Absorbed in grief, and unable to converse, though endeavouring to listen
to the Baronet, Juliet was only drawn from her melancholy reverie, by
the rattling of the carriage upon a pavement, as it passed, through a
spacious gate, into the court-yard of a magnificent country seat.
She demanded what this meant.
Where better, he demanded in return, could she while away the interval
of waiting, than in viewing the finest works of art, displayed in a
temple consecrated to their service?
This was a scheme to force back all her consideration. In hearing him
pronounce the word Wilton, she had merely thought of the town; not of
the mansion of the Earl of Pembroke; which she now positively refused
entering; earnestly representing the necessity, as well as propriety, in
a situation so perilous, of the most entire obscurity.
He assured her that she would be less liable to observation in a
repository of the _beaux arts_, at the villa of a nobleman, than by
waiting in a post-chaise, before the door of an inn; as he must
indispensably change horses; and grant a little repose to his old groom,
who had been out with him all day.
This she could not dispute, convinced, herself, that her greatest danger
lay in being recognized, or remarked, within the precincts of an inn.
Nevertheless, how enter into such a mansion in a garb so unfit for
admission? She besought him to ask leave that she might remain in some
empty apartment, as an humble dependent, while he viewed the house.
Extremely pleased by an idea so consonant to his fantastic taste, he
answered her aloud, in alighting, 'Yes, yes, Mrs Betty! if you wish to
see the rooms, that you may give an account of all the pretty images to
my little ones, there can be no objection.'
She descended from the chaise, meaning to remonstrate upon this
misconstruction of her request; but, not allowing her the opportunity,
he gaily represented, to the person who shewed him the mansion, that he
was convoying a young nursery-maid, the daughter of a worthy old tenant,
to his grand-children; and that she had a fancy to see all the finery,
that she might make out some pretty stories, to tell the little dears,
when she wanted to put them to sleep.
Juliet, whose deep distress made her as little desire to see as to be
seen, repeated that she wished to sit still in some spare room: he
walked on, pretending not to hear her, addressing himself to his
_Cicerone_, whom he kept at his side; and therefore, as there was no
female in view, to whom she could apply, she was compelled to follow.
Not as Juliet she followed; Juliet whose soul was delightedly 'awake to
tender strokes of art,' whether in painting, music, or poetry; who never
saw excellence without emotion; and whose skill and taste would have
heightened her pleasure into rapture, her approbation into enthusiasm,
in viewing the delicious assemblage of painting, statuary, antiques,
natural curiosities, and artificial rarities, of Wilton;--not as Juliet,
she followed; but as one to whom every thing was indifferent; whose
discernment was gone, whose eyes were dimmed, whose powers of perception
were asleep, and whose spirit of enjoyment was annihilated. Figures of
the noblest sculpture; busts of historical interest; _alto_ and _basso
relievos_ of antique elegance; marbles, alabasters, spars, and lavers of
all colours, and in all forms; pictures glowing into life, and statues
appearing to command their beholders;--all that, at another period,
would have made her forget every thing but themselves, now vainly
solicited a moment of her attention.
It was by no means the fault of the Baronet, that this nearly morbid
insensibility was not conquered, by the revivyfying objects which
surrounded her. He suffered her not to pass an Æsculapius, without
demanding a prescription for her health; a Mercury, without supplicating
an ordonnance for her spirits; a Minerva, without claiming an
exhortation to courage; nor a Venus, without pointing out, that
perpetual beauty beams but through perpetual smiles: couching every
phrase under emblematical recommendations of story-subjects for the
nursery.
When the guide stood somewhat aloof, 'What say you, now,' he exultingly
whispered, 'to my famous little friends? Did they ever devise a more
ingenious gambol? From your slave, by a mere wave of their wand, they
have transformed me into your master! Ah, wicked syren! a dimple of
yours demolishes all their work, and again totters me down to your
feet!'
Nevertheless, even in this nearly torpid state, accident having raised
her eyes to Vandyke's children of Charles the First, the extraordinary
attraction of that fascinating picture, was exciting, unconsciously,
some pleasure, when the sound of a carriage announcing a party to see
the house, she petitioned Sir Jaspar to avoid, if possible, being known.
All compliance with whatever she could wish, the Baronet promised to
nail his eyes to the lowest picture in the room, should they be joined
by any stragglers; and then, relinquishing all further examination, he
begged permission to wait for his horses, in an apartment which is
presided by a noble picture of Salvator Rosa; to which, never
discouraged, he strove to call the attention of Juliet.
Nothing could more aptly harmonize, not only with his enthusiastic
eulogiums, but with his quaint fancy, than that exquisite effusion of
the painter's imagination, 'where, surely,' said the rapturous Baronet,
'his pencil has been guided, if not impelled, in every stroke, by my
dear little cronies the fairies! And that variety of vivifying objects;
that rich, yet so elegant scenery, of airy gaiety, and ideal felicity,
is palpably a representation of fairy land itself! Is it thither my dear
little friends will, some day, convey me? And shall I be metamorphosed
into one of those youthful swains, that are twining their garlands with
such bewitching grace? And shall I myself elect the fair one, around
whom I shall entwine mine?'
This harangue was interrupted, by the appearance of a newly arrived
party; but vainly Sir Jaspar kept his word, in reclining upon his
crutches, till he was nearly prostrate upon the ground; he was
immediately challenged by a lady; and that lady was Mrs Ireton.
Juliet, inexpressibly shocked, hastily glided from the room, striving to
cover her face with her luxuriously curling hair. She rambled about the
mansion, till she met with a chambermaid, from whom she entreated
permission to wait in some private apartment, till the carriage to which
she belonged should be ready.
The maid, obligingly, took her to a small room; and Juliet, taught by
her cruel confusion at the sight of Mrs Ireton, the censure, if not
slander, to which travelling alone with a man, however old, might make
her liable; determined, at whatever hazard, to hang, henceforth, solely
upon herself. She resolved, therefore, to beg the assistance of this
maid-servant, to direct her to some safe rural lodging.
But how great was her consternation, when, requiring, now, her purse,
she suddenly missed,--what, in her late misery, she had neither guarded
nor thought of, her packet and her work-bag!
Every pecuniary resource was now sunk at a blow! even the deposit, which
she had held as sacred, of Harleigh, was lost!
At what period of her disturbances this misfortune had happened, she had
no knowledge; nor whether her property had been dropt in her distress,
or purloined; or simply left at the inn; the consequence, every way, was
equally dreadful: and but for Sir Jaspar, whom all sense of propriety
had told her, the moment before, to shun, yet to whom, now, she became
tied, by absolute necessity, her Difficulties, at this conjuncture,
would have been nearly distracting.
When the carriage was returned, with fresh horses, Sir Jaspar found her
in a situation of augmented dismay, that filled him with concern; though
he also saw, that it was tempered by a grateful softness to himself,
that he thought more than ever bewitching.
He assured her that Mrs Ireton, whom he had adroitly shaken off, had not
perceived her; but the moment that they were re-seated in the chaise,
she communicated to him, with the most painful suffering, the new, and
terrible stroke, by which she was oppressed.
Viewing this as a mere pecuniary embarrassment, the joy of becoming
again useful, if not necessary, to her, sparkled in his eyes with almost
youthful vivacity; though he engaged to send his valet immediately to
the inn, to make enquiries, and offer rewards, for recovering the
strayed goods.
This second loss of her purse, she suffered Sir Jaspar, without any
attempt at justification, to call an active epigram upon modern female
drapery; which prefers continual inconvenience, innumerable privations,
and the most distressing untidiness, to the antique habit of modesty and
good housewifery, which, erst, left the public display of the human
figure to the statuary; deeming that to support the female character was
more essential than to exhibit the female form.
This second loss, also, by carrying back her reflections to the first,
brought to her mind several circumstances, which cast a new light upon
that origin of the various misfortunes and adventures which had followed
her arrival; and all her recollections, now she knew the rapacity and
worthlessness of the pilot, pointed out to her that she had probably
been robbed, at the moment when, impulsively, she was pouring forth,
upon her knees, her thanks for her deliverance. Her work-bag, which,
upon that occasion, she had deposited upon her seat, she remembered,
though she had then attributed it to his vigilance and care, seeing in
his hands, when she arose.
Arrived at the farm-house, they found themselves expected by the farmer
and his wife, who paid the utmost respect to Sir Jaspar; but who saw,
with an air of evidently suspicious surprize, the respect which he
himself paid to Mrs Betty, the nurse-maid; whose beauty, with her rustic
attire, and disordered hair, would have made them instantly conclude her
to be a lost young creature, had not the decency of her look, the
dignity of her manner, and the grief visible in her countenance, spoken
irresistibly in favour of her innocence. They spoke not, however, in
favour of that of Sir Jaspar, whose old character of gallantry was well
known to them; and induced their belief, that he was inveigling this
young woman from her friends, for her moral destruction. They
accommodated her, nevertheless, for the night; but, whatever might be
their pity, determined, should the Baronet visit her the next day, to
invent some other occupation for their spare bedroom.
Unenviable was that night, as passed by their lodger, however acceptable
to her was any asylum. She spent it in continual alarm; now shaking with
the terrour of pursuit; now affrighted with the prospect of being
pennyless; now shocked to find herself cast completely into the power of
a man, who, however aged, was her professed admirer; and now distracted
by varying resolutions upon the measures which she ought immediately to
take. And when, for a few minutes, her eyes, from extreme fatigue,
insensibly closed, her dreams, short and horrible, renewed the dreadful
event of the preceding day; again she saw herself pursued; again felt
herself seized; and she blessed the piercing shrieks with which she
awoke, though they brought to her but the transient relief that she was
safe for the passing moment.