Restless, again, was the night of Juliet; bewildered with varying
visions of hope, of despair, of bliss, of horrour; now presenting a fair
prospect that opened sweetly to her best affections; now shewing every
blossom blighted, by a dark, overwhelming storm.
To engage the good will of her new hostess, she bestowed upon her nearly
every thing that she had worn upon entering the cottage. What she had
been seen and discovered in, could no longer serve any purpose of
concealment; and all disguise was disgusting to her, if not induced by
the most imperious necessity. She clothed herself, therefore, from the
fairy stores of her munificent old sylph; with whom her debts were so
multiplied and so considerable, that she meant, at all events, to call
upon her family for their disbursement.
The quietness of this residence, induced her to propose remaining here:
and her new hostess, who was one of the many who, where interest
preaches passiveness, make it a point not to be troublesome, consented,
without objection or enquiry.
Hence, again, she wrote to Gabriella, from whom she languished for
intelligence.
In this perfect retirement, she passed her time in deep rumination; her
thoughts for ever hovering around the Bishop, upon whose fate her own
invariably depended.
Her little apartment was close and hot; unshaded by blinds, unsheltered
by shutters; she went forth, therefore, early every morning, to enjoy
fresh air in the cool of a neighbouring wood, which, once having
entered, she knew not how to quit. Solitude there, had not the character
of seclusion; it bore not, as in her room, the air of banishment, if not
of imprisonment; and the beautiful prospects around her, though her
sole, were a never-failing source of recreation.
She permitted not, however, her love of the country to beguile her into
danger by the love of variety; she wandered not far from her new
habitation, in the vicinity of Milton-abbey; of which she never lost
sight from distance, though frequently from intervening hills and trees.
But no answer arrived from Gabriella; and, in a few days, her own letter
was returned, with a line written by the post-man upon the cover, to
say, No. -- Frith-street, Soho, was empty.
New sorrow, now, and fearful distress assailed every feeling of Juliet:
What could have occasioned this sudden measure? Whither was Gabriella
gone? Might it be happiness?--or was it some new evil that had caused
this change of abode? The letter sent to Salisbury had never been
claimed; nor did Juliet dare demand it: but Gabriella might, perhaps,
have written her new plan by the address sent from the farm-house.
It was now that she blessed the munificent Sir Jaspar, to whose purse
she had immediate recourse for sending a man and horse to the cottage;
with written instructions to enquire for a letter, concerning which she
had left directions with the good old cottager.
While, to wear away the hours devoted to anxious waiting, she wandered,
as usual, in the view of Milton-abbey, from a rich valley, bounded by
rising hills, whose circling slopes bore the form of undulating waves,
she perceived, from a small distance, a horseman gallopping towards her
cottage.
It could not already be her messenger. She felt uneasy, and, gliding to
the brow of an eminence, sat down upon the turf, as much as possible out
of sight.
In a short time, she heard the quick pacing step of a man in haste. She
tried to place herself still more obscurely; but, by moving, caught the
eye of the object she meant to avoid. He approached her rapidly, but
when near enough to distinguish her, abruptly stopt, as if to recollect
himself; and Juliet, at the same moment that she was herself discerned,
recognized Harleigh.
With difficulty restraining an exclamation, from surprize and painful
emotion, she looked round to discover if it would be possible to elude
him; but she could only walk towards Milton-abbey, in full view herself
from that noble seat; or immediately face him by returning to her home.
She stood still, therefore, though bending her eye to the ground; hurt
and offended that, at such a juncture, Harleigh could break into her
retreat; and grieved yet more deeply, that Harleigh could excite in her
even transitory displeasure.
Harleigh stept forward, but his voice, husky and nervous, so
inarticulately pronounced something relative to a packet and a work-bag,
that Juliet, losing her displeasure in a sudden hope of hearing some
news of her property, raised her head, with a look that demanded an
explanation.
Still he strove in vain for sufficient calmness to speak distinctly; yet
his answer gave Juliet to understand, that he had conveyed her packet
and work-bag to the cottage which he had been told she inhabited.
'And where, Sir,' cried Juliet, surprized into vivacity and pleasure at
this unexpected hearing, 'how, and where have they been recovered?'
Harleigh now blushed himself, at the blushes which he knew he must raise
in her cheeks, as he replied, that the packet and the work-bag which he
had brought, had been dropt in his room at the inn.
Crimson is pale to the depth of red with which shame and confusion dyed
her face; while Harleigh, recovering his voice, sought to relieve her
embarrassment, by more rapidly continuing his discourse.
'I should sooner have endeavoured to deliver these articles, but that I
knew not, till yesterday, that they had fallen to my care. I had left
the inn, to follow, and seek Sir Jaspar Herrington; but having various
papers and letters in my room, that I had not had time to collect, I
obtained leave to take away the key with me, of the landlady, to whom I
was well known,--for there, or in that neighbourhood, an irresistible
interest has kept me, from the time that, through my groom, I had
heard ... who had been seen ... at Bagshot ... entering the Salisbury
stage!--Yesterday, when I returned, to the inn, I first perceived these
parcels.'--
He stopt; but Juliet could not speak, could not look up; could pronounce
no apology, nor enter into any explanation.
'Sir Jaspar Herrington,' he continued, 'whom I have just left, is still
at Salisbury; but setting out for town. From him I learnt your immediate
direction; but not knowing what might be the value of the packets,
nor,--' He hesitated a moment, and then, with a sigh, added, 'nor how to
direct them! I determined upon venturing to deliver them myself.'
The tingling cheeks of Juliet, at the inference of the words 'nor how to
direct them,' seemed on fire; but she was totally silent.
'I have carefully sealed them,' he resumed, 'and I have delivered them
to the woman of the cottage, for the young lady who at present sleeps
there; and, hearing that that young lady was walking in the
neighbourhood, I ventured to follow, with this intelligence.'
'You are very good, Sir,' Juliet strove to answer; but her lips were
parched, and no words could find their way.
This excess of timidity brought back the courage of Harleigh, who,
advancing a step or two, said, 'You will not be angry that Sir Jaspar,
moved by my uncontrollable urgency, has had the charity to reveal to me
some particulars....'
'Oh! make way for me to pass, Mr Harleigh!' now interrupted Juliet,
forcing her voice, and striving to force a passage.
'Did you wish, then,' said Harleigh, in a tone the most melancholy,
'could you wish that I should still languish in harrowing suspense? or
burst with ignorance?'
'Oh no!' cried she, raising her eyes, which glistened with tears, 'no!
If the mystery that so long has hung about me, by occupying your ...'
She sought a word, and then continued: 'your imagination ... impedes the
oblivion that ought to bury me and my misfortunes from further
thought,--then, indeed, I ought to be thankful to Sir Jaspar,--and I am
thankful that he has let you know, ... that he has informed you....'
She could not finish the sentence.
'Yes!' cried Harleigh with energy, 'I have heard the dreadful history of
your wrongs! of the violences by which you have suffered, of the inhuman
attempts upon your liberty, your safety, your honour!--But since you
have thus happily--'
'Mr Harleigh,' cried Juliet, struggling to recover her presence of mind,
'I need no longer, I trust, now, beg your absence! All I can have to say
you must, now, understand ... anticipate ... acknowledge ... since you
are aware....'
'Ah!' cried Harleigh, in a tone not quite free from reproach;--'had you
but, from the beginning, condescended to inform me of your situation! a
situation so impossible to divine! so replete with horrour, with injury,
with unheard of suffering,--had you, from the first, instead of
avoiding, flying me, deigned to treat me with some trust--'
'Mr Harleigh,' said Juliet, with eagerness, 'whatever may be your
surprize that such should be my situation, ... my fate, ... you can, at
least, require, now, no explanation why I have fled you!'
The word why, vibrated instantly to the heart of Harleigh, where it
condolingly said: It was duty, then, not averseness, not indifference,
that urged that flight! she had not fled, had she not deemed herself
engaged!--Juliet, who had hastily uttered the why in the solicitude of
self-vindication, shewed, by a change of complexion, the moment that it
had passed her lips, that she felt the possible inference of which it
was susceptible, and dropt her eyes; fearful to risk discovering the
consciousness that they might indicate.
Harleigh, however, now brightened, glowed with revived sensations: 'Ah!
be not,' he cried, 'be not the victim of your scruples! let not your too
delicate fears of doing wrong by others, urge you to inflict wrong,
irreparable wrong, upon yourself! Your real dangers are past; none now
remain but from a fancied,--pardon, pardon me!--a fancied refinement,
unfounded in reason, or in right! Suffer, therefore--'
'Hold, Sir, hold!--we must not even talk upon this subject:--nor, at
this moment, upon any other!--'
Her brow shewed rising displeasure; but Harleigh was intractable.
'Pronounce not,' he cried, 'an interdiction! I make no claim, no plea,
no condition. I will speak wholly as an impartial man;--and have you not
condescended to tell me, that as a friend, if to that title,--so
limited, yet so honourable,--I would confine myself,--you would not
disdain to consult with me? As such, I am now here. I feel, I respect, I
revere the delicacy of all your ideas, the perfection of your conduct! I
will put, therefore, aside, all that relates not simply to yourself, and
to your position; I will speak to you, for the moment, and in his
absence,--as--as Lord Melbury!--as your brother!--'
An involuntary smile here unbent the knitting brow of Juliet, who could
not feel offended, or sorry, that Sir Jaspar had revealed the history of
her birth.
She desired, nevertheless, to pass, refusing every species of
discussion.
'If you will not answer, will not speak,' cried Harleigh, still
obstructing her way, 'fear not, at least, to hear! Are you not at
liberty? Is not your persecutor gone?--Can he ever return?'
'Gone?' repeated Juliet.
'I have myself seen him embark! I rode after his chaise, I pursued it to
the sea-coast, I saw him under sail.'
Juliet, with uplifted eyes, clasped her hands, from an emotion of
ungovernable joy; which a thousand blushes betrayed her vain struggles
to suppress.
Harleigh observed not this unmoved: 'Ah, Madam!' he cried, 'since, thus
critically, you have escaped;--since, thus happily, you are
released;--since no church ritual has ever sanctioned the sacrilegious
violence--'
'Spare all ineffectual controversy!' cried Juliet, assuming an air and
tone of composure, with which her quick heaving bosom was ill in
harmony; 'I can neither talk nor listen upon this subject. You know,
now, my story: dread and atrocious as is my connection, my faith to it
must be unbroken, till I have seen the Bishop! and till the iniquity of
my chains may be proved, and my restoration to my violated freedom may
be legalized. Do not look so shocked; so angry, must I say?--Remember,
that a point of conscience can be settled only internally! I will speak,
therefore, but one word more; and I must hear no reply: little as I feel
to belong to the person in question, I cannot consider myself to be my
own! 'Tis a tie which, whether or not it binds me to him, excludes me,
while thus circumstanced, from all others!--This, Sir, is my last
word!--Adieu!'
Harleigh, though looking nearly petrified, still stood before her. 'You
fly us, then,' he cried, resentfully, though mournfully, 'both alike?
You put us upon a par?--'
'No!' answered Juliet, hastily, 'him I fly because I hate;--You--'
The deep scarlet which mounted into her whole face finished the
sentence; in defiance of a sudden and abrupt breaking off, that meant
and hoped to snatch the unguarded phrase from comprehension.
But Harleigh felt its fullest contrast; his hopes, his wishes, his whole
soul completed it by You, because I love!--not that he could persuade
himself that Juliet would have used those words; he knew the contrary;
knew that she would sooner thus situated expire; but such, he felt, was
the impulse of her thoughts; such the consciousness that broke off her
speech.
He durst not venture at any acknowledgement; but, once appeased in his
doubts, and satisfied in his feelings, he respected her opinions, and,
yielding to her increased, yet speechless eagerness to be gone, he
silently, but with eyes of expressive tenderness, ceased to obstruct her
passage.
Utterly confounded herself, at the half-pronounced thought, thus
inadvertently surprised from her, and thus palpably seized and
interpreted, she strove to devize some term that might obviate dangerous
consequences; but she felt her cheeks so hot, so cold, and again so hot,
that she durst not trust her face to his observation; and, accepting the
opening which he made for her, she was returning to her cottage,
tortured,--and yet soothed,--by indescribable emotions; when an
energetic cry of 'Ellis!--Harleigh!--Ellis!' made her raise her eyes to
the adjacent hill, and perceive Elinor.