Читать книгу Adeline Mowbray; or, The Mother and Daughter - Amelia Opie - Страница 9

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Sir Patrick had reached Mrs. Mowbray's some time before him, and had, to his great satisfaction, found Adeline alone; nor did it escape his penetration that her cheeks glowed, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure, at his approach.

But he would not have rejoiced in this circumstance, had he known that Adeline was pleased to see him merely because she considered his appearance as a proof of Glenmurray's safety; for, in spite of his having written against duelling, and of her confidence in his firmness and consistency, she was not quite convinced that the reasoning philosopher would triumph over the feeling man.

'You are welcome, Sir Patrick!' cried Adeline, as he entered, with a most winning smile: 'I am very glad to see you: pray sit down.'

The baronet, who, audacious as his hopes and intentions were, had not expected so kind a reception, was quite thrown off his guard by it, and catching her suddenly in his arms, endeavoured to obtain a still kinder welcome. Adeline as suddenly disengaged herself from him, and, with the dignity of offended modesty, desired him to quit the room, as, after such an insolent attempt, she could not think herself justified in suffering him to remain with her.

But her anger was soon changed into pity, when she saw Sir Patrick lay down his hat, seat himself, and burst into a long deliberate laugh.

'He is certainly mad!' she exclaimed; and, leaning against the chimney-piece, she began to contemplate him with a degree of fearful interest.

'Upon my soul! now,' cried the baronet, when his laugh was over, 'you do not suppose, my dear creature, that you and I do not understand one another! Telling a young fellow to leave the house on such occasions, means, in the pretty no meaning of your sex, "Stay, and offend again," to be sure.'

'He is certainly mad!' said Adeline, more confirmed than before in her idea of his insanity, and immediately endeavoured to reach the door: but in so doing she approached Sir Patrick, who, rather roughly seizing her trembling hand, desired her to sit down, and hear what he had to say to her. Adeline, thinking it not right to irritate him, instantly obeyed.

'Now, then, to open my mind to you,' said the baronet, drawing his chair close to hers: 'From the very first moment I saw you, I felt that we were made for one another; though, being bothered by my debts, I made up to the old duchess, and she nibbled the bait directly—deeming my clean inches (six feet one, without shoes) well worth her dirty acres.'

'How dreadfully incoherent he is!' thought Adeline, not suspecting for a moment that, by the old duchess, he meant her still blooming mother.

'But, my lovely dear!' continued Sir Patrick, most ardently pressing her hand, 'so much have your sweet person, and your frank and liberal way of thinking, charmed me, that I here freely offer myself to you, and we will begin the life of honour together as soon as you please.'

Still Adeline, who was unconscious how much her avowed opinions, had exposed her to insult, continued to believe Sir Patrick insane; a belief which the wildness of his eyes confirmed. 'I really know not—you surprise me, Sir Patrick—I—'

'Surprise you, my dear soul! How could you expect anything else from a man of my spirit, after your honest declaration last night?—All I feared was, that Glenmurray should get the start of me.'

Adeline, though alarmed, bewildered, and confounded, had still recollection enough to know that, whether sane or insane, the words and looks of Sir Patrick were full of increasing insult. 'I believe, I think I had better retire', faltered out Adeline.

'Retire!—No, indeed,' exclaimed the baronet; rudely seizing her.

This outrage restored Adeline to her usual spirit and self-possession; and bestowing on him the epithet of 'mean-soul'd ruffian!' she had almost freed herself from his grasp, when a quick step was heard on the stairs, and the door was thrown open by Glenmurray. In a moment Adeline, bursting into tears, threw herself into his arms, as if in search of protection.

Glenmurray required no explanation of the scene before him: the appearance of the actors in it was explanation sufficient; and while with one arm he fondly held Adeline to his bosom, he raised the other in a threatening attitude against Sir Patrick, exclaiming as he did it, 'Base, unmanly villain!'

'Villain!' echoed Sir Patrick—'but it is very well—very well for the present—Good morning to you, sir!' So saying he hastily withdrew.

As soon as he was gone, Glenmurray for the first time declared to Adeline the ardent passion with which she had inspired him; and she, with equal frankness, confessed that her heart was irrevocably his.

From this interesting tête-à-tête Adeline was summoned to attend a person on business to her mother; and during her absence Glenmurray received a challenge from the angry baronet, appointing him to meet him that afternoon at five o'clock, about two miles from Bath. To this note, for fear of alarming the suspicions of Adeline, Glenmurray returned only a verbal message, saying he would answer it in two hours: but as soon as she returned he pleaded indispensable business; and before she could mention any fears respecting the consequences of what had passed between him and Sir Patrick, he had left the room, having, to prevent any alarm, requested leave to wait on her early the next day.

As soon as Glenmurray reached his lodgings, he again revolved in his mind the propriety of accepting the challenge. 'How can I expect to influence others by my theories to act right, if my practice sets them a bad example?' But then again he exclaimed, 'How can I expect to have any thing I say attended to, when, by refusing to fight, I put it in the power of my enemies to assert I am a poltroon, and worthy only of neglect and contempt? No, no; I must fight:—even Adeline herself, especially as it is on her account, will despise me if I do not:'—and then, without giving himself any more time to deliberate, he sent an answer to Sir Patrick, promising to meet him at the time appointed.

But after he had sent it he found himself a prey to so much self-reproach, and after he had forfeited his claims to consistency of conduct, he felt himself so strongly aware of the value of it, that, had not the time of the meeting been near at hand, he would certainly have deliberated upon some means of retracting his consent to it.

Being resolved to do as little mischief as he could, he determined on having no second in the business; and accordingly repaired to the field accompanied only by a trusty servant, who had orders to wait his master's pleasure at a distance.

Contrary to Glenmurray's expectations, Sir Patrick also came unattended by a second; while his servant, who was with him, was, like the other, desired to remain in the back ground.

'I wish, Mr. Glenmurray, to do every thing honourable,' said the baronet, after they had exchanged salutations: 'therefore, Sir, as I concluded you would find it difficult to get a second, I am come without one, and I conclude that I concluded right.—Aye, men of your principle can have but few friends.'

'And men of your practice ought to have none, Sir Patrick,' retorted Glenmurray: 'but, as I don't think it worth while to explain to you my reasons for not having a second, as I fear that you are incapable of understanding them, I must desire you to take your ground.'

'With all my heart,' replied his antagonist; and then taking aim, they agreed to fire at the same moment.

They did so; and the servants, hearing the report of the pistols, ran to the scene of action, and saw Sir Patrick bleeding in the sword-arm, and Glenmurray, also wounded, leaning against a tree.

'This is cursed unlucky,' said Sir Patrick coolly: 'you have disabled my right arm. I can't go on with this business at present; but when I am well again command me. Your wound, I believe, is as slight as mine; but as I can walk, and you cannot, and as I have a chaise, and you not, you shall use it to convey you and your servant home, and I and mine will go on foot.'

To this obliging offer Glenmurray was incapable of giving denial; for he became insensible from loss of blood, and with the assistance of his antagonist was carried to the chaise, and supported by his terrified servant, conveyed back to Bath.

It is not to be supposed that an event of this nature should be long unknown. It was soon told all over the city that Sir Patrick O'Carrol and Mr. Glenmurray had fought a duel, and that the latter was dangerously wounded; the quarrel having originated in Mr. Glenmurray's scoffing at religion, king, and constitution, before the pious and loyal baronet.

This story soon reached the ears of Mrs. Mowbray, who, in an agony of tender sorrow, and in defiance of all decorum, went in person to call on her admired Sir Patrick; and Adeline, who heard of the affair soon after, as regardless of appearances as her mother, and more alarmed, went in person to inquire concerning her wounded Glenmurray.

By the time that she had arrived at his lodgings, not only his own surgeon but Sir Patrick's had seen him, as his antagonist thought it necessary to ascertain the true state of his wound, that he might know whether he ought to stay, or fly his country.

The account of both the surgeons was, however, so favourable, and Glenmurray in all respects so well, that Sir Patrick's alarms were soon quite at an end; and the wounded man was lying on a sofa, lost in no very pleasant reflections, when Adeline knocked at his door. Glenmurray at that very moment was saying to himself, 'Well;—so much for principle and consistency! Now, my next step must be to marry, and then I shall have made myself a complete fool, and the worst of all fools—a man presuming to instruct others by his precepts, when he finds them incapable of influencing even his own actions.'

At this moment his servant came up with Miss Mowbray's compliments, and, if he was well enough to see her, she would come up and speak to him.

In an instant all his self-reproaches were forgotten; and when Adeline hung weeping and silent on his shoulder, he could not but rejoice in an affair which had procured him a moment of such heartfelt delight. At first Adeline expressed nothing but terror at the consequences of his wound, and pity for his sufferings; but when she found that he was in no danger, and in very little pain, the tender mistress yielded to the severe monitress, and she began to upbraid Glenmurray for having acted not only in defiance of her wishes and principles, but of his own; of principles laid down by him to the world in the strongest point of view, and in a manner convincing to every mind.

'Dearest Adeline, consider the provocation,' cried Glenmurray:—'a gross insult offered to the woman I love!'

'But who ever fought a duel without provocation, Glenmurray? If provocation be a justification, your book was unnecessary; and did not you offer an insult to the understanding of the woman you love, in supposing that she could be obliged to you for playing the fool on her account?'

'But I should have been called a coward had I declined the challenge; and though I can bear the world's hatred, I could not its contempt:—I could not endure the loss of what the world calls honour.'

'Is it possible,' rejoined Adeline, 'that I hear the philosophical Glenmurray talking thus, in the silly jargon of a man of the world?'

'Alas! I am a man, not a philosopher, Adeline!'

'At least be a sensible one;—consistent I dare not now call you. But have you forgotten the distinction which, in your volume on the subject of duels, you so strongly lay down between real and apparent honour? In which of the two classes do you put the honour of which, in this instance, you were so tenacious? What is there in common between the glory of risking the life of a fellow-creature, and testimony of an approving conscience?'

'An excellent observation that of yours, indeed, my sweet monitress,' said Glenmurray.

'An observation of mine; It is your own,' replied Adeline: 'but see, I have the book in my muff; and I will punish you for the badness of your practice, by giving you a dose of your theory.'

'Cruel girl!' cried Glenmurray, 'I am not ordered a sleeping draught!'

Adeline was however resolved; and, opening the book, she read argument after argument with unyielding perseverance, till Glenmurray, who, like the eagle in the song, saw on the dart that wounded him his own feathers, cried 'Quarter!'

'But tell me, dear Adeline,' said Glenmurray, a little piqued at her too just reproofs, 'you, who are so severe on my want of consistency, are you yourself capable of acting up in every respect to your precepts?'

'After your weakness,' replied Adeline, smiling, 'it becomes me to doubt my own strength; but I assure you that I make it a scruple of conscience, to show by my conduct my confidence in the truth of my opinions.'

'Then, in defiance of the world's opinion, that opinion which I, you see, had not resolution to brave, you will be mine—not according to the ties of marriage, but with no other ties or sanction than those of love and reason?'

'I will,' said Adeline: 'and may He whom I worship' (raising her fine eyes and white arms to heaven) 'desert me when I desert you!'

Who that had seen her countenance and gesture at that moment, could have imagined she was calling on heaven to witness an engagement to lead a life of infamy? Rather would they have thought her a sublime enthusiast breathing forth the worship of a grateful soul.

It may be supposed that Glenmurray's heart beat with exultation at this confession from Adeline, and that he forgot, in the promised indulgence of his passion, those bounds which strict decorum required. But Glenmurray did her justice; he beheld her as she was—all purity of feeling and all delicacy; and, if possible, the slight favours by which true love is long contented to be fed, though granted by Adeline with more conscious emotion, were received by him with more devoted respect: besides, he again felt that mixture of pain with pleasure, on this assurance of her love, which he had experienced before. For he knew, though Adeline did not, the extent of the degradation into which the step which her conscience approved would necessarily precipitate her; and experience alone could convince him that her sensibility to shame, when she was for the first time exposed to it, would not overcome her supposed fortitude and boasted contempt of the world's opinion, and change all the roses of love into the thorns of regret and remorse.

And could he who doted on her;—he, too, who admired her as much for her consummate purity as for any other of her qualities;—could he bear to behold this fair creature, whose open eye beamed with the consciousness of virtue, casting her timid glances to the earth, and shrinking with horror from the conviction of having in the world's eye forfeited all pretensions to that virtue which alone was the end of her actions! Would the approbation of her own mind be sufficient to support her under such a trial, though she had with such sweet earnestness talked to him of its efficacy! These reflections had for some time past been continually occurring to him, and now they came across his mind blighting the triumphs of successful passion:—nay, but from the dread of incurring yet more ridicule, on account of the opposition of his practice to his theory, and perhaps the indignant contempt of Adeline, he could have thrown himself at her feet, conjuring her to submit to the degradation of being a wife.

But, unknown to Glenmurray, perhaps, another reason prompted him to desire this concession from Adeline. We are never more likely to be in reality the slaves of selfishness, than when we fancy ourselves acting with most heroic disinterestedness.—Egotism loves a becoming dress, and is always on the watch to hide her ugliness by the robe of benevolence. Glenmurray thought that he was willing to marry Adeline merely for her sake! but I suspect it was chiefly for his. The true and delicate lover is always a monopolizer, always desirous of calling the woman of his affections his own: it is not only because he considers marriage as a holy institution that the lover leads his mistress to the altar; but because it gives him a right to appropriate the fair treasure to himself—because it sanctions and perpetuates the dearest of all monopolies, and erects a sacred barrier to guard his rights—around which, all that is respectable in society, all that is most powerful and effectual in its organization, is proud and eager to rally.

But while Glenmurray, in spite of his happiness, was sensible to an alloy of it, and Adeline was tenderly imputing to the pain of his wound the occasionally mournful expression of his countenance, Adeline took occasion to declare that she would live with Glenmurray only on condition that such a step met with her mother's approbation.

'Then are my hopes for ever at an end,' said Glenmurray:—'or—or' (and spite of himself his eyes sparkled as he spoke)—'or we must submit to the absurd ceremony of marriage.'

'Marriage!' replied the astonished Adeline: 'can you think so meanly of my mother, as to suppose her practice so totally opposite to her principles, that she would require her daughter to submit to a ceremony which she herself regards with contempt?—Impossible. I am sure, when I solicit her consent to my being yours, she will be pleased to find that her sentiments and observations have not been thrown away on me.'

Glenmurray thought otherwise: however, he bowed and was silent; and Adeline declared that, to put an end to all doubt on the subject, she would instantly go in search of Mrs. Mowbray and propose the question to her: and Glenmurray, feeling himself more weak and indisposed than he chose to own to her, allowed her, though reluctantly, to depart.