Juliet, as earnest to avoid, as Flora felt eager to pursue, the opening
feats, hurried from the destined spot, after charging the simple damsel
not to make known her departure. Unavailing, however, was the caution;
and immaterial alike the prudence or the indiscretion of Flora: Juliet
had no sooner crossed the first style, than she perceived Sir Lyell
Sycamore sauntering in the meadow.
She would promptly have returned to the farm, but a shout of noisy
merriment reached her ears from the company that she was quitting, and
pointed out the danger of passing the evening in the midst of such
turbulent and vulgar revelry. She hastened, therefore, on; but neither
the lightness of her step, nor the swiftness of her speed, could save
her from the quick approach of the Baronet. 'My angel!' he cried,
'whither are you going? and why this prodigious haste? What is it my
angel fears? Can she suppose me rascal enough, or fool enough, to make
use of any violence? No, my angel, no! I only ask to be regaled, from
your own sweet lips, with the delicious tale of divine partiality, that
the quaint old knight began revealing. I sigh, I pant to hear
confirmed--'
'Hold, Sir Lyell!' interrupted Juliet. 'If Sir Jaspar is the author of
this astonishing mistake, I trust he will have the honour to rectify it.
When I named you to him, it was but with a view to rescue a credulous
young creature from your pursuit, whom I feared it might injure; not to
expose to it one whom it never can endanger; however deeply it may
offend.'
Struck and disappointed at the courage and coolness of this explanation,
Sir Lyell looked mortified and amazed; but, upon seeing her reach the
style, he sprang over it, and, recovering his usual effrontery, offered
her his hand.
Juliet knew not whether her risk were greater to proceed or to return;
but while she hesitated, a phaeton, which was driving by, stopt, and an
elderly lady, addressing the Baronet, in a tone of fawning courtesy,
enquired after his health, and added, 'So you are come to this famous
junket, Sir Lyell?'
Sir Lyell forced a laugh, and bowed low; though he muttered, loud enough
for Juliet to hear, 'What cursed spies!'
Juliet now perceived Mrs and Miss Brinville; and neither innocence, nor
contempt of calumny, could suppress a rising blush, at being surprised,
by persons already unfavourably disposed towards her, in a situation
apparently so suspicious.
The countenance of the mother exhibited strong chagrin at sight of
Juliet; while the daughter, in a tone of pique, said, 'No doubt but you
are well amused, Sir Lyell?'
They drove on; not, however, very fast, and with so little self-command,
as frequently to allow themselves to look back. This indelicacy, however
ill adapted to raise them in the esteem of the Baronet, at least rescued
Juliet from his persecution. Disconcerted himself, he felt the necessity
of decency; and, quitting her, with affected carelessness, he hummed an
air, while grumbling curses, and, swinging his switch to and fro, walked
off; not more careful that the ladies in the phaeton should see him
depart, than assiduous to avoid with them any sort of junction.
The relief caused to Juliet by his retreat, was cruelly clouded by her
terrour of the false suggestions to which this meeting made her liable.
Neither mother nor daughter would believe it accidental; nor credit it
to have been contrived without equal guilt in both parties. Is there no
end, then, she cried, to the evils of defenceless female youth? And,
even where actual danger is escaped, must slander lie in wait, to
misconstrue the most simple actions, by surmising the most culpable
designs?
Neither to follow the footsteps of Sir Lyell, nor to remain where he
might return, she was going back to the farm; when she was met by Flora,
who, with a species of hysterical laughter, nearly of kin to crying,
called out, 'So Ma'am! so Miss Ellis! I've caught you at last! I've
surprised you at last! a-courting with my sweetheart!'
Pitying her credulous ignorance, Juliet would have cleared up this
mistake; but the petulant Flora would not listen. 'I'll speak to the
gentleman myself!' she cried, running forward to the style; 'for I have
found out your design; so it's of no use to deny it! I saw you together
all the way I came; so you may as well not try to make a ninny of me,
Miss Ellis, for it i'n't so easy!'
Catching a glimpse of the Baronet as he descended the road, she jumped
over the style to run after him; but seeing him look round, and, though
he perceived her, quietly walk on, she stopt, crying bitterly: 'Very
well, Miss Ellis! very well! you've got your ends! I see that! and, I
don't thank you for it, I assure you, for I liked him very well; and it
i'n't so easy to find a man of quality every day; so it i'n't doing as
you'd be done by; for nobody likes much to be forsaken, no more than I,
I believe, for it i'n't so agreeable. And I had rather you had not
served me so by half! In particular for a man of quality!'
Juliet, though vainly, was endeavouring to appease and console her, when
a young lady, bending eagerly from the window of a post chaise which was
passing by, ejaculated, 'Ellis!' and Juliet, with extreme satisfaction,
perceived Elinor.
The chaise stopt, and Juliet advanced to it with alacrity; but before
she could speak, the impatient Elinor, still looking pale, meagre, and
wretched, burst forth, with rapid and trembling energy, into a string of
disordered, incoherent, scarcely intelligible interrogatories. 'Ellis!
what brings you to this spot?--Whither is it you go?--What project are
you forming?--What purpose are you fulfilling?--Whom are you
flying--Whom are you following?--What is it you design?--What is it you
wish?--Why are you here alone?--Where--Where--'
Leaning, then, still further out of the window, she fixed her nearly
haggard, yet piercing eyes upon those of Juliet, and, in a hollow voice,
dictatorially added: 'Where--tell me, I charge you! where--is Harleigh?'
Consternation at sight of her altered countenance, and affright at the
impetuosity of her questions, produced a hesitation in the answer of
Juliet, that, to the agitated Elinor, seemed the effect of surprised
guilt. Her pallid cheeks then burnt with the mixed feelings of triumph
and indignation; yet her voice sought to disguise her wounded feelings,
and in subdued, though broken accents, ''Tis well!' she cried, 'You no
longer, at least, seek to deceive me, and I thank you!' Deaf to
explanation or representation, she then hurried her weak frame from the
chaise, aided by her foreign lackey; and, directing Juliet to follow,
crossed the road to a rising ground upon the Downs; seated herself; sent
off her assistant, and made Juliet take a place by her side; while Flora
returned, crying and alone, to the farm.
'Now, then,' she said, 'that you try no more to delude, to cajole, to
blind me, tell me now, and in two words,--where is Harleigh?'
'Believe me, Madam,--' Juliet was tremblingly beginning, when Elinor,
casting off the little she had assumed of self-command, passionately,
cried, 'Must I again be played upon by freezing caution and duplicity?
Must I die without end the lingering death of cold inaction and
uncertainty? breathe for ever without living? Where, I demand, is
Harleigh? Where have you concealed him? Why will Harleigh, the noble
Harleigh, degrade himself by any concealment? Why stoop to the subtilty
of circumspection, to spare himself the appearance of destroying one
whose head, heart, and vitals, all feel the reality of the destruction
he inflicts? And yet not he! No, no! 'tis my own ruthless star! He loves
me not! he is not responsible for my misery, though he is master of my
fate! Where is he? where is he? You,--who are the tyrant of his! tell
me, and at once!'
'I solemnly protest to you, Madam, with the singleness of the most
scrupulous truth,' cried Juliet, recovering her presence of mind, 'I am
entirely ignorant of his abode, his occupations, and his intentions.' Ah
why, she secretly added, am I not equally unacquainted with his feelings
and his wishes!
Unable to discredit the candour with which this was pronounced, and
filled with wonder, yet involuntarily consoled, the features of Elinor
lost their rigidity, and her eyes their fierceness; and, in milder
accents, she replied, 'Strange! how strange! Where, then, can he
be?--with whom?--how employed?--Does he fly the whole world as well as
Elinor? Has no one his society?--no one his confidence?--his society,
which, by contrast, makes all existence without it disgusting!--his
confidence, which, to obtain, I would yet live, though doomed daily to
the rack! O Harleigh! love like mine, who has felt?--love like mine, who
but you, O matchless Harleigh! ever inspired!'
Tears now gushed into her eyes. Ashamed, and angry with herself, she
hastily brushed them off with the back of her hand, and, with forced
vivacity, continued, 'He thinks, perchance, to sicken me into the pining
end of a love-sick consumption? to avert the kindly bowl or dagger, that
cut short human misery, for the languors, the sufferings, and despair of
a loathsome natural death? And for what?--to restore, to preserve me?
No! I have no share in the arrangement; no interest, no advantage from
the plan. Appearances alone are considered; all else is regarded as
immaterial; or sacrificed. And he, Harleigh, the noblest,--the only
noble of men!--can level himself with the narrowest and most illiberal
of his race, to pay coward obeisance to appearances!'
Again she then repeated her personal interrogatories to Juliet; and
demanded whether she should set off immediately for Gretna Green, with
Lord Melbury; or whether she must wait till he should be of age.
'Neither!' Juliet solemnly answered; and frankly recounted her recent
difficulties; and entreated the advice of Elinor for adopting another
plan of life.
Elinor, interrupting her, said, 'Nay, 'twas your own choice, you know,
to live in a garret, and hem pocket-handkerchiefs.'
'Choice, Madam! Alas! deprived of all but personal resource, I fixed
upon a mode of life that promised me, at least, my mental freedom. I was
not then aware how imaginary is the independence, that hangs for support
upon the uncertain fruits of daily exertions! Independent, indeed, such
situations may be deemed from the oppressions of power, or the tyrannies
of caprice and ill humour; but the difficulty of obtaining employment,
the irregularity of pay, the dread of want,--ah! what is freedom but a
name, for those who have not an hour at command from the subjection of
fearful penury and distress?'
'If all this is so,' said Elinor, 'which, unless you wait for Lord
Melbury's majority, is more than incomprehensible; what say you, now, to
an asylum safe, at least, from torments of this sort;--will you
commission me, at length, to apply to Mrs Ireton?'
Juliet, instinctively, recoiled at the very name of that lady; yet a
little reflection upon the dangers to which she was now exposed, through
unprotected poverty; through the lawless pursuit of Sir Lyell Sycamore;
and the vindictive calumnies of the Brinvilles, made the wish of solid
safety repress the disgusts of offended sensibility; and, after a
painful pause, she recommended herself to the support of Elinor:
resolving to accept, for the moment, any proposition, that might secure
her an honourable refuge from want and misconception.
Elinor, looking at her suspiciously, said, 'And Harleigh?--Will he let
you submit to such slavery?'
Mr Harleigh, Juliet protested, could have no influence upon her
determination.
'But you yourself, who a month or two ago, could so ill bear her
tauntings, how is it you are thus suddenly endued with so much
humility?'
'Alas, Madam, all choice, all taste, all obstacles sink before
necessity! When I came over, I had expectations of immediate succour. I
knew not that the friend I sought was herself ruined, as well as
unhappy! I had hopes, too, of speedy intelligence that might have
liberated me from all my difficulties....'
She stopt; Elinor exclaimed, 'From whence?--From abroad?--'
Juliet was silent; and Elinor, after a few passing sallies against
secrets and mystery, sarcastically bid her consider, before she adopted
this new scheme, that Harleigh never visited at Mrs Ireton's; having
taken, in equal portions, a dose of aversion for the mother, and of
contempt for the son.
Juliet calmly replied, that such a circumstance could be but an
additional motive to seek the situation; and, hopeless, for the moment,
of doing better, seriously begged that proper measures might be taken to
accelerate the plan.
Elinor, now, from mingled wonder, satisfaction, and scorn, recovered all
her wonted vivacity. 'You are really, and bona fide, contented, then,'
she cried, 'to be shut up as completely from Harleigh, through his
horrour of that woman's irascible temper, as if you were separated by
bolts, bars, dungeons, towers, and bastilles? I applaud your taste, and
wish you the full enjoyment of its fruits! Yet what materials you can be
made of, to see the first of men at your feet, and voluntarily to fly
him, to be trampled under by those of the most odious of women, I cannot
divine! 'Tis an exuberance of apathy that surpasses my comprehension.
And can He, the spirited Harleigh, love, adore, such a composition of
ice, of snow, of marble?'
She could not, however, disguise the elation with which she looked
forward, to depositing Juliet where information might constantly be
procured of her visitors and her actions. They went together to the
carriage; and Elinor conveyed her submissive and contemned, yet
agonizingly envied rival, to Brighthelmstone.
In her usually unguarded manner, Elinor, by the way, communicated the
various, but successless efforts by which she had endeavoured to gain
intelligence whither Harleigh had rambled. 'If I pursued him,' she
cried, 'with the vanity of hope; or with the meanness of flattery, he
would do well to shun me; but the pure-minded Harleigh is capable of
believing, that the moment is over for Elinor to desire to be his! And,
to sustain at once and shew my principles, I never seek his sight, but
in presence of her who has blasted even my wishes! Else, thus
clamourously to invoke, thus pertinaciously to follow him, might,
indeed, merit avoidance. But Elinor, now, would be as superiour to
accepting, ... as she is to forgetting him!'
'Yet his obdurate seclusion,' she continued, 'is the only mark I
receive, that I escape his disdain. It shews me that he fears the event
of a meeting. He does not, therefore, utterly deride the pusillanimity
of my abortive attempt. O could I justify his good opinion!--All others,
I doubt not, insult me by the most ludicrous suspicions; they are
welcome. They judge me by their little-minded selves. But thou, O
Harleigh! could I see thee once more!--in thy sight, thy loved sight,
could I sink, at last, my sorrows and my disgrace to rest! to oblivion,
to sleep eternal!'--
Vainly Juliet essayed to plead the cause of religion, and the duties of
life; unanswered, unmarked, unheard, she talked but to the air. All that
was uttered in return, began and ended alike with Harleigh, death, and
annihilation.