"Grief!--So then she is unhappy, is she?" cries Miss Norberry; "I am monstrous glad of it."
The doctor started; and an oath nearly escaped his lips. He did say, "Why, zounds, Jane!"--but then he added, in a softer tone, "Why do you rejoice in a poor girl"s affliction?"
"Because I think it is for the good of her soul."
"Good girl!" replied the father:--"Jane, (seizing her hand,) may your soul never need such a medicine!"
"It never will," said her mother proudly: "she has been differently brought up."
"She has been well brought up, you might have added," observed the doctor, "had modesty permitted it. Mrs Mowbray, poor woman, had good intentions; but she was too flighty. Had Adeline, my children, had such a mother as yours, she would have been like you."
"But not half so handsome," interrupted the mother in a low voice.
"But as our faults and our virtues, my dear, depend so much on the care and instruction of others, we should look with pity, as well as aversion on the faults of those less fortunate in instructors than we have been."
"Certainly;--very true," said Mrs Norberry, flattered and affected by this compliment from her husband: "but you know, James Norberry," laying her hand on his, "I always told you you overrated Mrs Mowbray; and that she was but a dawdle after all."
"You always did, my good woman," replied he, raising her hand to his lips.
"But you men think yourselves much wiser than we are!"
"We do so," replied the doctor.
The tone was equivocal--Mrs Norberry felt it to be so, and looked up in his face.--The doctor understood the look: it was one of doubt and inquiry; and, as it was his interest to sooth her in order to carry his point, he exclaimed, "We men are, indeed, too apt to pride ourselves in our supposed superior wisdom: but I, you will own, my dear, have always done your s.e.x justice; and you in particular."
"You have been a good husband indeed, James Norberry," replied his wife in a faltering voice; "and I believe you to be, to every one, a just and honourable man."
"And I dare say, dame, I do no more than justice to you, when I think you will approve and further a plan for Adeline Mowbray"s good, which I am going to propose to you."
Mrs Norberry withdrew her hand; but returning it again:--"To be sure, my dear," she cried. "Any thing you wish; that is, if I see right to--"
"I will explain myself," continued the doctor gently.
"I have promised this poor girl to endeavour to bring about a reconciliation between her and her mother; but though Adeline wishes to receive her pardon on any terms, and even, if it be required, to renounce her lover, I fear Mrs Mowbray is too much incensed against her, to see or forgive her."
"Hard-hearted woman!" cried Mrs Norberry.
"Cruel, indeed!" cried her daughters.
"But a mother ought to be severe, very severe, on such occasions, young ladies," hastily added Mrs Norberry: "but go on, my dear."
"Now it is but too probable," continued the doctor, "that Glenmurray will not live long, and then this young creature will be left to struggle unprotected with the difficulties of her situation; and who knows but that she may, from poverty, and the want of a protector, be tempted to continue in the paths of vice?"
"Well, Dr Norberry, and what then?--Who or what is to prevent it?--You know we have three children to provide for; and I am a young woman as yet."
"True, Hannah," giving her a kiss, "and a very pretty woman too."
"Well, my dear love, anything we can do with prudence I am ready to do; I can say no more."
"You have said enough," cried the doctor exultingly; "then hear my plan: Adeline shall, in the event of Glenmurray"s death, which though not certain seems likely--to be sure, I did not inquire into the nature of his nocturnal perspirations, his expectoration, and so forth--"
"Dear papa, you are so professional!" affectedly exclaimed his youngest daughter.
"Well, child, I have done; and to return to my subject--if Glenmurray lives or dies, I think it advisable that Adeline should go into retirement to lie-in. And where can she be better than in my little cottage now empty, within a four-miles ride of our house? If she wants protection, I can protect her; and if she wants money before her mother forgives her, you can give it to her."
"Indeed, papa," cried both the girls, "we shall not grudge it."
The doctor started from his chair, and embraced his daughters with joy mixed with wonder; for he knew they had always disliked Adeline.--True; but then, she was prosperous, and their superior. Little minds love to bestow protection; and it was easy to be generous to the fallen Adeline Mowbray: had her happiness continued, so would their hatred.
"Then it is a settled point, is it not dame?" asked the doctor, chucking his wife under the chin; when, to his great surprise and consternation, she threw his hand indignantly from her, and vociferated, "She shall never live within a ride of our house, I can a.s.sure you, Dr Norberry."
The doctor was petrified into silence, and the girls could only articulate "La! mamma?" But what could produce this sudden and violent change? Nothing but a simple and natural operation of the human mind.
Though a very kind husband, and an indulgent father, Dr Norberry was suspected, though unjustly, of being a very gallant man: and some of Mrs Norberry"s good-natured friends had occasionally hinted to her their sorrow at hearing such and such reports; reports which were indeed dest.i.tute of foundation; but which served to excite suspicions in the mind of the tenacious Mrs Norberry. And what more likely to re-awaken them than the young and frail Adeline Mowbray living in a cottage of her husband"s, protected, supported, and visited by him! The moment this idea occurred, its influence was unconquerable; and with a voice and manner of determined hostility she made known her resolves in consequence of it.
After a pause of dismay and astonishment, the doctor cried, "Dame, what have you gotten in your head? What, all on a sudden, has had such an ugly effect on you?"
"Second thoughts are best, doctor; and I now feel that it would be highly improper for you, with daughters grown up, to receive with such marked kindness a single young woman at a cottage of yours, who is going to lie-in."
"But, my dear, it is a different case, when I do it to keep her out of the way of further harm."
"That is more than I know, Dr Norberry," replied the wife bridling, and fanning herself.
"Whew!" whistled the doctor; and then addressing his daughters, "Girls, you had better go to bed; it grows late."
The young ladies obeyed; but first hung round their mother"s neck, as they bade her good night, and hoped she would not be so cruel to the poor deluded Adeline.
Mrs Norberry angrily shook them off, with a peevish--"Get along, girls."
The doctor cordially kissed, and bade G.o.d bless them; while the door closed and left the loving couple alone.
What pa.s.sed, it were tedious to repeat: suffice that after a long altercation, continued even after they were retired to rest, the doctor found his wife, on this subject, incapable of listening to reason, and that, as a finishing stroke, she exclaimed, "It does not signify talking, Dr Norberry, while I have my senses, and can see into a mill-stone a little, the hussey shall never come near us."
The doctor sighed deeply; turned himself round, not to sleep but to think, and rose the next morning to go in search of Mrs Mowbray, dreading the interview which he was afterwards to have with Adeline; for he did not expect to succeed in his application to her mother, and he could not now soften his intelligence with a "but," as he intended.
"True," he meant to have said to her, "your mother will not receive you; but if you ever want a home or a place of retirement, I have a cottage, and so forth."
"Pshaw!" cried the doctor to himself, as these thoughts came across him on the road, and made him hastily let down the front window of the post-chaise for air.
"Did your honour speak?" cries the post-boy.
"Not I. But can"t you drive faster and be hanged to you?"
The boy whipped his horses.--The doctor then found that it was up hill--down went the gla.s.s again:--"Hold, you brute, why do you not see it is up hill?" For find fault he must; and with his wife he could not, or dared not, even in fancy.
"Dear me! Why, your honour bade me put it on."
"Devilishly obedient," muttered the doctor: "I wish every one was like you in that respect."--And in a state of mind not the pleasantest possible the doctor drove into town, and to the hotel where Mrs Mowbray was to be found.
Dr Norberry was certainly now not in a humour to sooth any woman whom he thought in the wrong, except his wife; and, whether from carelessness or design, he did not, unfortunately for Adeline, manage the self-love of her unhappy mother.