[CHAPTER V]
Mrs. Stafford no sooner heard from Emmeline that Godolphin was yet ignorant of the true reason of Lady Adelina's concealment, than she saw the necessity of immediately explaining it; and this task, however painful, she without hesitation undertook.
He was therefore summoned to their lodgings by a note from Emmeline, who on his arrival introduced him to Mrs. Stafford, and left them together; when, with as much tenderness as possible, and mingling with the mortifying detail many representations of the necessity there was for his conquering his resentment, she at length concluded it; watching anxiously the changes in Godolphin's countenance, which sometimes expressed only pity and affection for his sister, sometimes rage and indignation against Fitz-Edward.
Both the brothers of Lady Adelina had been accustomed to consider her with peculiar fondness. The unfortunate circumstance of her losing her mother immediately after her birth, seemed to have given her a melancholy title to their tenderness; and the resemblance she bore to that dear mother, whom they both remembered, and on whose memory their father dwelt with undiminished regret, endeared her to them still more. To these united claims on the heart and the protection of William Godolphin, another was added equally forcible, in a letter written by his father with the trembling hand of anxious solicitude, when he felt himself dying, and when, looking back with lingering affection on the children of her whom he hoped soon to rejoin, he saw with anguish his youngest daughter liable from her situation to deviate into indiscretion, and surrounded by the numberless dangers which attend on a young and beautiful woman, whose husband has neither talents to attach her affections or judgment to direct her actions. Lord Westhaven, conscious of her hazardous circumstances, and feeling in his last moments the keenest anguish, in knowing that his mistaken care had exposed her to them, hoped, by interesting both her brothers to watch over her, that he should obviate the dangers he apprehended. He had therefore, in all their conversations, recommended her to his eldest son; and as he was not happy enough to embrace the younger before he died, had addressed to him a last letter on the same subject.
Such were the powerful ties that bound Mr. Godolphin to love and defend Lady Adelina with more than a brother's fondness. Hastening therefore to obey the dying injunctions of his father, and in the hope of rendering the life of this beloved sister, if not happy, at least honourable and contented, he had heard, that she had clandestinely absented herself from her family, and after a long search had found her abandoned to remorse and despair; her reputation blasted; her health ruined; her intellects disordered; and all by the perfidy of a man, in whom he, from long friendship, and his sister, from family connection, had placed unbounded confidence.
Tho' Godolphin had one of the best tempers in the world—a temper which the roughness of those among whom he lived had only served to soften and humanize, and which was immovable by the usual accidents that ruffle others, yet he had also in a great excess all those keen feelings, which fill a heart of extreme sensibility; added to a courage, that in the hour of danger had been proved to be as cool as it was undaunted. Of him might be said what was the glorious praise of immortal Bayard—that he was 'sans peur et sans reproche;'[1] and educated with a high sense of honour himself, as well as possessing a heart calculated to enjoy, and a hand to defend, the unblemished dignity of his family, all his passions were roused and awakened by the injury it had sustained from Fitz-Edward, and he beheld him as a monster whom it was infamy to forgive. Hardly therefore had Mrs. Stafford concluded her distressing recital, than, as if commanding himself by a violent effort, he thanked her warmly yet incoherently for her unexampled goodness to his sister, recommended her still to her generous care, and the friendship of Miss Mowbray, and without any threat against Fitz-Edward, or even a comment on what he had heard, arose to depart. But Mrs. Stafford, more alarmed by this determined tho' quiet resentment and by the expression of his countenance than if he had burst into exclamations and menaces, perceived that the crisis was now come when he must either be persuaded to conquer his just resentment, or by giving it way destroy, while he attempted to revenge, the fame of his sister.
She besought him therefore to sit down a moment; and when he had done so, she told him, that if he really thought himself under any obligations to Miss Mowbray or to her for the services they had been so fortunate as to render Lady Adelina, his making all they had been doing ineffectual, would be a most mortifying return; and such must be the case, if he rashly flew to seek vengeance on Fitz-Edward: 'for that you have such a design,' continued she, 'I have no doubt; allow me, however, to suppose that I have, by doing your sister some good offices, acquired a right to speak of her affairs.'
'Surely,' answered Mr. Godolphin, 'you have; and surely I must hear with respect and attention, tho' possibly not with conviction, every opinion with which you may honour me.'
She then represented to him, with all the force of reason, how little he could remedy the evil by hazarding his own life or by taking that of Fitz-Edward.