Emmeline blushed again; and Mrs. Ashwood casting a malicious look at her, said—'Oh! yes—he doubtless is in love. To men of his gay turn you know it makes no difference, whether a person be actually married or engaged.'
Emmeline, uncertain of the meaning of this sarcasm, and unwilling to be provoked to make a tart reply, which she felt herself ready to do, put up her work and left the room.
While she went in search of Mrs. Stafford, to enquire after Lady Adelina, and to relate the conversation that had passed between her and Fitz-Edward, Mrs. Ashwood and Miss Galton were indulging their natural malignity. Tho' well apprized of Emmeline's engagement to Delamere, yet they hesitated not to impute her confusion, and Fitz-Edward's behaviour, to a passion between them. They believed, that while her elopement with Delamere had beyond retreat entangled her with him, and while his fortune and future title tempted her to marry him, her heart was in possession of Fitz-Edward; and that Delamere was the dupe of his mistress and his friend.
This idea, which could not have occurred to a woman who was not herself capable of all the perfidy it implied, grew immediately familiar with the imagination of Mrs. Ashwood, and embittered the sense of her own disappointment.
Miss Galton, who hated Emmeline more if possible than Mrs. Ashwood, irritated her suspicions by remarks of her own. She observed 'that it was very extraordinary Miss Mowbray should walk out so early in a morning, and so studiously avoid taking any body with her—and that unless she had appointments to which she desired no witness, it was very singular she should chuse to ramble about by herself.'
From these observations, and her evident confusion on seeing him, they concluded that she had daily assignations with Fitz-Edward. They agreed, that it would be no more than common justice to inform Mr. Delamere of their discovery; and this they determined to do as soon as they had certain proofs to produce, with which they concluded a very little trouble and attention would furnish them.
James Crofts, whose success was now indisputable, since of the handsome Colonel there were no hopes, was let into the secret of their suspicions; and readily undertook to assist in detecting the intrigue, for which he assured them he had particular talents. While, therefore, Mrs. Ashwood, Miss Galton, and James Crofts, were preparing to undermine the peace and character of the innocent, ingenuous Emmeline, she and Mrs. Stafford were meditating how to be useful to the unhappy Lady Adelina. They became every day more interested and more apprehensive for the fate of that devoted young woman, whose health seemed to be such as made it very improbable she should survive the birth of her child. Her spirits, too, were so depressed, that they could not prevail on her to think of her own safety, or to allow them to make any overtures to her family; but, in calm and hopeless languor, she seemed resigned to the horrors of her destiny, and determined to die unlamented and unknown.
Her elder brother, Lord Westhaven, had returned from abroad almost immediately after her concealment. His enquiries on his first arrival in England had only informed him of the embarrassment of Trelawny's affairs, and the inconvenience to which his sister had consequently been exposed; and that after staying some time in England, to settle things as well as she could, she had disappeared, and every body believed was gone to her husband. His Lordship's acquaintance and marriage with Augusta Delamere, almost immediately succeeded; but while it was depending, he was astonished to hear from Lord and Lady Clancarryl that Lady Adelina had never written to them before her departure. He went in search of Fitz-Edward; but could never meet him at home or obtain from his servants any direction where to find him. Fitz-Edward, indeed, purposely avoided him, and had left no address at his lodgings in town, or at Tylehurst.
Lord Westhaven then wrote to Trelawny, but obtained no answer; and growing daily more alarmed at the uncertainty he was in about Lady Adelina, he determined to go, as soon as he was married, to Switzerland; being persuaded that tho' some accident had prevented his receiving her letters, she had found an asylum there, amongst his mother's relations.
Fitz-Edward, with anxiety even more poignant, had sought her with as little success. After the morning when she discharged her lodgings, and left them in an hackney coach with her maid, he could never, with all his unwearied researches, discover any traces of her.