'He had instantly every assistance that skill could offer. Two surgeons of eminence were at supper with company in the house; and they were with him before I was, which was not ten minutes after the accident. I never left him afterwards, but to run to Lady Westhaven.'
'Excellent young man! you will still, I know, remain with him, and do what I cannot do.' He then paused a moment, and his anguish seemed to gather strength—while with a look of deep and gloomy despair he approached the bed; slowly and sternly invoked the vengeance of heaven on his eldest daughter; and then continued with glazed and motionless eyes to gaze on the body. From this dreadful torpor it was necessary to rouse him, and to remove him from the room. The united efforts of Godolphin and the surgeons, with difficulty effected it. He was however at length placed in the chariot; and with Emmeline, who was more dead than alive, was conveyed to Grosvenor-Street. Godolphin, dreading the scene he was to encounter when they got thither, followed them on foot; and assisted Lord Montreville to his chamber, where he entreated the servants not to allow him to see Lady Westhaven, till they were both better able to bear the interview. He then returned to Emmeline; who, quite overcome by excessive terror and fatigue, had hardly strength to speak to him; and unable to support herself longer, retired to bed, where a violent fever seized her; and for near a week she was so alarmingly ill, that Godolphin, in the wildest distraction, believed he saw her snatched from him by the inexorable hands of death. Lady Adelina came to her the evening after Delamere's decease, and never left her bed side while there was the least appearance of danger; Godolphin continued whole days in the little dressing room that adjoined to it; and Fitz-Edward, who insisted on attending him during these hours of torturing suspence, was unavoidably frequently in the presence of Lady Adelina, whose every sentiment was for the time absorbed in her fear for a life so dear to them all.
At length Emmeline, tho' yet too ill to leave her room, was no longer in danger; and Lord Westhaven, who returned instantly to town on hearing the mournful news helped to appease the violent grief of his wife. But on the more settled and silent anguish of her wretched father, his good offices made not the least impression. He seemed to abhor all thoughts of consolation: and when the remains of poor Delamere were carried to be deposited with those of his mother, he shut himself up in total darkness, and refused to admit even Lady Westhaven to participate his sorrows. When she was allowed to pay her duty to him, he conjured her to keep from him the sight of any of the Crofts', and that she would prevent even their name being repeated in his presence. With their visits there was no danger of his Lordship's being offended; for as he had, in consequence of this family calamity, resigned all the places he held, Sir Richard and his two sons were already eagerly paying their court to his successor; and had entered into new views, and formed new political connections, with an avidity which made them equally forgetful of their patron's personal afflictions and of that favour to which they owed their sudden and unmerited elevation. Amidst all the misery which the guilty and scandalous conduct of his wife had brought upon the family of his benefactor, the point on which Mr. Crofts felt the most solicitude, was to know what portion of the Delamere estate was irrevocably settled in equal divisions on the daughters, if the Marquis of Montreville died without a son. The physicians now advised Lord Westhaven to carry the Marquis into the country as soon as possible; where he might enjoy the solitude he so much desired, without being excluded from the air, as he was in town, by being confined entirely to his bed chamber and dressing room. The sight of any of his own seats; places which he had so lavishly embellished for the residence of him who was now no more, he could not yet endure; and Lord Westhaven with some difficulty prevailed upon him to remove to his house in Kent. Thither, therefore, the Marquis and Lord Westhaven's family removed, at the end of a fortnight; but Emmeline, tho' pretty well recovered, desired Lady Westhaven not to insist on her being of the party; being convinced, that tho' he tried to see her with fortitude, and to behave to her with tenderness, the sight of her was painful to her uncle, and perpetually brought to his mind his own fatal misconduct in regard to his son.
Lady Westhaven yielded reluctantly to her reasons, and departed without her: but as her health made her immediate departure from London necessary, she went with Lady Adelina to Highgate; who now remained there only for the purpose of taking leave of Lord and Lady Clancarryl, as they were within a fortnight to return to Ireland.
In this interval, they heard that Lady Frances Crofts, infatuated still with her passion for Bellozane, had followed him to Paris, whither he had fled after his fatal encounter with her brother. Bellozane, stung with guilt, and pursued by remorse, hurried from her with detestation; and concealing himself in Switzerland, saw her no more. For some time she continued to live in France in a style the most disgraceful to her family and herself. Nobody dared name her to her unhappy father. But Lord Westhaven at length interposed with Crofts, who, influenced by his authority, and still more by his own desire to lessen her expences, went over, and found no great difficulty in procuring a lettre de cachet, which confined her during pleasure to a convent.
[CHAPTER XVI]
To fix some plan for her future life, Emmeline now thought absolutely and immediately necessary. To go to Mowbray Castle seemed the properest measure she could adopt; and on that she appeared to determine. But tho' she still meant to adhere to her resolution of remaining single until she became of age, the tender importunity of her lover, the pressing entreaties of her friends, and her own wishes to make them happy, were every hour more powerfully undermining it. Her mind, softened by grief for the death of poor Delamere, and more fondly attached than ever to the generous Godolphin; whose noble qualities that unhappy event had served to call forth anew, was rendered less capable than ever of resisting his prayers; and Delamere, on whose account her determination had been originally made, could now no longer suffer by her breaking it. Still, however, she insisted upon it, that a term little short of what she had named should elapse before her marriage should take place; as a compliment to the memory of her unfortunate lover, and to the deep sorrow of her uncle and Lady Westhaven.
Here, then, she rested her last defence. And when their encreasing solicitations obliged her to consent to shorten the term to three months, Godolphin undertook to make it the particular request of Lord Montreville and his daughter, that their marriage should take place within three weeks. Animated by the hopes of hastening the period, he went himself into Kent; where he pleaded so successfully to Lady Westhaven, that she not only wrote pressingly to Emmeline, but prevailed on the Marquis to give him a letter also; in which, after deploring, in terms expressive of anguish and regret, that unfortunate infatuation which had eventually robbed him of his son, he told her that he had very little more now to wish, dead as he was to the world, than to see her happily married. That the tender attention of the generous Godolphin to that beloved son, in the last hours of his life, had endeared him to him above all other men; that his character, connections and conduct were unexceptionable; and therefore, his Lordship added, that tho' he did not know that he could himself bear to see it, he wished she would not hesitate to complete his happiness; observing, that if she thought it too early after the loss of so near a relation, she might have the ceremony performed with such privacy, that only the respective families need know of its celebration. Emmeline, having now no longer a subterfuge, was obliged to let Godolphin take his own way. He exerted himself so anxiously to get the deeds completed, that before the end of three weeks they were finished. Lord and Lady Clancarryl prolonged their stay on purpose; and they, together with Lady Adelina and Fitz-Edward, were present at the ceremony. When it was over, Lord and Lady Clancarryl took an affectionate leave of the bride and bridegroom, and set out for Ireland, accompanied by Fitz-Edward; who, with the most painful reluctance tearing himself from Lady Adelina by her express desire, was yet allowed to carry with him the hope, that at the end of her mourning she would relent, and accede to the entreaties of all her family.
Godolphin, his Emmeline, his sister and her little boy, took immediately afterwards the road to East Cliff. They continued there the months of May and June; where, about six weeks after their marriage, they were visited by Lord and Lady Westhaven; the latter having never left her father 'till then, and being impatient to return to him, tho' she assured Mrs. Godolphin that he was much calmer and more composed than they had at first expected. In the filial attention of his youngest daughter he found all the consolation his misfortunes would admit of on this side the grave; and Emmeline, who had deeply lamented the lingering and hopeless anguish to which her uncle was condemned, heard with satisfaction that resignation was, however slowly, blunting the anguish he had endured; and that having relinquished for ever all those ambitious pursuits to which he had sacrificed solid happiness, he thought only of rewarding the piety and tenderness of his youngest daughter; and heard of the happiness of his niece with pleasure. When Lord and Lady Westhaven left East Cliff, Mr. and Mrs. Godolphin and Lady Adelina went to Mowbray Castle; where Mrs. Stafford received them with transport, and where they were surrounded by numberless tenants and dependants, who blessed the hour of it's restoration to it's benevolent and lovely mistress, as well as that which had given her to a man, who had a heart as nobly enlarged, and a spirit generously liberal, as her own.