The first Sunday that Juliet passed in this new situation, nearly robbed
her of the good will of the whole of the little community to which she
belonged. It was the only day in the week in which the young work-women
were allowed some hours for recreation; they considered it, therefore,
as rightfully dedicated, after the church-service, to amusement with one
another; and Juliet, in refusing to join in a custom which they held to
be the basis of their freedom and happiness, appeared to them an
unsocial and haughty innovator. Yet neither wearying remonstrances, nor
persecuting persuasions, could prevail upon her to parade with them upon
the Steyne; to stroll with them by the sea-side; to ramble upon the
Downs; or to form a party for Shoreham, or Devil's Dyke.
Evil is so relative, that the same chamber, the lonely sadness of which,
since her privation of Gabriella, had become nearly insupportable to
her, was now, from a new contrast, almost all that she immediately
coveted. The bustle, the fatigue, the obtrusion of new faces, the spirit
of petty intrigue, and the eternal clang of tongues, which she had to
endure in the shop, made quiet, even in its most uninteresting dulness,
desirable and consoling.
To approach herself, as nearly as might be in her power, to the loved
society which she had lost, she destined this only interval of peace and
leisure, to her pen and Gabriella; and such was her employment, when the
sound of slow steps, upon the stairs, followed by a gentle tap at her
door, at once interrupted and surprised her. Miss Matson and her maids,
as well as her work-women, were spending their Sabbath abroad; and a
shop-man was left to take care of the house. The tap, however, was
repeated, and, obeying its call, Juliet beheld Sir Jaspar Herrington,
the gouty old Baronet.
The expression of her countenance immediately demanded explanation, if
not apology, as she stepped forward upon the landing-place, to make
clear that she should not receive him in her apartment.
His keen eye read her meaning, though, affecting not to perceive it, he
pleasantly said, 'How? immured in your chamber? and of a gala day?'
The recollection of the essential, however forced obligation, which she
owed to him, for her deliverance from the persecution of Miss Bydel,
soon dissipated her first impression in his disfavour, and she quietly
answered that she went very little abroad: but when she would have
enquired into his business, 'You can refuse yourself, then,' he cried,
pretending not to hear her, 'the honour--or pleasure, which shall we
call it? of sharing in the gaieties of your fair fellow-votaries to the
needle? I suspected you of this self-denial. I had a secret presentiment
that you would be insensible to the fluttering joys of your sister
spinsters. How did I divine you so well? What is it you have about you
that sets one's imagination so to work?'
Juliet replied, that she would not presume to interfere with the
business of his penetration, but that, as she was occupied, she must beg
to know, at once, his commands.
'Not so hasty! not so hasty!' he cried: 'You must shew me some little
consideration, if only in excuse for the total want of it which you have
caused in those little imps, that beset my slumbers by night, and my
reveries by day. They have gotten so much the better of me now, that I
am equally at a loss how to sleep or how to wake for them. 'Why don't
you find out,' they cry, 'whether this syren likes her new situation?
Why don't you discover whether any thing better can be done for her?'
And then, all of one accord, they so pommel and bemaul me, that you
would pity me, I give you my word, if you could see the condition into
which they put my poor conscience; however little so fair a young
creature may be disposed to feel pity, for such a hobbling, gouty old
fellow as I am!'
Softened by this benevolent solicitude, Juliet, thankfully, spoke of
herself with all the cheerfulness that she could assume; and, encouraged
by her lessened reserve, Sir Jaspar, to her unspeakable surprise, said,
'There is one point, I own, which I have an extreme desire to know; how
long may it be that you have left the stage, and from what latent
cause?'
No explanation, however, could be attempted: the attention of Juliet was
called into another channel, by the sound of a titter, which led her to
perceive Flora Pierson; who, almost convulsed with delight at having
surprised them, said that she had heard, from the shop-man, that Miss
Ellis and Sir Jaspar were talking together upon the stairs, and she had
stolen up the back way, and crept softly through one of the garrets, on
purpose to come upon them unawares. 'So now,' added she, nodding, 'we'll
go into my room, if you please, Miss Ellis; for I have got something
else to tell you! Only you must not stay with me long.'
'And not to tell me, too?' cried Sir Jaspar, chucking her under the
chin: 'How's this, my daffodil? my pink? my lilly? how's this? surely
you have not any secrets for me?'
'O yes, I have, Sir Jaspar! because you're a gentleman, you know, Sir
Jaspar. And one must not tell every thing to gentlemen, mamma says.'
'Mamma says? but you are too much a woman to mind what mamma says, I
hope, my rose, my daisy?' cried Sir Jaspar, chucking her again under the
chin, while she smiled and courtsied in return.
Juliet would have re-entered her chamber; but Flora, catching her gown,
said, 'Why now, Miss Ellis, I bid you come to my room, if you please,
Miss Ellis; 'cause then I can show you my presents; as well as tell you
something.--Come, will you go? for it's something that's quite a secret,
I assure you; for I have not told it to any body yet; not even to our
young ladies; for it's but just happened. So you've got my first
confidence this time: and you have a right to take that very kind of me,
for it's what I've promised, upon my word and honour, and as true as
true can be, not to tell to any body; not so much as to a living soul!'
To be freed quietly from the Baronet, Juliet consented to attend her;
and Flora, with many smiles and nods at Sir Jaspar, begged that he would
not be affronted that she did not tell all her secrets to gentlemen;
and, shutting him out, began her tale.
'Now I'll tell you what it is I'm going to tell you, Miss Ellis. Do you
know who I met, just now, upon the Steyne, while I was walking with our
young ladies, not thinking of any thing? You can't guess, can you? Why
Sir Lyell himself. I gave such a squeak! But he spoke to all our young
ladies first. And I was half a mind to cry; only I happened to be in one
of my laughing fits. And when once I am upon my gig, papa says, if the
world were all to tumble down, it would not hinder me of my smiling.
Though I am sure I often don't know what it's for. If any body asked me,
I could not tell, one time in twenty. But Sir Lyell's very clever;
cleverer than I am, by half, I believe. For he got to speak to me, at
last, so as nobody could hear a word he said, but just me. Nor I could
not, either, but only he spoke quite in my ear.'
'And do you think it right, Miss Pierson, to let gentlemen whisper you?'
'O, I could not bid him not, you know. I could not be rude to a
Knight-Baronet! Besides, he said he was come down from London, on
purpose for nothing else but to see me! A Knight-Baronet, Miss Ellis!
That's very good natured, is it not? I dare say he means something by
it. Don't you? However, I shall know more by and by, most likely; for he
whispered me to make believe I'd got a head-ache, and to come home by
myself, and wait for him in my own room: for he says he has brought me
the prettiest present that ever I saw from London. So you see how
generous he is; i'n't he? And he'll bring it me himself, to make me a
little visit. So then, very likely, he'll speak out. Won't he? But he
bid me tell it to nobody. So say nothing if you see him, for it will
only be the way to make him angry. I must not put the shop-man in the
secret, he says, for he shall only ask for old Sir Jaspar; and he shall
go to him first, and make the shop-man think he is with him all the
time. So I told our young ladies I'd got a head-ache, sure enough; but
don't be uneasy, for it's only make believe; for I'm very well.'
Filled with alarm for the simple, deluded maiden, Juliet now made an
undisguised representation of her danger; earnestly charging her not to
receive the dangerous visit.
But Flora, self-willed, though good natured, would not hear a word.
No ass so meek;--no mule so obstinate.
She never contradicted, yet never listened; she never gave an opinion,
yet never followed one. She was neither endowed with timidity to suspect
her deficiencies, nor with sense to conceive how she might be better
informed. She came to Juliet merely to talk; and when her prattle was
over, or interrupted, she had no thought but to be gone.
'O yes, I must see him, Miss Ellis,' she cried; 'for you can't think how
ill he'll take it, if I don't. But now we have stayed talking together
so long, I can't shew you my presents till he is gone, for fear he
should come. But don't mind, for then I shall have the new ones to shew
you, too. But if I don't do what he bids me, he'll be as angry as can
be, for all he's my lover; (smiling.) He makes very free with me
sometimes; only I don't mind it; because I'm pretty much used to it,
from one or another. Sometimes he'll say I am the greatest simpleton
that ever he knew in his life; for all he calls me his angel! He don't
make much ceremony with me, when I don't understand his signs. But it
don't much signify, for the more he's angry, the more he's kind, when
it's over, (smiling.) And then he brings me prettier things than ever.
So I a'n't much a loser. I've no great need to cry about it. And he says
I'm quite a little goddess, often and often, if I'd believe him. Only
one must not believe the men over much, when they are gentlemen, I
believe.'
Juliet, kindly taking her hand, would have drawn her into her own
chamber; but they were no sooner in the passage, than Flora jumped back,
and, shaking with laughter at her ingenuity, shut and locked herself
into her room.
Juliet now renounced, perforce, all thought of serving her except
through the medium of Miss Matson; and she was returning, much vexed, to
her own small apartment, when she saw Sir Jaspar, who, leaning against
the banisters, seemed to have been waiting for her, step curiously
forward, as she opened her door, to take a view of her chamber. With
quick impulse, to check this liberty, she hastily pushed to the door;
not recollecting, till too late, that the key, by which alone it was
opened, was on the inside.
Chagrined, she repaired to Flora, telling the accident, and begging
admittance.
Flora, laughing with all her heart, positively refused to open the door;
saying that she would rather be without company.
The shop-man now came up stairs, to see what was going forward, and to
enquire whether Miss Pierson, who had told him that she was ill, found
herself worse. Flora, hastily checking her mirth, answered that her head
ached, and she would lie down; and then spoke no more.
The shop-man made an attempt to enter into conversation with Juliet; but
she gravely requested that he would be so good as to order a smith to
open the lock of her door.
He ought not, he said, to leave the house in the absence of Miss Matson;
but he would run the risk for the pleasure of obliging her, if she would
only step down into the shop, to answer to the bell or the knocker.
To this, in preference to being shut out of her room, she would
immediately have consented, but that she feared the arrival of Sir
Lyell Sycamore. She asked the shop-man, therefore, if there were any
objection to her waiting in the little parlour.
None in the world, he answered; for he had Miss Matson's leave to use it
when she was out of a Sunday; and he should be very glad if Miss Ellis
would oblige him with her company.
Juliet declined this proposal with an air that repressed any further
attempt at intimacy; and the shop-man returned to his post.
'I must not, I suppose,' the Baronet, then advancing, said, 'presume to
offer you shelter under my roof from the inclemencies of the staircase?
And yet I think I may venture, without being indecorous, to mention,
that I am going out for my usual airing; and that you may take
possession of your old apartment, upon your own misanthropical terms. At
all events, I shall leave you the door open, place some books upon the
table, take out my servants, and order that no one shall molest you.'
Extremely pleased by a kindness so much to her taste, Juliet would
gratefully have accepted this offer, but for the visit that she knew to
be designed for the same apartment; which the absence of its master was
not likely to prevent, as the pretence of writing a note, or his name,
would suffice with Sir Lyell for mounting the stairs. Who then could
protect Flora? Could Juliet herself come forward, when no one else
remained in the house, conscious, as she could not but be, of the
dishonourable views of which she, also, had been the object? The
departure of Sir Jaspar appeared, therefore, to be big with mischief;
and, when he was making a leave-taking bow, she almost involuntarily
said, 'You are forced, then, Sir, to go out this morning?'
Surprized and pleased, he answered, 'What! have my little fairy elves
given you a lesson of humanity? Nay, if so, though they should pommel
and maul me for a month to come, I shall yet be their obedient humble
servant.'
He then gave orders aloud that his carriage should be put up; saying,
that he had letters to write, and that his servants might go and amuse
themselves for an hour or two where they pleased.
Juliet, now, was crimsoned with shame and embarrassment. How account for
thus palpably wishing him to remain in the house? or how suffer him, by
silence, to suppose it was from a desire of his society? Her blushes
astonished, yet, by heightening her beauty, charmed still more than they
perplexed him. To settle what to think of her might be difficult and
teazing; but to admire her was easy and pleasant. He approached her,
therefore, with the most flattering looks and smiles; but, to avoid any
mistake in his manner of addressing her, he kept his speech back, with
his judgment, till he could learn her purpose.
This prudential circumspection redoubled her confusion, and she
hesitatingly stammered her concern that she had prevented his airing.
More amazed still, but still more enchanted, to see her thus at a loss
what to say, though evidently pleased that he had relinquished his
little excursion, he was making a motion to take her hand, which she had
scarcely perceived, when a violent ringing at the door-bell, checked
him; and concentrated all her solicitude in the impending danger of
Flora; and, in her eagerness to rescue the simple girl from ruin, she
hastily said: 'Can you, Sir Jaspar, forgive a liberty in the cause of
humanity? May I appeal to your generosity? You will receive a visitor in
a few minutes, whom I have earnest reasons for wishing you to detain in
your apartment to the last moment that is possible. May I make so
extraordinary a request?'
'Request?' repeated Sir Jaspar, charmed by what he considered as an
opening to intimacy; 'can you utter any thing but commands? The most
benignant sprite of all Fairyland, has inspired you with this gracious
disposition to dub me your knight.'
Yet his eyes, still bright with intelligence, and now full of fanciful
wonder, suddenly emitted an expression less rapturous, when he
distinguished the voice of Sir Lyell Sycamore, in parley with the
shop-man. Disappointment and chagrin soon took place of sportive
playfulness in his countenance; and, muttering between his teeth, 'O ho!
Sir Lyell Sycamore!'--he fixed his keen eyes sharply upon Juliet; with a
look in which she could not but read the ill construction to which her
seeming knowledge of that young man's motions, and her apparent interest
in them, made her liable; and how much his light opinion of Sir Lyell's
character, affected his partial, though still fluctuating one of her
own.
Sir Lyell, however, was upon the stairs, and she did not dare enter into
any justification; Sir Jaspar, too, was silent; but the young baronet
mounted, singing, in a loud voice,
O my love, lov'st thou me?
Then quickly come and see one who dies for thee!
'Yes here I come, Sir Lyell!'--in a low, husky, laughing voice, cried
Flora, peeping through her chamber-door; which was immediately at the
head of the stairs, upon the second floor; and to which Sir Lyell looked
up, softly whispering, 'Be still, my little angel! and, in ten
minutes--' He stopt abruptly, for Sir Jaspar now caught his astonished
sight, upon the landing-place of the attic story, with Juliet retreating
behind him.
'O ho! you are there, are you?' he cried, in a tone of ludicrous
accusation.
'And you, you are there, are you?' answered Sir Jaspar, in a voice more
seriously taunting.
Juliet, hurt and confounded, would have escaped through the garret to
the back stairs, but that her hat and cloak, without which she could not
leave the house, were shut into her room. She tried, therefore, to look
unmoved; well aware that the best chance to escape impertinence, is by
not appearing to suspect that any is intended.
Three strides now brought Sir Lyell before her. His amazement, vented by
rattling exclamations, again perplexed Sir Jaspar; for how could Juliet
have been apprized of his intended visit, but by himself?
Sir Lyell, mingling the most florid compliments upon her radiant beauty,
and bright bloom, with his pleasure at her sight, said that, from the
reports which had reached him, that she had given up her singing, and
her teaching, and that Sir Jaspar had taken the room which she had
inhabited, he had concluded that she had quitted Brighthelmstone. He was
going rapidly on in the same strain, the observant Sir Jaspar intently
watching her looks, while curiously listening to his every word; when
Juliet, without seeming to have attended to a syllable, related, with
grave brevity, that she had unfortunately shut in the key of her room,
and must therefore seek Miss Matson, to demand another; and then, with
steady steps, that studiously kept in order innumerable timid fears, she
descended to the shop; leaving the two Baronets mutually struck by her
superiour air and manner; and each, though equally desirous to follow
her, involuntarily standing still, to wait the motions of the other; and
thence to judge of his pretensions to her favour.
Juliet found the shop empty, but the street-door open, and the shop-man
sauntering before it, to look at the passers by. Glad to be, for a
while, at least, spared the distaste of his company, she shut herself
into the little parlour, carefully drawing the curtain of the
glass-door.
The two Baronets, as she expected, soon descended; the younger one eager
to take leave of the elder, and privately re-mount the stairs; and Sir
Jaspar, fixed to obey the injunctions, however unaccountable, of Juliet,
in detaining and keeping sight of him to the last moment.
'Decamped, I swear, the little vixen!' exclaimed Sir Lyell, striding in
first; 'but why the d--l do you come down, Sir Jaspar?'
'For exercise, not ceremony,' he answered; though, little wanting
further exertion, and heartily tired, he dropt down upon the first
chair.
Sir Lyell vainly offered his arm, and pressed to aid him back to his
apartment; he would not move.
After some time thus wasted, Sir Lyell, mortified and provoked, cast
himself upon the counter, and whistled, to disguise his ill humour.
A pause now ensued, which Sir Jaspar broke, by hesitatingly, yet with
earnestness, saying, 'Sir Lyell Sycamore, I am not, you will do me the
justice to believe, a sour old fellow, to delight in mischief; a surly
old dog, to mar the pleasures of which I cannot partake; if, therefore,
to answer what I mean to ask will thwart any of your projects, leave me
and my curiosity in the lurch; if not, you will sensibly gratify me, by
a little frank communication. I don't meddle with your affair with
Flora; 'tis a blooming little wild rose-bud, but of too common a species
to be worth analysing. This other young creature, however, whose wings
your bird-lime seems also to have entangled--'
'How so?' interrupted Sir Lyell, jumping eagerly from the counter, 'what
the d--l do you mean by that?'
'Not to be indiscreet, I promise you,' answered Sir Jaspar; 'but as I
see the interest she takes in you,--'
'The d--l you do?' exclaimed Sir Lyell, in an accent of surprize, yet of
transport.
Sir Jaspar now, ironically smiling, said, 'You don't know it, then, Sir
Lyell? You are modest?--diffident? unconscious?--'
'My dear boy!' cried Sir Lyell, riotously, and approaching familiarly to
embrace him, 'what a devilish kind office I shall owe you, if you can
put any good notions into my head of that delicious girl!'
New doubts now destroying his recent suspicions, Sir Jaspar held back,
positively refusing to clear up what had dropt from him, and laughingly
saying, 'Far be it from me to put any such notions into your head! I
believe it amply stored! All my desire is to get some out of it. If,
therefore, you can tell me, or, rather, will tell me, who or what this
young creature is, you will do a kind office to my imagination, for
which I shall be really thankful. Who is she, then? And what is she?'
'D--l take me if I either know or care!' cried Sir Lyell, 'further than
that she is a beauty of the first water; and that I should have adored
her, exclusively, three months ago, if I had not believed her a thing of
alabaster. But if you think her--'
'Not I! not I!--I know nothing of her!' interrupted Sir Jaspar: 'she is
a rose planted in the snow, for aught I can tell! The more I see, the
less I understand; the more I surmize, the further I seem from the mark.
Honestly, then, whence does she come? How did you first see her? What
does she do at Brighthelmstone?'
'May I go to old Nick if I am better informed than yourself! except that
she sings and plays like twenty angels, and that all the women are
jealous of her, and won't suffer a word to be said to her. However, I
made up to her, at first, and should certainly have found her out, but
for Melbury, who annoyed me with a long history of her virtue, and
character, and Lady Aurora's friendship, and the d--l knows what; that
made me so cursed sheepish, I was afraid of embarking in any measures of
spirit. My sister, also, took lessons of her; and other game came into
chase; and I should never have thought of her again, but that, when I
went to town, a week or two ago, I learnt, from that Queen of the Crabs,
Mrs Howel, that Melbury, in fact, knows no more of her than we do. He
had nobody's world but her own for all her fine sentiments; so that he
and his platonics would have kept me at bay no longer, if I had not
believed her decamped from Brighthelmstone, upon hearing that you had
got her lodging. How came you to turn her into the garret, my dear boy?
Is that _a la mode_ of your _vieille cour_?'
Sir Jaspar protested that, when he took the apartment, he knew not of
her existence; and then enquired, whether Sir Lyell could tell in what
name she had been upon the stage; and why she had quitted it.
'The stage? O the d--l!' he exclaimed, 'has she been upon the stage?'
'Yes; I heard the fact mentioned to her, the other day, by a
fellow-performer! some low player, who challenged her as a sister of the
buskins.'
'What a glorious Statira she must make!' cried Sir Lyell. 'I am ready to
be her Alexander when she will. That hint you have dropt, my dear old
boy, sha'n't be thrown away upon me. But how the d--l did you find the
dear charmer out?'
Sir Jaspar again sought to draw back his information; but Sir Lyell
swore that he would not so lightly be put aside from a view of success,
now once it was fairly opened; and was vowing that he should begin a
siege in form, and persevere to a surrender; when the conversation was
interrupted, by the entrance of the shop-man, accompanied by a
mantua-maker, who called upon some business.
Juliet, who, from the beginning, had heard this discourse with the
utmost uneasiness, and whom its conclusion had filled with indignant
disgust; had no resource to avoid the yet greater evil of being joined
by the interlocutors, but that of sitting motionless and unsuspected,
till they should depart; or till Miss Matson should return. But her care
and precaution proved vain: the shop-man invited Mrs Hart, the
mantua-maker, into the little parlour; and, upon opening the door,
Juliet met their astonished view.
Sir Jaspar, not without evident anxiety, endeavoured to recollect what
had dropt from him, that might hurt her; or how he might palliate what
might have given her offence. But Sir Lyell, not at all disconcerted,
and privately persuaded that half his difficulties were vanquished, by
the accident that acquainted her with his design; was advancing,
eagerly, with a volley of rapid compliments, upon his good fortune in
again meeting with her; when Juliet, not deigning to seem conscious even
of his presence, passed him without notice; and, addressing Mrs Hart,
entreated that she would go up stairs to the room of Miss Pierson, to
examine whether it were necessary to send for any advice; as she had
returned home alone, and complained of being ill. Mrs Hart complied; and
Juliet followed her to Flora's chamber-door.