town and Colonel Mordaunt?'
'No,' resumed Adeline, sighing deeply, and preparing to write to Mrs
Mowbray.
But it is necessary that we should for a short time go back to
Berrendale, and relate that, while Adeline and Editha were confined with
the small-pox, Mr Drury received a summons from his employer in Jamaica
to go over thither, to be intrusted with some particular business: in
consequence of this he resolved to call again on Adeline, and inquire
whether she still persisted in styling herself Mrs Berrendale; as he
concluded that Berrendale would be very glad of all the information
relative to her and her child which he could possibly procure, whether
his curiosity on the subject proceeded from fear or love.
It so happened, that as soon as Editha, as well as her mother, was in
the height of the disorder, Mr Drury called; and finding that they were
both very bad, he thought that his friend Berrendale was likely to get
rid of both his encumbrances at once; and being eager to communicate
good news to a man whose influence in the island might be a benefit to
him, he every day called to inquire concerning their health.
The second floor in the house where Adeline lodged was then occupied by
a young woman in indigent circumstances, who, as well as her child, had
sickened with the distemper the very day that Editha was inoculated: and
when Drury, just as he was setting off for Portsmouth, ran to gain the
latest intelligence of the invalids, a charwoman, who attended to the
door, not being acquainted with the name of the poor young woman and her
little girl, concluding that Mr Drury, by Mrs Berrendale and miss who
were ill with the small-pox, meant them, replied to his inquiries,--'Ah,
poor things! it is all over with them, they died last night.'
On which, not staying for any further intelligence, Drury set off for
Portsmouth, and arrived at Jamaica just as Berrendale was going to remit
to Adeline a draft for a hundred pounds. For Adeline and the injury
which he had done her, had been for some days constantly present to
his thoughts. He had been ill; and as indigestion, the cause of his
complaints, is apt to occasion disturbed dreams, he had in his dreams
been haunted by the image of Glenmurray, who, with a threatening aspect,
had reproached him with cruelty and base ingratitude to him, in
deserting in such a manner the wife whom he had bequeathed to him.
The constant recurrence of these dreams had depressed his spirits and
excited his remorse so much, that he could calm his feelings in no other
way than by writing a kind letter to Adeline, and enclosing her a draft
on his banker. This letter was on the point of being sent when Drury
arrived, and, with very little ceremony, informed him that Adeline was
dead.
'Dead!' exclaimed Berrendale, falling almost sensless on his couch:
'Dead!--Oh! for God's sake, tell me of what she died!--Surely, surely,
she--' Here his voice failed him.
Drury coolly replied, that she and her child both died of the small-pox.
'But _when_? my dear fellow!--when? Say that they died nine months ago'
(that was previous to his marriage) 'and you make me your friend for
life!'
Drury, so _bribed_, would have said _any thing_; and, with all the
coolness possible, he replied, 'Then be my friend for life:--they died
rather better than nine months ago.'
Berrendale, being then convinced that bigamy was not likely to be proved
against him, soon forgot, in the joy which this thought occasioned him,
remorse for his conduct to Adeline, and regret for her early fate:
besides, he concluded that he saved L100 by the means; for he knew not
that the delicate mind of Adeline would have scorned to owe pecuniary
obligations to the husband who had basely and unwarrantably deserted
her.
But he was soon undeceived on this subject, by a letter which Colonel
Mordaunt wrote in confidence to a friend in Jamaica, begging him to
inquire concerning Mr Berrendale's second marriage; and to inform him
privately that his injured wife had zealous and powerful friends in
England, who were continually urging her to prosecute him for bigamy.
This intelligence had a fatal effect on the health of Berrendale; for
though the violent temper and overbearing disposition of his second
wife had often made him regret the gentle and compliant Adeline, and a
separation from her, consequently, would be a blessing, still he feared
to encounter the disgrace of a prosecution, and still more the anger of
his West Indian wife; who, it was not improbable, might even attack his
life in the first moment of ungoverned passion.
And to these fears he soon fell a sacrifice; for a frame debilitated by
intemperance could not support the assaults made on it by the continued
apprehensions which Colonel Mordaunt's friend had excited in him; and he
died in that gentleman's presence, whom in his last moments he had
summoned to his apartment to witness a will, by which he owned Adeline
Mowbray to be his lawful wife, and left Editha, his acknowledged and
only heir, a very considerable fortune.
But this circumstance, an account of which, with the will, was
transmitted to Colonel Mordaunt, did not take place till long after
Adeline took up her abode in Cumberland.