Chapter IV

For some moments after Emmeline found herself in the chaise, astonishment and terror deprived her of speech and even of recollection. While Delamere, no longer able to command his transports at having at length as he hoped secured her, gave way to the wildest joy, and congratulated himself that he had thus forced her to break a promise which only injustice he said could have extorted, and only timidity and ill-grounded prejudice have induced her to keep.

'Do you then hope, Sir,' said Emmeline, 'that I shall patiently become the victim of your rashness? Is this the respect you have sworn ever to observe towards me? Is this the protection you have so often told me I should find from you? And is it thus you intend to atone for all the insults of your family which you have so repeatedly protested you would never forgive? by inflicting a far greater insult; by ruining my character; by degrading me in my own eyes; and forcing me either to violate my word solemnly given to your father, or be looked upon as a lost and abandoned creature, undone by your inhuman art. I must now, indeed, seem to _deserve_ your mother's anger, and the scorn of your sister; and must be supposed every way wretched and contemptible.'

A shower of tears fell from her eyes, and her heart seemed bursting with the pain these cruel reflections gave her.

Delamere, by all the soothing tenderness of persuasion, by all the rhetoric of ardent passion, tried to subdue her anger, and silence her scruples; but the more her mind dwelt on the circumstances of her situation, the more it recoiled from the necessity of entering under such compulsion into an indissoluble engagement. The rash violence of the measure which had put her in Delamere's power, while it convinced her of his passion, yet told her, that a man who would hazard every thing for his own gratification now, would hardly hereafter submit to any restraint; and that the bonds in which he was so eager to engage, would with equal violence be broken, when any new face should make a new impression, or when time had diminished the influence of those attractions that now enchanted him.

Formed of the softer elements, and with a mind calculated for select friendship and domestic felicity, rather than for the tumult of fashionable life and the parade of titled magnificence, Emmeline coveted not his rank, nor valued his riches. No woman perhaps can help having some regard for a man, who she knows ardently and sincerely loves her; and Emmeline had felt all that sort of weakness for Delamere; who in the bloom of life, with fortune, title, person and talents that might have commanded the loveliest and most affluent daughter of prosperity, had forsaken every thing for her, and even secluded himself from the companions of his former pleasures, and the indulgences his fortune and rank afforded him, to pass his youth in unsuccessful endeavours to obtain her.

The partiality this consideration gave her towards him, and the favourable comparison she was perpetually making between him and the men she had seen since her residence near London, had created in her bosom a sentiment warmer perhaps than friendship; yet it was not that violent love, which carrying every thing before it, leaves the mind no longer at liberty to see any fault in the beloved object, or any impropriety in whatever can secure it's success, and which, scorning future consequences, risks every thing for it's present indulgence.

Still artless and ingenuous as when she first left the remote castle where she had been brought up, Emmeline had not been able to conceal this affection from Delamere. Her eyes, her manner, the circumstance of the picture, and a thousand nameless inadvertences, had told it him repeatedly; but now, when he seemed to have taken an ungenerous advantage of that regard, it lost much of it's force, and resentment and disdain succeeded.

Delamere tried to appease her by protestations of inviolable respect, of eternal esteem, and unalterable love. But there was something of triumph even in his humblest entreaties, that served but to encrease the anger Emmeline felt; and she told him that the only way to convince her he had for her those sentiments he pretended, was to carry her back immediately to Mrs. Ashwood's, or rather to Lord Montreville, there to acknowledge the attempt he had made, and that it's failure had been solely owing to her determined adherence to her word.

Delamere, presuming on his ascendancy over her, attempted to interest her passions rather than tranquillize her reason. He represented to her how great would be her triumph when he presented her as his wife to the imperious Lady Montreville, who had treated her with so much unmerited scorn, and set her above the haughty Fanny Delamere, who had insulted her with fancied superiority.

But Emmeline had in her breast none of those passions that find their gratification in humbling an enemy. Too generous for revenge; too gentle for premeditated resentment; she saw these circumstances in a very different light, and felt that she should be rather mortified than elated by being forced into a family who wished to reject her.

Sir Richard Crofts, the object of Delamere's hatred and detestation, was the subject of those acrimonious reflections that his respect for his father and mother prevented his throwing on them. The influence of this man had, he said, made Lord Montreville deaf to the voice of nature, and forgetful of his own honour; while he was plunged into the dark and discreditable labyrinth of political intrigue, and acquired an habit of subterfuge and duplicity unworthy a nobleman, a gentleman, or a man.

Emmeline cared nothing about Sir Richard Crofts, and could not enter into the bitterness of his resentment towards him. Nothing he had yet been able to urge had shaken her resolution not to become his wife, even tho' he should oblige her to go with him into Scotland.

The ruder passions of anger and resentment had no influence over her mind. While he argued with warmth, or ran into reproaches, Emmeline found she had nothing to fear. But tho' he could not rouse her pride, or awaken her dislike against his family, but rather found them recoil on himself; he hoped in that sensibility of temper and that softness of heart to which he owed all the attention she had ever shewn him, he should find a sure resource. In her pity, an advocate for his fault--in her love, an inducement not only to forgive but to reward him.

And when he pleaded for compassion and forgiveness, the heart of Emmeline felt itself no longer invulnerable. But against this dangerous attack she endeavoured to fortify that sensible heart, by considering the probable event of her yielding to it.

'If I marry Delamere contrary to the consent of his family, who shall assure me that his violent and haughty spirit will bear without anguish and regret, that inferior and confined fortune to which his father's displeasure will condemn him? His love, too ardent perhaps to last, will decline; while the inconveniences of a narrow fortune will encrease; and I, who shall be the cause of these inconveniences, shall also be the victim. He will lament the infatuation which has estranged him from his family, and thrown him, for some years at least, out of the rank in which he has been used to appear; and recovered from the delirium of love, will behold with coldness, perhaps with hatred, her to whom he will impute his distresses. To whom can I then appeal? Not to my _own_ heart, for it will condemn me for suffering myself to be precipitated into a measure against my judgment; nor to _his_ family, who may answer, "thy folly be upon thine own head;" and _I_ have _no_ father, _no_ brother to console and receive me, if he should drive me from him as impetuously as now he would force me to be his. I shall be deprived even of the melancholy consolation of knowing I have not _deserved_ the neglect which I fear I shall never be able to _bear_. But if my steady refusal now, induces him to return, it is possible that Lord Montreville, convinced at once of my adherence to the promise given him, and of the improbability of Delamere's desisting, may consent to receive me into his family; or if the inveterate prejudice of his wife still prevents his doing so, I shall surely regain his confidence and esteem. He will not refuse to consider me as his brother's daughter, and as such, he will enable me to pass my days in easy competence with Mrs. Stafford; a prospect infinitely preferable in my eyes to the splendid visions offered me by Delamere, if they cannot be realized but at the expence of truth and integrity.'

Confirmed in her determination by reflections like these, Emmeline was able to hear, without betraying any symptoms of the emotion she felt, the animated and passionate protestations of her lover. She assumed all the coldness and reserve which his headlong and inconsiderate attempt deserved. She told him that his want of respect and consideration had forfeited all the claim he might otherwise have had to her regard and esteem; that she certainly would quit him the moment she was able; and that tho' she might not be fortunate enough to do so before they reached Scotland, yet it would not be in his power to compel her to be his wife.

Delamere for some time imputed this language to sudden resentment; and again by the humblest submissions sought to obtain her forgiveness and to excite her pity. But having nearly exhausted her spirits by what she had already said, she gave very little reply to his entreaties. Her silence was however more expressive than her words. She took from him her hand, as often as he attempted to hold it, and would not suffer him to wipe away the tears that fell from her eyes; while to his arguments and persuasions she coldly answered, when she answered at all, '_that she was determined_:' and they arrived at Barnet before he had obtained the smallest concession in his favour.

Delamere had undertaken this enterprize rather in despair, than from any hope of it's success, since he did not believe Emmeline would come out to him when he requested it; and had she been either alone, or only with Mrs. Ashwood, she certainly had not done it. Chance had befriended him in collecting a room full of company, and still more in sending Rochely among them. His abrupt approach while she read Delamere's note, had hurried her out of her usual presence of mind; and Fitz-Edward, whom mere accident had brought to Mrs. Ashwood's house, and whom she had taken with her in hopes of his influencing Delamere to return to his father, had contributed to her involuntary error.