A very short study of her character convinced him she was exactly the woman calculated to make him happy. He told her so; and found her by no means averse to his making the same declaration to her father and mother.
Lord Montreville received it with pleasure; and preliminaries were soon settled. In about six weeks, Lord Westhaven and Miss Augusta Delamere were married at Bath, to the infinite satisfaction of all parties except Miss Delamere; who could not be very well pleased with the preference shewn her younger sister by a man whose morals, person, and fortune, were all superior to what even her own high spirit had taught her to expect in a husband.
Crofts, tho' he saw all apprehensions of having Lord Westhaven for a rival were at an end, could not help fearing that so advantageous a match for the younger, might make the elder more unwilling to accept a simple commoner with a fortune greatly inferior.
The removal, however, of Lady Westhaven gave him more frequent opportunities to urge his passion. Lady Montreville was now going to Barege, Bath having been found less serviceable than was at first hoped for; and Delamere was written to to meet her Ladyship and her eldest daughter at Paris, in order to accompany them thither.
Peace having been in the interim established, Lord Westhaven found he should return no more to his regiment, and purposed with his wife to attend Lady Montreville part of the way, and then to go into Switzerland, where his mother's family resided, who had been of that country.
Lady Westhaven was extremely gratified by this scheme; not only because she was delighted to wait on her mother, but because she hoped it would help to dissipate a lurking uneasiness which hung over the spirits of her Lord, and which he told her was owing to the uncertain and distressing situation of a beloved sister. But whenever the subject was mentioned, he expressed so much unhappiness, that his wife had not yet had resolution to enquire into the nature of her misfortunes, and only knew in general that she was unfortunately married.
[CHAPTER XI]
Emmeline had now lost her lover, at least for some time; and one of her friends too was gone where she could seldom hear of her. These deprivations attached her more closely than ever to Mrs. Stafford. Mr. Stafford was gone to town; and except now and then a short and melancholy visit from Fitz-Edward, to whom Delamere had lent his house at Tylehurst, they saw nobody; for all the neighbouring families were in London. They found not only society but happiness together enough to compensate for almost every other; and passed their time in a way particularly adapted to the taste of both.
Adjoining to the estate where Mrs. Stafford resided, a tract of forest land, formerly a chase and now the property of a collegiate body, deeply indents the arable ground beyond it, and fringes the feet of the green downs which rise above it. This part of the country is called Woodbury Forest; and the deep shade of the beech trees with which it is covered, is broken by wild and uncultured glens; where, among the broom, hawthorn and birch of the waste, a few scattered cottages have been built upon sufferance by the poor for the convenience of fewel, so amply afforded by the surrounding woods. These humble and obscure cabbins are known only to the sportsman and the woodcutter; for no road whatever leads through the forest: and only such romantic wanderers as Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline, were conscious of the beautiful walks which might be found among these natural shrubberies and solitary shades. The two friends were enjoying the softness of a beautiful April morning in these woods, when, in passing near one of the cottages, they saw, at a low casement half obscured by the pendant trees, a person sitting, whose dress and air seemed very unlike those of the usual inhabitants of such a place. She was intent on a paper, over which she leaned in a melancholy posture; but on seeing the two ladies approach, she started up and immediately disappeared.