Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  ‘A professional man,’ said he, smiling, and flattered by the eagerness with which she spoke, ‘has, you know, no will of his own. I certainly should not seek danger; but it is not possible in such service as ours to avoid it.’

  ‘Why then do you not quit it?’

  ‘If I intended to give you a high idea of my prudence, I should say, because I am a younger brother. But to speak honestly, that is not my only motive; my fortune, limited as it is, is enough for all my wishes, and will probably suffice for any I shall now ever form; but a man of my age ought not surely to waste in torpid idleness, or trifling dissipation, time that may be usefully employed. Besides, I love the profession to which I have been brought up, and, by engaging in which, I owe a life to my country if ever it should be called for.’

  ‘God forbid it ever should!’ said Emmeline, with quickness; ‘for then,’ continued she, hesitating and blushing, ‘what would poor Lady Adelina do? and what would become of my dear little boy?’

  Godolphin, charmed yet pained by this artless expression of sensibility, and thrown almost off his guard by the idea of not being wholly indifferent to her, answered mournfully— ‘To them, indeed, my life may be of some value; but to myself it is of none. Ah, Miss Mowbray! it might have been worth preserving had I —— But wherefore presume I to trouble you on a subject so hopeless? I know not what has tempted me to intrude on your thoughts the incoherences of a mind ill at ease. Pardon me — and suffer not my folly to deprive me of the happiness of being your friend, which is all I will ever pretend to.’

  He turned away, and hastened out of the room; leaving Emmeline in such confusion that it was not ‘till Mrs. Stafford came to call her to Lady Adelina’s dressing-room, that she remembered where she was, and the necessity of recollecting her scattered thoughts. When they met at dinner, she could not encounter the eyes of Godolphin without the deepest blushes: Lady Adelina, given wholly up to the idea of their approaching separation, and Mrs. Stafford, occupied by uneasiness of her own, did not attend to the singularity of her manner.

  The latter had never beheld such a tempest as was now raging; and she could not look towards the sea, whose high and foaming billows were breaking so near them, without shivering at the terrifying recollection, that in a very few hours her children, all she held dear on earth, would be exposed to this capricious and furious element. Tho’ of the steadiest resolution in any trial that merely regarded herself, she was a coward when these dear objects of her fondness were in question; and she could not help expressing to Mr. Godolphin some part of her apprehensions.

  ‘As I have gained some credit,’ answered he, ‘for my sagacity in foreseeing the gale, I might perhaps as well not hazard the loss of it, by another prophecy, for which you, Lady Adelina, will not thank me. — It will be fine, I am afraid, to-morrow.’

  ‘And the day following we embark for France,’ said Mrs. Stafford; ‘how providential that we could not sail yesterday!’

  ‘Your heart fails you, my dear Mrs. Stafford,’ replied Godolphin, ‘and I do not wonder at it. But I will tell you what you shall allow me to do: I will attend you to-morrow to Southampton, where in the character of a veteran seaman I will direct your departure, (as the whole pacquet is yours) according to the appearance of the weather; and to indulge me still farther, you shall suffer me to see you landed at Havre. Adelina, I know, will be wretched ‘till she hears you are safe on the other side; and will therefore willingly spare me to bring her such intelligence; and give me at the same time a fortunate opportunity of being useful to you.’

  Mrs. Stafford, secretly rejoiced at a proposal which would secure them a protector and as much safety as depended on human skill, could not conceal her wish to assent to it; tho’ she expressed great reluctance to give him so much trouble.

  Godolphin then consulted the eyes of Emmeline, which on meeting his were cast down; but he could not find that they expressed any displeasure at his offer: he therefore assured Mrs. Stafford that he should consider it as a pleasurable scheme with a party to whom he was indifferent; ‘but when,’ added he, ‘it gives me the means of being of the least use to you, to Miss Mowbray, and your children, I shall find in it not only pleasure but happiness. Alas! how poorly it will repay the twentieth part of the obligation we owe you!’

  It was settled therefore that Mr. Godolphin was to cross the channel with them. Again Emmeline tried to be sorry, and again found herself incapable of feeling any thing but satisfaction in hearing that he would be yet longer with them.

  During the rest of the evening, he tried to assume a degree of chearfulness; and did in some measure feel it in the prospect of this farther temporary indulgence.

  Lady Adelina, unable to conceal her concern, drooped without any effort to imitate him; and when they parted for the night, could not help deploring in terms of piercing regret their approaching separation.

  The assurances Godolphin had given them of a favourable morning were fulfilled. They found that tho’ there was yet a considerable swell, the wind had subsided entirely, and that they might safely cross to Southampton. The boat that was to convey them was ready; and Emmeline could not take leave of Lady Adelina without sharing the anguish which she could not mitigate. They embraced silently and in tears; and Emmeline pressed to her heart the little boy, to whom she was tenderly attached.

  Godolphin was a silent spectator of this melancholy farewel. The softness of Emmeline’s heart was to him her greatest charm, and he could hardly help repeating, in the words of Louis XIV— ‘She has so much sensibility that it must be an exquisite pleasure to be beloved by her!’

  He sighed in remembering that such could not be his happiness; then wishing to shorten a scene which so violently affected the unsettled spirits of Lady Adelina, he would have led Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline away; but Lady Adelina insisted on following them to the shore; smiled thro’ her tears; and promised to behave better. Silently they walked to the sea-side. Mrs. Stafford hastily embracing her, was handed into the boat by Godolphin; who then advancing with forced gaiety to Emmeline, about whom his sister still fondly hung, said— ‘Come, come, I must have no more adieus — as if you were never to meet again.’

  ‘Ah! who can tell,’ answered Lady Adelina, ‘that we ever shall!’

  Emmeline spoke not; but kissing the hand of her weeping friend, gave her own to Godolphin; while Lady Adelina, resting on the arm of her woman, and overwhelmed with sorrow, suffered the boat to depart.

  It rowed swiftly away; favoured by the tide. Lady Adelina remained on the shore as long as she could distinguish it; and then slowly and reluctantly returned to solitude and tears: while her two friends, attended by her brother, landed safely at Southampton, where he busied himself in settling every thing for their departure the next morning in the pacquet which they had hired, and which now lay ready to receive them.

  During their passage to Havre, which was short and prosperous, the attention of Godolphin was equally divided between Mrs. Stafford, her children, and Emmeline. But when he assisted the latter to leave the vessel, he could not forbear pressing her to his heart, while in a deep sigh he bade adieu to the happiness of being with her; for he concluded she would not long remain single, and after she was married he determined never more to trust himself with the dangerous pleasure of beholding her.

  He had never mentioned the name of Delamere; and knew not that he was returned to England. Having once been assured of her engagement, he was unable to enquire into the circumstances of what had destroyed his happiness. He knew they were to be married in March, and that Delamere had promised to remain on the Continent ‘till that period. He doubted not, therefore, but that Emmeline, in compliance with the entreaties of her lover, had consented to accompany Mrs. Stafford to France, and by her presence to charm away the months that yet intervened; after which he supposed they would be immediately united.

  Notwithstanding some remarks he had made on the interest she seemed to take in regard to himself, he imputed it merely to her general sensib
ility and to his relationship to Lady Adelina. He supposed that Delamere possessed her heart; and tho’ it was the only possession on earth that would give him any chance of happiness, he envied this happy lover without hating him. He could not blame him for loving her, who was in his own opinion irresistible; nor for having used the opportunity his good fortune had given him of winning her affections. The longer he conversed with her, the more he was convinced that Delamere, in being as he believed master of that heart, was the most fortunate of human beings. But tho’ he had not resolution enough to refuse himself the melancholy yet pleasing gratification of contemplating perfections which he thought could never be his, and tho’ he could not help sometimes betraying the fondness which that indulgence hourly encreased, he never seriously meditated supplanting the happy Delamere. He did not think that to attempt it was honourable; and his integrity would have prevented the trial, had he supposed it possible to succeed.

  Mrs. Stafford had at first seen with concern that Godolphin, whom she sincerely esteemed, was nourishing for her friend a passion which could only serve to make him unhappy. But she now saw it’s progress rather with pleasure than regret. She was piqued at the groundless jealousy and rash injustice of Delamere towards Emmeline: and disappointed and disgusted at Lord Montreville’s conduct towards herself; sickening at the little sincerity of the latter, and doubtful of the temper of the former, she feared that if the alliance took place, her friend would find less happiness than splendour: and she looked with partial eyes on Godolphin; who in morals, manners, and temper, was equally unexceptionable, and whose fortune, tho’ inferior to his birth, was yet enough for happiness in that style of life which she knew better calculated for the temper and taste of Emmeline than the parade and grandeur she might share with Delamere.

  Godolphin had no parents to accept her with disdainful and cold acquiescence — no sister to treat her with supercilious condescension. — But all his family, tho’ of a rank superior to that of Delamere, would receive her with transport, and treat her with the respect and affection she deserved.

  Mrs. Stafford, however, spoke not to Emmeline of this revolution in her sentiments, but chose rather to let the affair take it’s course than to be in any degree answerable for it’s consequences.

  The hour in which Godolphin was to leave them now approached. Unable to determine on bidding Emmeline farewel, he would still have lingered with her, and would have gone on with them to Rouen, where Stafford waited their arrival: but this, Mrs. Stafford was compelled to decline; fearing least this extraordinary attention in a stranger should induce her husband to make enquiry into their first acquaintance, and by that means lead to discoveries which could not fail of being injurious to Lady Adelina.

  Of all that related to her, he was at present ignorant. He had been told, that the infant which his wife and Miss Mowbray so often visited, was the son of an acquaintance of the latter; who being obliged soon after it’s birth to go to the West Indies, had sent it to Bath to Emmeline, who had undertaken to overlook the nurse to whose care it was committed.

  Into a circumstance which offered neither a scheme to occupy his mind, or money to purchase his pleasures, Stafford thought it not then worth his while farther to enquire; but now, in a country of which he understood not the language, and detached from his usual pursuits, Mrs. Stafford knew not what strange suspicions the assiduity of Godolphin might excite in a head so oddly constructed; and without explaining her reasons to Godolphin, she said enough to convince him that he must, with whatever reluctance, leave the lovely travellers at Havre.

  He busied himself, however, in adjusting every thing for the safety of their journey; and being in the course of their preparations left alone with Emmeline in a room of the hotel, he could not forbear using the last opportunity he was likely to have of speaking to her. —

  ‘Has Miss Mowbray any commands to Lady Adelina?’

  ‘My most affectionate love!’ answered Emmeline, ‘my truest remembrance! And tell her, that the moment I am settled I will give her an account of my situation, and of all that happens worth her knowing.’

  ‘We shall hear then,’ said he, forcing a melancholy smile, ‘we shall hear when you meet the fortunate, the happy Mr. Delamere.’

  ‘Lady Adelina,’ blushingly replied Emmeline, ‘will certainly know it if I should meet him; but nothing is at present more improbable.’

  ’Tis now,’ reassumed Godolphin, ‘the last week of January — February — March — ah! how soon March will come! Tell me, how long in that month may Adelina direct to Miss Mowbray?’

  ‘Mr. Delamere, Sir,’ said Emmeline, gravely, ‘is not now in France.’

  ‘But may he not immediately return thither from Geneva or any other place? Is my sister, Lady Westhaven, to be present at the ceremony?’

  ‘The ceremony,’ answered she, half angry and half vexed, ‘may perhaps never take place.’

  The awkwardness of her situation in regard to Delamere arose forcibly to her mind, and something lay very heavy at her heart. She tried to check the tears which were filling her eyes, least they should be imputed to a very different cause; but the effort she made to conquer her feelings rendered them more acute. She took out a handkerchief to wipe away these involuntary betrayers of her emotion, and sitting down, audibly sobbed.

  Godolphin had asked these questions, in that sort of desperate resolution which a person exerts who determines to know, in the hope of being able to endure, the worst that can befal him. But he was now shocked at the distress they had occasioned, and unable to bear the sight of her tears.

  ‘Pardon me,’ cried he, ‘pardon me, most lovely, most amiable Emmeline! — oh! pardon me for having given a moment’s pain to that soft and sensible bosom. Had I suspected that a reference to an event towards which I supposed you looked forward with pleasure, could thus affect you, I had not presumed to name it. Whenever it happens,’ added he, after a short pause— ‘whenever it happens, Delamere will be the most enviable of human beings: and may you, Madam, be as happy as you are truly deserving of happiness!’

  He dared not trust his voice with another word: but under pretence of fetching a glass of water left the room, and having recovered himself, quickly returned and offered it to Emmeline, again apologizing for having offended her.

  She took the glass from him; and faintly smiling thro’ her tears, said in the gentlest accents— ‘I am not offended — I am only low spirited. Tired by the voyage, and shrinking from the fatigue of a long journey, yet you talk to me of a journey for life, on which I may never set out in the company you mention — and still more probably never undertake at all.’

  The entrance of Mrs. Stafford, who came to entreat some directions from Godolphin, prevented the continuance of this critical conversation; in which, whatever the words imported in regard to Delamere, he found but little hope for himself. He attributed what Emmeline had said to mere evasion, and her concern to some little accidental neglect on the part of her lover which had excited her displeasure. Ignorant of the jealousy Delamere had conceived from the misrepresentation of the Crofts’, which the solicitude of Emmeline for the infant of Lady Adelina had so immediately matured, he had not the most distant idea of the truth; nor suspected that the passion of Delamere for Emmeline, which he knew had within a few weeks been acknowledged without hesitation, and received with encouragement, was now become to him a source of insupportable torment; that she had left England without bidding him adieu, or even informing him that she was gone.

  The two chaises were now ready; and Godolphin having placed in the first, Mrs. Stafford and her younger children, approached Emmeline to lead her to the second, in which she was to accompany the elder. He stopped a moment as they were quitting the room, and said— ‘I cannot, Miss Mowbray, bid you adieu till you say you forgive me for the impertinence of my questions.’

  ‘For impertinence?’ answered Emmeline, giving him her hand— ‘I cannot forgive you, because I know not that you have been guilty of it. Before I go, howe
ver, allow me to thank you most sincerely for the protection you have afforded us.’

  ‘And not one word,’ cried he, ‘not one parting good wish to your little protegé — to my poor William?’

  ‘Ah! I send him a thousand!’ answered Emmeline.

  ‘And one last kiss, which I will carry him.’ She suffered him to salute her; and then he hastily led her to the chaise; and, as he put her in, said very solemnly— ‘Let me repeat my wishes, Madam, that wheresoever you are, you may enjoy felicity — felicity which I shall never again know; and that Mr. Delamere — the fortunate Delamere — may be as sensible of your value as — —’

  Emmeline, to avoid hearing this sentence concluded, bade the chaise proceed. It instantly did so with all the velocity a French postillion could give it; and hardly allowed her to observe the mournful countenance and desponding air with which Godolphin bowed to her, as she, waving her hand, again bade him adieu!

  The travellers arrived in due time safe at Rouen; where Mrs. Stafford found that her husband had been prevented meeting her, by the necessity he fancied himself under to watch the early nests of his Canary birds, of which he had now made a large collection, and whose encrease he attended to with greater solicitude than the arrival of his family. Mrs. Stafford saw with an eye of hopeless regret a new source of expence and absurdity opened; but knowing that complaints were more likely to produce anger and resentment in his mind, than any alteration in his conduct, she was obliged to conceal her chagrin, and to take possession of the gloomy chateau which her husband had chosen for her residence, about six miles from Rouen; while Emmeline, with her usual equality of temper, tried to reconcile herself to her new abode, and to share and relieve the fatigue and uneasiness of her friend. She found the activity she was for this purpose compelled to exert, assuaged and diverted that pain which she now could no longer hope to conquer, tho’ she had not yet had the courage to ascertain, by a narrow examination of her heart in regard to Godolphin, that it would be removed no more.