BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
Continued from page 346.
CHAPTER XXX.
Mrs. Hazleton was very consoling. She was with Mrs. Hastings two or three times in the week, and poor Mrs. Hastings required a considerable degree of consolation; for the arrest of her husband, coming so close upon the bitter mortification of loss, and abatement of dignity, and at the end of a long period of weak health, had made her seriously ill. She now kept her bed the whole day long, and lay, making herself worse by that sort of fretful anxiety which was constitutional with her as well as with many other people. Mrs. Hazleton's visits were a great comfort to her, and yet, strange to say, Emily almost always found her more irritable after that lady had left her.
Poor Emily seemed to shine under the cloud of misfortune. Her character came out and acted nobly in the midst of disasters. She was her mother's nurse and constant attendant; she kept her father informed of every thing that passed—not an opportunity was missed of sending him a letter; and although she would have made any sacrifice to be with him in prison, to comfort and support him in the peril and sorrow of his situation, she was well satisfied that he had not taken her, when she found the state into which her mother had fallen.
Often, after Mrs. Hazleton had sat for an hour or two with her sick friend, she would come down and walk upon the terrace for a while with Emily, and comfort her much in the same way that she did Mrs. Hastings. She would tell her not to despond about her mother: that though she was certainly very ill, and in a dangerous state, yet people had recovered who had been quite as ill as she was. Then she would talk about lungs, and nerves, and humors, and all kinds of painful and mortal diseases, as if she had studied medicine all her life; and she did it, too, with a quiet, dignified gravity which made it more impressive and alarming. Then again, she would turn to the situation of Mr. Hastings, and wonder what they would do with him. She would also bring every bit of news that she could collect, regarding the case of Sir John Fenwick, especially when the intelligence was painful and disastrous; but she hinted that, perhaps, after all, they might not be able to prove any thing against Mr. Hastings, and that even if they did—although the Government were inclined to be severe—they might, perhaps, commute his sentence to transportation for the colonies, or imprisonment in the Tower for five or six years.
It is thus our friends often console us; some of them, from a dark and gloomy turn of mind, and some of them from the satisfaction many people feel in meddling with the miseries of others. But it was neither natural despondency of character, nor any general love of sorrowful scenes or thoughts, that moved Mrs. Hazleton in the present instance. She had a peculiar and especial pleasure in the wretchedness of the Hastings family, and particularly in that of Emily. The charming lady fancied that if Marlow were free from his engagement with Emily the next day, and a suitor for her own hand, she would never think of marrying him. I am not quite sure of that fact, but that is no business of ours, dear reader, and one thing is certain, that she would have very willingly sacrificed one half of her whole fortune, nay more, to have placed an everlasting barrier between Emily and Marlow.
She was thus walking with her dear Emily, as she called her, one day on that terrace at the back of the house where the memorable conversation had taken place between Mr. Hastings and Sir John Fenwick, and was treating Emily to a minute and particular account of the death of the latter, when Marlow suddenly arrived from London, and entered the house by the large glass door in front. He found a servant in the hall who informed him that Mrs. Hastings was still in bed, and that Emily was walking on the terrace with Mrs. Hazleton. Marlow paused, and considered for a moment. "Any thing not dishonorable," he said to himself, "is justifiable to clear up such a mystery;" and passing quietly through the house into the dining-room, which had one window opening as a door upon the terrace, he saw his fair Emily and her companion pass along towards the other end of the walk without being himself perceived. He then approached the window, and calculating the distances nicely, so as to be sure that Mrs. Hazleton was fully as far distant from himself as she could have been from Sir John Fenwick and Mr. Hastings on the evening when they walked there together, he pronounced her name in an ordinary tone, somewhat lower than that which Mr. Hastings usually employed.
Mrs. Hazleton instantly started, and looked round towards the spot where Marlow was now emerging from the room.
The lady could not miss an occasion, and the moment she saw him she exclaimed, "Dear me! there is Mr. Marlow; I am afraid he brings bad tidings, Emily."