His mornings were often occupied in those amusements of which he had been so fond before his passion for Emmeline became the only business of his life; and secure of seeing her continually, and of telling how he loved her, he became more reasonable than he had hitherto been.
The letters, however, which now arrived from Lord Montreville, a little disturbed his felicity. They gave Emmeline an opportunity to exhort him to return to London—to make his peace with his father, and quiet the uneasiness of Lady Montreville, which his Lordship represented as excessive, and as fatal to her health as to the peace of the whole family.
Emmeline urged him by every tie of duty and affection to relieve the anxiety of his family, and particularly to attend to the effect his absence and disobedience had on the constitution of his mother, which had long been extremely shaken. But to all her remonstrances, he answered—'That he would not return, till Lady Montreville would promise never to renew those reflections and reproaches which had driven him from Audley-Hall; and to which he apprehended he should now be more than ever exposed.'
As Emmeline could not pretend to procure such an engagement from her Ladyship, all she could do was to inform Lord Montreville of his objection, and to leave it to him to make terms between Delamere and his mother.
Near a month had now elapsed since Emmeline's arrival at Woodfield; and the returning serenity of her mind had restored to her countenance all it's bloom and brilliancy. She had indeed no other uneasiness than what arose from her anxiety to procure quiet to her Uncle's family, and from her observations on the encreasing melancholy of Mrs. Stafford, for which she knew too well how to account.
Even this, however, often appeared alleviated by her presence, and forgotten in her conversation; and she rejoiced in the power of affording a temporary relief to the sorrows of one whom she so truly loved.
This calm was interrupted by Elkerton, by whom the affront he had received at Staines, from Delamere, had not been forgotten, tho' he by no means relished the thoughts of resenting it in the way his friend Jackman, and all who heard of it, proposed.
To risk his life and all his finery, seemed a most cruel condition; but Jackman protested there was no other by which he could retrieve his honour. And his friend at whose house he was, on the borders of Hampshire, who had been an officer in the military service of the East India Company, and had acquired a princely fortune, felt himself inspired with all the punctilios of a soldier, and declared to Elkerton that if he put up with this affront no man of honour could hereafter speak to him.
Poor Elkerton, who in the article of fighting, as well as many others, extremely resembled 'le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' made all the evasions in his power; while his soi disant friends, who enjoyed his distress, persisted in pushing him on to demand satisfaction of Delamere; but after long debates, he determined first to ask him for an apology. There was, he thought, some hope of obtaining it; if not, he could only in the last extremity have recourse to the desperate expedient of a challenge. He wrote therefore a letter to Delamere, requesting, in the civilest and mildest terms, an apology for his behaviour at Staines; and sent it by a servant; as it was not more than twenty miles from the house where he was, to that Mr. Delamere had taken.