Читать книгу Adeline Mowbray; or, The Mother and Daughter - Amelia Opie - Страница 10

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Mrs. Mowbray was but just returned from her charitable visit when Adeline entered the room. 'And pray, Miss Mowbray, where have you been?' she exclaimed, seeing Adeline with her hat and cloak on.

'I have been visiting poor Mr. Glenmurray,' she replied.

'Indeed!' cried Mrs. Mowbray: 'and without my leave! and pray who went with you?'

'Nobody, ma'am.'

'Nobody!—What! visit a man alone at his lodgings, after the education which you have received!'

'Indeed, madam,' replied Adeline meekly, 'my education never taught me that such conduct was improper; nor, as you did the same this afternoon, could I have dared to think it so.'

'You are mistaken, Miss Mowbray,' replied her mother: 'I did not do the same; for the terms which I am upon with Sir Patrick made my visiting him no impropriety at all.'

'If you think I have acted wrong,' replied Adeline timidly, 'no doubt I have done so; though you were quite right in visiting Sir Patrick, as the respectability of your age and character, and Sir Patrick's youth, warranted the propriety of the visit:—but, surely the terms which I am upon with Mr. Glenmurray—'

'The terms which you are upon with Mr. Glenmurray! and my age and character! what can you mean?' angrily exclaimed Mrs. Mowbray.

'I hope, my dear mother,' said Adeline tenderly, 'that you had long ere this guessed the attachment which subsists between Mr. Glenmurray and me;—an attachment cherished by your high opinion of him and his writings; but which respect has till now made me hesitate to mention to you.'

'Would to heaven!' replied Mrs. Mowbray, 'that respect had made you for ever silent on the subject! Do you suppose that I would marry my daughter to a man of small fortune—but more especially to one who, as Sir Patrick informs me, is shunned for his principles and profligacy by all the world?'

'To what Sir Patrick says of Mr. Glenmurray I pay no attention,' answered Adeline; 'nor are you, my dear mother, capable, I am sure, of being influenced by the prejudices of the world.—But you are quite mistaken in supposing me so lost to consistency, and so regardless of your liberal opinions and the books which we have studied, as to think of marrying Mr. Glenmurray.'

'Grant me patience!' cried Mrs. Mowbray; 'why, to be sure you do not think of living with him without being married?'

'Certainly, madam; that you may have the pleasure of beholding one union founded on rational grounds and cemented by rational ties.'

'How!' cried Mrs. Mowbray, turning pale. 'I!—I have pleasure in seeing my daughter a kept mistress!—You are mad, quite mad.—I approve such unhallowed connexions!'

'My dearest mother,' replied Adeline, 'your agitation terrifies me—but indeed what I say is strictly true; and see here, in Mr. Glenmurray's book, the very passage which I so often have heard you admire.' As she said this, Adeline pointed to the passage; but in an instant Mrs. Mowbray seized the book and threw it on the fire.

Before Adeline had recovered her consternation Mrs. Mowbray fell into a violent hysteric; and long was it before she was restored to composure. When she recovered she was so exhausted that Adeline dared not renew the conversation; but leaving her to rest, she made up a bed on the floor in her mother's room, and passed a night of wretchedness and watchfulness—the first of the kind which she had ever known.—Would it had been the last!

In the morning Mrs. Mowbray awoke, refreshed and calm; and, affected at seeing the pale cheek and sunk eye of Adeline, indicative of a sleepless and unhappy night, she held out her hand to her with a look of kindness; Adeline pressed it to her lips, as she knelt by the bed-side, and moistened it with tears of regret for the past and alarm for the future.

'Adeline, my dear child,' said Mrs. Mowbray in a faint voice, 'I hope you will no longer think of putting a design in execution so fraught with mischief to you, and horror to me. Little did I think that you were so romantic as to see no difference between amusing one's imagination with new theories and new systems, and acting upon them in defiance of common custom, and the received usages of society. I admire the convenient trousers and graceful dress of the Turkish women; but I would not wear them myself, lest it should expose me to derision.'

'Is there no difference,' thought Adeline, 'between the importance of a dress and an opinion!—Is the one to be taken up, and laid down again, with the same indifference as the other!' But she continued silent, and Mrs. Mowbray went on.

'The poetical philosophy which I have so much delighted to study, has served me to ornament my conversation, and make persons less enlightened than myself wonder at the superior boldness of my fancy, and the acuteness of my reasoning powers;—but I should as soon have thought of making this little gold chain round my neck fasten the hall-door, as act upon the precepts laid down in those delightful books. No; though I think all they say is true, I believe the purity they inculcate too much for this world.'

Adeline listened in silent astonishment and consternation. Conscience, and the conviction of what is right, she then for the first time learned, were not to be the rule of action; and though filial tenderness made her resolve never to be the mistress of Glenmurray, she also resolved never to be his wife, or that of any other man; while, in spite of herself, the great respect with which she had hitherto regarded her mother's conduct and opinions began to diminish.

'Would to heaven, my dear mother,' said Adeline, when Mrs. Mowbray had done speaking, 'that you had said all this to me ere my mind had been indelibly impressed with the truth of these forbidden doctrines; for now my conscience tells me that I ought to act up to them!'

'How!' exclaimed Mrs. Mowbray, starting up in her bed, and in a voice shrill with emotion, 'are you then resolved to disobey me, and dishonour yourself?'

'Oh! never, never!' replied Adeline, alarmed at her mother's violence, and fearful of a relapse. 'Be but the kind affectionate parent that you have ever been to me; and though I will never marry out of regard to my own principles, I will also never contract any other union, out of respect to your wishes—but will lead with you a quiet, if not a happy life; for never, never can I forget Glenmurray.'

'There speaks the excellent child I always thought you to be!' replied Mrs. Mowbray; 'and I shall leave it to time and good counsels to convince you, that the opinions of a girl of eighteen, as they are not founded on long experience, may possibly be erroneous.'

Mrs. Mowbray never made a truer observation; but Adeline was not in a frame of mind to assent to it.

'Besides,' continued Mrs. Mowbray, 'had I ever been disposed to accept of Mr. Glenmurray as a son-in-law, it is very unlikely that I should be so now; as the duel took place not only, I find, from the treasonable opinions which he put forth, but from some disrespectful language which he held concerning me.'

'Who could dare to invent so infamous a calumny!' exclaimed Adeline.

'My authority is unquestionable, Miss Mowbray; I speak from Sir Patrick himself.'

'Then he adds falsehood to his other villanies!' returned Adeline, almost inarticulate with rage:—'but what could be expected from a man who could dare to insult a young woman under the roof of her mother with his licentious addresses?'

'What mean you?' cried Mrs. Mowbray, turning pale.

'I mean that Sir Patrick yesterday morning insulted me by the grossest familiarities, and—'

'My dear child,' replied Mrs. Mowbray laughing, 'that is only the usual freedom of his manner; a manner which your ignorance of the world led you to mistake. He did not mean to insult you, believe me, I am sure that, spite of his ardent passion for me, he never, even when alone with me, hazarded any improper liberty.'

'The ardent passion which he feels for you, madam!' exclaimed Adeline, turning pale in her turn.

'Yes, Miss Mowbray! What, I suppose you think me too old to inspire one!—But, I assure you, there are people who think the mother handsomer than the daughter!'

'No doubt, dear mother, every one ought to think so—and would to heaven Sir Patrick were one of those! But he, unfortunately—'

'Is of that opinion,' interrupted Mrs. Mowbray angrily: 'and to convince you—so tenderly does he love me, and so fondly do I return his passion, that in a few days I shall become his wife.'

Adeline, on hearing this terrible information, fell insensible on the ground. When she recovered she saw Mrs. Mowbray anxiously watching by her, but not with that look of alarm and tenderness with which she had attended her during her long illness; that look which was always present to her graceful and affectionate remembrance. No; Mrs. Mowbray's eye was cast down with a half-mournful, half-reproachful, and half-fearful expression, when it met that of Adeline.

The emotion of anguish which her fainting had evinced was a reproach to the proud heart of Mrs. Mowbray, and Adeline felt that it was so; but when she recollected that her mother was going to marry a man who had so lately declared a criminal passion for herself, she was very near relapsing into insensibility. She however struggled with her feelings, in order to gain resolution to disclose to Mrs. Mowbray all that had passed between her and Sir Patrick. But as soon as she offered to renew the conversation, Mrs. Mowbray sternly commanded her to be silent; and insisting on her going to bed, she left her to her own reflections, till wearied and exhausted she fell into a sound sleep: nor, as it was late in the evening when she awoke, did she rise again till the next morning.

Mrs. Mowbray entered her room as she was dressing and inquired how she did, with some kindness.

'I shall be better, dear mother, if you will but hear what I have to say concerning Sir Patrick,' replied Adeline, bursting into tears.

'You can say nothing that will shake my opinion of him, Miss Mowbray,' replied her mother coldly: 'so I advise you to reconcile yourself to a circumstance which it is not in your power to prevent.' So saying, she left the room: and Adeline, convinced that all she could say would be vain, endeavoured to console herself, by thinking that, as soon as Sir Patrick became the husband of her mother, his wicked designs on her would undoubtedly cease; and that, therefore, in one respect, that ill-assorted union would be beneficial to her.

Sir Patrick, meanwhile, was no less sanguine in his expectations from his marriage. Unlike the innocent Adeline, he did not consider his union with the mother as a necessary check to his attempts on the daughter; but, emboldened by what to him appeared the libertine sentiments of Adeline, and relying on the opportunities of being with her, which he must infallibly enjoy under the same roof in the country, he looked on her as his certain prey. Though he believed Glenmurray to be at that moment preferred to himself, he thought it impossible that the superior beauty of his person should not, in the end, have its due weight: as a passion founded in esteem, and the admiration of intellectual beauty, could not, in his opinion, subsist: besides, Adeline appeared in his eyes not a deceived enthusiast, but a susceptible and forward girl, endeavouring to hide her frailty under fine sentiments and high-sounding theories. Nor was Sir Patrick's inference an unnatural one. Every man of the world would have thought the same; and on very plausible grounds.