[45] If there is any thing in the world I utterly detest, 'tis such dismal society as that.
[CHAPTER XV]
The rank, and extensive connections of Lady Westhaven, led her unavoidably into a good deal of company; but it was among persons as respectable for their virtues as their station. Emmeline, of course, often accompanied her: but almost all her mornings, and frequently her evenings, were dedicated to Lady Adelina; who hardly saw any body but her, Lady Westhaven, her brothers, and her sister; and never went out but for the air.
Godolphin passed with her much of his time: to the love and pity he had before felt for her, was added veneration and esteem, excited by the heroism of her conduct. At her lodgings, too, he could see Emmeline without the restraint they were under in other places. There, he could talk to her of his love; and there, she consented to hear him.
Lady Westhaven went constantly every morning to visit her mother, who had lately been rather better, and whose health her physicians entertained some hopes of re-establishing. Her own unhappy temper seemed to be the chief impediment to her recovery; her violent passions, unsubdued by sickness and disappointment; and her immeasurable pride, which even the approach of death could not conquer, kept her nerves continually on the stretch; and allowed her no repose of mind, even when her bodily sufferings were suspended. That her favourite project of uniting the only surviving branches of her own family, by the marriage of Lord Delamere and Miss Otley, was now for ever at an end, was a perpetual source of murmuring and discontent. And tho' Emmeline had as splendid a fortune, with a person and a mind infinitely more lovely, her Ladyship could not yet prevail upon herself to desire, that the name for which she felt such proud veneration, and the fortune of her own illustrious ancestors, should be enjoyed, or carried down to posterity by her, who had become the object of her capricious but inveterate dislike.
Emmeline was very glad that the Marchioness thro' prejudice, and her uncle thro' shame, forbore to persecute her in favour of their son: but tho' perfectly aware of the antipathy Lady Montreville entertained towards her, she yet shewed her all the attention she would receive; and would even constantly have waited on her, had she not expressed more pain than pleasure in her presence.
Lady Frances Crofts, by this time fixed in Burlington street for the winter, called now and then on her mother; but her visits were short and cold. It unfortunately happened, that the Marchioness, whose amusement was now almost solely confined to reading the daily prints, had found in one of them a paragraph evidently pointed at the intimacy subsisting between Lady Frances and the Chevalier de Bellozane, which had long been the topic of public scandal.
Lady Frances called upon her while her mind was under the first impression of this disgraceful circumstance; and she spoke to her daughter of her improper attachment to that young foreigner with more than her usual severity. Lady Frances, far from hearing her remonstrance with calmness, retorted, with rudeness and asperity, what she termed unjust reproaches; and asserted her own right to associate with whom she pleased. The Marchioness grew more enraged, and they parted in great wrath: in consequence of which, Lady Montreville, in the inconsiderate excess of her anger, sent for her husband and her son; and exclaiming with all her natural acrimony against the shameful conduct of Lady Frances, insisted upon their obliging Crofts to separate his wife from her dangerous and improper acquaintance, and forcing her immediately into the country.
Lord Montreville, who had already heard too much of his daughter's general light conduct, and her particular partiality to Bellozane, now saw new evils gathering round him, from which he knew not how to escape. The fiery and impatient Delamere, already irritated against Bellozane for his pretensions to Emmeline, broke forth in menace and invective; and nothing but his father's anguish, and even tears, prevented his flying directly to him to execute that vengeance which his mother had dictated. She herself, in the violence of her passion, had overlooked the consequence of putting this affair into the hands of the inconsiderate and headlong Delamere; but when she saw him thus inflamed, terror for him, was added to resentment against her daughter; and altogether produced such an effect on her broken constitution, that in a few days afterwards her complaints returned with great violence, and all remedies proving ineffectual, she expired in less than a fortnight. Lady Westhaven and Emmeline attended on her themselves for the last four or five days; but she was insensible; and knew neither of them. Delamere, very fond of his mother, and whose feelings were painfully acute, suffered for many days the most violent paroxysms of grief; yet it was a considerable alleviation to reflect that he had not finally been the cause of her death. Lord Montreville bore it with more composure: and the softer, tho' deep sorrow of Lady Westhaven, found relief in the constant and tender attention of her Lord, and the sympathy of Emmeline.