Happy to second the benevolent scheme of the kind-hearted Admiral, the
Bishop hastened to his fellow-voyagers with the hospitable invitation.
Juliet, in whom every feeling was awake to meet, to embrace, and to
share her delight with Lady Aurora, would have followed; but Lord
Melbury, to avoid, upon so interesting an occasion, any interruption
from Mrs Howel, objected to returning to the hotel; and proposed being
the messenger to fetch their sister. Juliet joyfully consented, and went
to await them in the beautiful verdant recess, between two rocks,
overlooking the vast ocean, with which she had already been so much
charmed.
No sooner, at this favourite spot, was Juliet alone, than, according to
her wonted custom, she vented the fulness of her heart in pious
acknowledgements. She had scarcely risen, when again,--though without
Lady Aurora,--she saw Lord Melbury; yet not alone; he was arm in arm
with Harleigh. 'My dear new sister,' he gaily cried, 'I go now for
Aurora. We shall be here presently; but Mr Harleigh is so kind as to
promise that he will stand without, as sentinel, to see that no one
approaches nor disturbs you.'
He was gone while yet speaking.
The immediate impulse of Juliet urged her to remonstrance, or flight;
but it was the impulse of habit, not of reason; an instant, and a look
of Harleigh, represented that the total change of her situation,
authorized, on all sides, a total change of conduct.
Every part of her frame partook of the emotion with which this sudden
consciousness beat at her heart; while her silence, her unresisting
stay, and the sight of her varying complexion, thrilled to the soul of
Harleigh, with an encouragement that he trembled with impatience to
exchange for certainty. 'At last,--at last,--may I,' he cried, 'under
the sanction of a brother, presume upon obtaining a hearing with some
little remittance of reserve? of mistrust?'
Juliet dropt her head.
'Will not Miss Granville be more gracious than Miss Ellis has been? Miss
Granville can have no tie but what is voluntary: no hovering doubts, no
chilling scruples, no fancied engagements--'
A half sigh, of too recent recollection, heaved the breast of Juliet.
'To plead,' he continued, 'against all confidence; to freeze every
avenue to sympathy; to repel, or wound every rising hope! Miss
Granville, is wholly independent; mistress of her heart, mistress of
herself--'
'No, Mr Harleigh, no!' with quickness, though with gentleness,
interrupted Juliet.
Harleigh, momentarily startled, ventured to bend his head below her
bonnet; and saw, then, that the blush which had visited, flown, and
re-visited her face, had fixed itself in the deepest tint upon her
cheek. He gazed upon her in ecstatic silence, till, looking up, and, for
the first time, suffering her eyes willingly to meet his, 'No, Mr
Harleigh, no!' she softly repeated, 'I am not so independent!' A smile
then beamed over her features, so radiant, so embellishing, that
Harleigh wondered he had ever thought her beautiful before, as she
added, 'Had I an hundred hearts,--ten thousand times you must have
conquered them all!'
Rapture itself, now, is too cold a word,--or too common a one,--to give
an adequate idea of the bliss of Harleigh. He took her no longer
reluctant hand, and she felt upon it a burning tear as he pressed it to
his lips; but his joy was unutterable. The change was so great, so
sudden, and so exquisite, from all he most dreaded to all he most
desired, that language seemed futile for its expression: and to look at
her without fearing to alarm or offend her; to meet, with the softest
assurance of partial favour, those eyes hitherto so coldly averted; to
hold, unresisted, the fair hand that, but the moment before, it seemed
sacrilege even to wish to touch; so, only, could he demonstrate the
fulness of his transport, the fervour of his gratitude, the perfection
of his felicity.
In Juliet, though happiness was not less exalted, pleasure wore the
chastened garb of moderation, even in the midst of a frankness that laid
open her heart. Yet, seeing his suit thus authorized by her brother, and
certain of the approbation of the Bishop, and of her uncle, to so equal
and honourable an alliance; she indulged her soft propensities in his
favour, by gently conceding avowals, that rewarded not alone his
persevering constancy, but her own long and difficult forbearance. 'Many
efforts, many conflicts,' she cried, 'in my cruel trials, I have
certainly found harder; but none, none so distasteful, as the
unremitting necessity of seeming always impenetrable--where most I was
sensitive!'
'By sweetness such as this,' cried Harleigh, 'you would almost persuade
me to rejoice at a suspense that has nearly maddened me! Yet,--could you
have conceived the agony, the despair of my mind, at your icy,
relentless silence! not once to trust me as a friend! not one moment to
confide in my integrity! never to consult, to commune, to speak, nor to
hear!--You smile?--Can it be at the pain you have inflicted?'--
'Oh no, no, no! If I smile, 'tis at the greater pain I have, I trust,
averted! While conscious that I might, eventually, be chained to
another, every duty admonished me to resist every feeling!--Yet with
hope always, ultimately, before me, I had not the force to utter a
word,--a baneful word!--that might teach you to renounce me!--even
though I deemed it indispensable to my honour to exact a total
separation. Had I confided to you my fearful secret,--had you yourself
aided the abolition of my shackles, should I not, in a situation so
delicate, so critical, have fixed an eternal barrier between us,--or
have sacrificed the fame of both to the most wounding of calumnies? Ah
no! from the instant that my heart interfered,--that I was conscious of
a new motive that urged my wish of liberation,--I have held it my duty,
I have felt it my future happiness, to avoid,--to fear,--to fly you!--'
'I was most favoured, then, it seems,' replied Harleigh, with a smile of
rapture, 'when I thought you most inexorable? I must thank you for your
rejections, your avoidance, your implacable, immoveable coldness?'
'Reverse, else, the medal,' cried she, gaily, 'and see whether the
impression will be more to your taste!'
'Loveliest Miss Ellis! most beloved Miss Granville! My own,--at length!
at length! my own sweet Juliet! that, and that only can be to my taste
which has brought me to the bliss of this moment!'
With blushing tenderness, Juliet then confessed, that at the moment of
his first generous declaration, following the summer-house scene with
Elinor, she had felt pierced with an aggravated horrour of her nameless
ties, that had nearly burst her heart asunder.
With minute retrospection, then, enjoying even every evil, and finding
motives of congratulation from every pain that was past, they mutually
recapitulated their feelings, their conjectures, their rising and
progressive partiality, since the opening of their acquaintance. One
circumstance alone was tinted with regret,--'Elinor?' cried Juliet, 'Oh!
how will Elinor bear to hear of this event!'
'Fear her not!' he returned. 'She has a noble, though, perhaps, a
masculine spirit, and she will soon, probably, think of this affair only
with pique and wonder,--not against me, for she is truly generous; but
against herself, for she is candid and just. She has always internally
believed, that perseverance in the honour that she has meant to shew me,
must ultimately be victorious; but, where partiality is not desired, it
can only be repaid, by man to woman as by woman to man, from weakness,
or vanity. Gratitude is all-powerful in friendship, for friendship may
be earned; but love, more wilful, more difficult, more capricious,--love
must be inspired, or must be caught. When Elinor, who possesses many of
the finest qualities of the mind, sees the fallacy of her new system;
when she finds how vainly she would tread down the barriers of custom
and experience, raised by the wisdom of foresight, and established,
after trial, for public utility; she will return to the habits of
society and common life, as one awakening from a dream in which she has
acted some strange and improbable part.--'
A sound quick, but light, of feet here interrupted the _tête à tête_,
followed by the words, 'My sister! my sister!' and, in less than a
minute, Lady Aurora was in the arms of Juliet. 'Ah!' she cried, 'You are
not, then, gone! dear--cruel sister!--yet you could quit me, and quit me
without even a last adieu!'
'Sweetest, most amiable of sisters!' cried the happy Juliet; 'can you
wonder I could not take leave of you, when that leave was, I feared, to
sunder us for life? when I thought myself destined to exile, slavery,
and misery? Could I dare imagine I was so soon to be restored to you?
Could I presume to hope that from anguish so nearly insupportable, I was
destined to be elevated,--every way!--to the summit of all I can
conceive of terrestrial happiness!'
The grateful Harleigh, at these words, came forward to present himself
to Lady Aurora; who learnt with enchantment the purposed alliance; not
alone from the prospect of permanent happiness which it opened to her
sister, but also as a means to overcome all possible opposition, on the
part of Lord Denmeath, to a public acknowledgment of relationship.
Juliet, who, in the indulgence of sentiments so long and so imperiously
curbed, found a charm nearly as fascinating as that which their avowal
communicated to Harleigh, began now, with blushing animation, to recount
to her delightedly listening Aurora, the various events, the unceasing
obligations, which had formed and fixed her attachment.
A tale which, like this, had equal attraction to the speaker and to the
hearers, had little chance to be brief: it was not, therefore, far
advanced, when they were joined by Lord Melbury; who, gathering from
Lady Aurora the situation of affairs, bounded, wild as a young colt,
with joy.
The minutes, now, were lengthening unconsciously to hours, when the
various narratives and congratulations were interrupted by a loud
'Halloo!' followed by the appearance of the old sailor.
'Please your honours,' said the worthy tar, 'master begins to be afeard
you've as good as forgot him: he's been walking upon the beach,
alongside the old French parson, till one foot is plaguely put to it to
wag afore t'other. Howsomever, he'd scorn to give up to a Frenchman, to
the longest day he has to live; more especialsome to a parson; you may
take Jack's word for that!'
The happy party now hastened to the strand; but there perceived neither
the Bishop nor the Admiral. The sailor, slily grinning at their
surprize, told them, with a merry nod, and a significant leer, that he
would shew them a sight that would make them stare amain; which was no
other than an honest Englishman, sitting, cheek by jowl, beside a
Frenchman; as lovingly as if they were both a couple of Christians,
coming off the same shore.
He then led them to a bathing-machine; in which the Admiral was civilly,
though with great perplexity, labouring to hold discourse with the
Bishop.
The impatient Harleigh besought Lord Melbury to be his agent, with the
guardian and the uncle of his lovely sister. Lord Melbury joyfully
complied. The affair, however momentous, was neither long nor difficult
to arrange. The Bishop felt an implicit trust in the known judgment and
tried discretion of his ward; and the Admiral held that a female, as the
weaker vessel, could never properly, nor even honourably, make the
voyage of life, but under the safe convoy of a good husband.
Harleigh, therefore, was speedily summoned into the machine; his
proposals were so munificent, that they were applauded rather than
approved; and, all descending to the beach, the Bishop took one hand,
and the Admiral another, of the blushing Juliet, to present, with
tenderest blessings, to the happy, indescribably happy Harleigh.
Juliet, then, had the unspeakable delight of presenting her brother and
her sister to her uncle, and to the Bishop. The Admiral, nevertheless,
could not resist taking his niece apart, to tell her, that, if he had
but had an insight into her being in such a hurry for a husband, he
should have made free to speak a good word for a young sea-captain of
his acquaintance; a lad for whom he had a great goust, and who would be
sure to make his way to the very top; since, already, he had had the
luck, while bravely fighting, in two different engagements, to see his
two senior officers drop by his side: by which means he had arrived at
his promotion of first lieutenant, and of captain. And if, which was
likely enough, God willing, he should meet with such another good turn
in a third future engagement, he bid fair for being a Commodore in the
prime of his days. 'And then, my dear,' he continued, 'when he had been
upon a long distant station; or when contrary winds, or the enemy, had
stopt his letters, so that you could not guess whether the poor lad were
alive or dead; think what would have been your pride to have read, all
o' the sudden, news of him in the Gazette!'
This regret, nevertheless, operated not against his affection, nor his
beneficence, for, returning with her to the company, he solemnly
announced her to be his heiress.
'One thing, however, pertaining to this business,' he cried, 'devilishly
works me still, whether I will or no'. That oldish gentlewoman, who was
taking upon her to send my Niece Granville before the justice! Who is
she, pray? I should not be sorry to know her calling; nor, moreover,
what 'tis puts her upon acting in such a sort.'
Lord Melbury and Lady Aurora endeavoured to offer some excuse, saying,
that she was a relation of their uncle Denmeath.
'Oh, if that be the case,' cried he, holding his head high up in the
air, 'I shall make no scruple to let her a little into my way of
thinking! It's a general rule with me, throughout life, to tell people
their faults; because why? There are plenty of people to tell them their
good qualities; in the proviso they have got any; or, in the t'other
case, to vamp up some, out of their own heads, that serve just as well
for ground-work to a few compliments; but as to their faults, not a soul
will give 'em a hint of one of them. They'll leave them to be 'ticed
strait to the devil, sooner than call out Jack Robinson! to save them.'
Lady Aurora was now advancing with a gentle supplication; but, taking
off his hat, and making her a low bow, he declined hearing her; saying,
'Though it may rather pass for a hint than a compliment, to come out
with the plain truth to a young lady, I must make free to observe, that
I never let my complaisance get the upper hand of my sincerity; because
why? My sincerity is for myself; 'tis my honour! and whereby I keep my
own good opinion; but my complaisance is for my neighbours; serving only
to coax over the good opinion of others. For which reason, though I am
as glad as another man of a good word, I don't much fancy turning out of
my way for it. I hold it, therefore, my bounden duty, to demand a parley
with that oldish gentlewoman; and the more so, abundantly, for her being
a person of quality; for if she's better born, and better bred than her
neighbours, she should be better mannered. For who the devil's the
better for her birth and breeding, if they only serve to make her fancy
she has a right to be impudent? If we don't take care to drop a word or
two of advice, now and then, to persons of that sort, you'll see, before
long, they won't let a man sit down in their company, under a lord!'
Then, enquiring her name, he sent his honest sailor to request an
audience of her for the uncle of the Honourable Miss Granville; adding,
with a significant smile, 'Harkee, my boy! if she says she don't know
such a person, tell her, one Admiral Powel will have the honour to
introduce him to her! And if she says she does not know Admiral Powel
neither, tell her to cast an eye upon the Gazette of the month of
September this very day twelve years!'
To tranquillize Lady Aurora, Lord Melbury preceded the sailor to prepare
Mrs Howel for the interview; but he did not return, till a summons to
the repast was assembling the whole company in the lodging-house. He
then related that he had found his uncle Denmeath already arrived, and
that he had acquainted both him and Mrs Howel with the situation of
affairs.
The Admiral now ordered the dinner to be kept warm, while he whetted, he
said, his goust for it; and then sped to the combat; bent upon fighting
as valiantly for the parental fortune of his niece with one antagonist,
as for what was due to her wounded dignity with the other.
The party, however, was not long separated; Lord Denmeath, confounded by
intelligence so easily authenticated, of the duplicate-codicil,
protested that he had never designed that the portion should be
withheld; and Mrs Howel, stung with rage and shame at this positive
discovery of the family, the fortune, and the protection to which the
young woman, whom she had used so ignominiously, was entitled, received
the reprimands and admonitions of the Admiral in mortified silence.
Nothing, when once 'tis understood, is so quickly settled as business.
Lord Denmeath, having given the name of his lawyer, broke up the
conference, and quitted Teignmouth; Mrs Howel, confused, offended, and
gloomy, was not less eager to be gone; though the Admiral would gladly
have detained her, to listen to a few more items of his opinions. Lady
Aurora, forced to accompany her uncle, softly whispered Juliet, in an
affectionate parting embrace, 'My dearest sister, ere long, will give a
new and sweet home to her Aurora!'
This, indeed, was a powerful plea to favour the impatience of Harleigh;
a plea far more weighty than one urged by the Admiral; that she would be
married without further parleying, lest people should be pleased to take
it into their heads, that she had been the real wife of that scoundrel
commissary, and was forced, therefore, to go through the ceremony of
being his widow.
Called, now, to the kind and splendid repast, the Admiral insisted that
Juliet should preside at his hospitable board; where, seated between her
revered Bishop and beloved brother, and facing her generous uncle, and
the man of her heart, she did the honours of the table to the enchanted
strangers, with glowing happiness, though blended with modest confusion.
When the desert was served, the joyous Admiral, filling up a bumper of
ale, and rising, said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now make free to
propose two toasts to you: the first, as in duty bound, is to the King
and the Royal Navy. I always put them together; because why? I hold our
King to be our pilot, without whom we might soon be all aground; and, in
like manner, I hold us tars to be the best part of his majesty's ship's
company; for though old England, to my seeming, is at the top of the
world, if we tars were to play it false, it would soon pop to the
bottom. So here goes to the King and the Royal Navy!'
This ceremony past; 'And now, gentlemen and ladies,' he resumed, 'as I
mortally hate a secret; having taken frequent note that what ought not
to be said is commonly something that ought not to be done; I shall make
bold to propose a second bumper, to the happy espousals of the
Honourable Miss Granville; who, you are to know, is my niece; with a
very honest gentleman, who is at my elbow; and who had the kindness to
take a liking to her before he knew that she had a Lord on one side,
and, moreover, an Admiral on t'other for her relations; nor yet that she
would have been a lady in her own right, if her father had not taken the
long journey before her grandfather.'
This toast being gaily drunk by every one, save the blushing Juliet, the
Admiral sent out his grinning sailor, with a bottle of port, to repeat
it with the postilions.
'Monsieur the Bishop,' continued the Admiral, 'there's one remark which
I must beg leave to make, that I hope you won't think unchristian;
though I confess it to be not over and above charitable; but I have
always, in my heart, owed a grudge to my Lord Granville, though his
lordship was my brother-in-law, for bringing up his daughter in foreign
parts; whereby he risked the ruin of her morals both in body and soul.
Not that I would condemn a dead man, who cannot speak up in his own
defence, for I hold nothing to be narrower than that; therefore, Mr
Bishop, if you have any thing to offer in his behalf, it will look very
well in you, as a parson, to make the most of it: and, moreover, give
great satisfaction both to my niece, the Honourable Miss Granville, and
to this young Lord, who is her half brother. And I, also, I hope, as a
good Christian, shall sincerely take my share thereof.'
'An irresistible, or, rather, an unresisted disposition to procrastinate
whatever was painful,' answered the Bishop, in French, 'was the origin
and cause of all that you blame. Lord Granville always persuaded himself
that the morrow would offer opportunity, or inspire courage, for a
confession of his marriage that the day never presented, nor excited;
and to avow his daughter while that was concealed, would have been a
disgrace indelible to his deserving departed lady. This from year to
year, kept Miss Granville abroad. With the most exalted sentiments, the
nicest honour, and the quickest feelings, my noble, however irresolute
friend, had an unfortunate indecision of character, that made him waste
in weighing what should be done, the time and occasion of action. Could
he have foreseen the innumerable hardships, the endless distresses, from
which neither prudence nor innocence could guard the helpless offspring
of an unacknowledged union, he would either, at once and nobly, have
conquered his early passion; or courageously have sustained and avowed
its object.'
'It must also be considered,' said Harleigh, while tears of filial
tenderness rolled down the cheeks of Juliet, and started into the eyes
of Lord Melbury, 'that, when my Lord Granville trusted his daughter to a
foreign country, his own premature death was not less foreseen, than
the political event in which her property and safety, in common with
those of the natives, were involved. That event has not operated more
wonderfully upon the fate and fortune, than upon the minds and
characters of those individuals who have borne in it any share; and who,
according to their temperaments and dispositions, have received its new
doctrines as lessons, or as warnings. Its undistinguishing admirers, it
has emancipated from all rule and order; while its unwilling, yet
observant and suffering witnesses, have been formed by it to fortitude,
prudence, and philosophy; it has taught them to strengthen the mind with
the body; it has animated the exercise of reason, the exertion of the
faculties, activity in labour, resignation in endurance, and
cheerfulness under every privation; it has formed, my Lord Melbury, in
the school of refining adversity, your firm, yet tender sister! it has
formed, noble Admiral, in the trials, perils, and hardships of a
struggling existence, your courageous, though so gentle niece!--And for
me, may I not hope that it has formed--'
He stopt; the penetrated Juliet cast upon him a look that supplicated
silence. He obeyed its expression; and her mantling cheek, dimpling with
grateful smiles, amply recompensed his forbearance.
'Gentlemen, both,' said the Admiral, 'I return you my hearty thanks for
letting me into this insight of the case. And if I were to give you, in
return, a little smattering of what passed in my own mind in those days,
I can't deny but I should have been tempted, often enough, to out with
the whole business, if I had not been afraid of being jeer'd for my
pains; a thing for which I had never much taste. Many and many a time I
used to muse upon it, and say to myself, My sister was married;
honourably married! And I,--for I was but a young man then to what I am
now,--a mere boy; and I, says I to myself, am brother-in-law to a lord!
Yet I was too proud to publish it of my own accord, because of his being
a lord! for, if I had, the whole ship's company, in those days, might
have thought me little better than a puppy.'
The repast finished, the pleased and grateful guests separated. Harleigh
set off post for London and his lawyer; and the Bishop and Lord Melbury,
gladly accepted an invitation from the Admiral to his country-seat near
Richmond, of which, with the greatest delight, he proclaimed his niece
mistress.
But short, here, was her reign. Harleigh was speedily ready: and his
cause, seconded by Lady Aurora and the Admiral, could not be pleaded in
vain to Juliet; who, in giving her hand where she had given her whole
heart; in partaking the name, the mansion, the fortune, and the fate of
Harleigh; bestowed and enjoyed such rare felicity, that all she had
endured seemed light, all she had performed appeared easy, and even
every woe became dear to her remembrance, that gradually and
progressively, though painfully and unsuspectedly, had contributed to so
exquisite and heartfelt a union.
Her own happiness thus fixed, her first solicitude was for her guardian
and preserver the Bishop; whom, with her sympathizing Harleigh, she
attended to the Continent. There she was embraced and blessed by her
honoured benefactress, the Marchioness; there, and not vainly, she
strove to console her beloved Gabriella; and there, in the elegant
society to which she had owed all her early enjoyments, she prevailed
upon Harleigh to remain, till it became necessary to return to their
home, to present, upon his birth, a new heir to the enchanted Admiral.
A rising family, then, put an end to foreign excursions; but the dearest
delight of Harleigh was seeking to assemble around his Juliet her first
friends.
Lady Aurora had hardly any other home than that of her almost adored
sister, till she was installed in one, with an equal and amiable
partner, upon the same day that Lord Melbury obtained the willing hand
of the lively, natural, and feeling Lady Barbara Frankland.
Sir Jaspar Herrington, to whom Juliet had such essential obligations,
became, now that all false hopes or fanciful wishes were annihilated,
her favourite guest. He still saw her with a tenderness which he
secretly, though no longer banefully nourished; but transferred to her
rapturously attentive children, the histories of his nocturnal
intercourse with sylphs, fairies, and the destinies; while, ever awake
to the wishes of Juliet, he rescued the simple Flora from impending
destruction, by portioning her in marriage with an honest vigilant
farmer.
Scarcely less welcome than the whimsical Baronet to Juliet, nor less
happy under her roof, was the guileless and benevolent Mr Giles Arbe;
who there enjoyed, unbroken by his restless, adroit, and worldly cousin,
his innocent serenity.
Juliet sought, too, with her first power, the intuitively virtuous Dame
Fairfield; whose incorrigible husband had briefly, with the man of the
hut, paid the dread earthly penalty of increased and detected crimes.
Harleigh placed a considerable annuity upon the faithful, excellent
Ambroise; to whose care, soon afterwards, he committed the meritorious
widow, and her lovely little ones, by a marriage which ensured to them
the protection and endearments of a kind husband, and an affectionate
father.
Even Mr Tedman, when Harleigh paid him, with high interest, his three
half-guineas, was invited to Harleigh Hall; where, with no small pride,
he received thanks for the first liberality he had ever prevailed with
himself to practise.
No one to whom Juliet had ever owed any good office, was by her
forgotten, or by Harleigh neglected. They visited, with gifts and
praise, every cottage in which the Wanderer had been harboured; and
Harleigh bought of the young wood-cutters, at a high price, their dog
Dash; who became his new master's inseparable companion in his garden,
fields, and rides.
But Riley, whose spirit of tormenting, springing from bilious ill
humour, operated in producing pain and mischief like the most confirmed
malevolence; Ireton, whose unmeaning pursuits, futile changes, and
careless insolence, were every where productive of disorder, save in his
own unfeeling breast; and Selina, who, in presence of a higher or richer
acquaintance, ventured not to bestow even a smile upon the person whom,
in her closet, she treated, trusted, and caressed as her bosom friend;
these, were excluded from the happy Hall, as persons of minds
uncongenial to confidence; that basis of peace and cordiality in social
intercourse.
But while, for these, simple non-admission was deemed a sufficient mark
of disapprobation, the Admiral himself, when apprized of the adventures
of his niece, insisted upon being the messenger of positive exile to
three ladies, whom he nominated the three Furies; Mrs Howel, Mrs Ireton,
and Mrs Maple; that he might give them, he said, a hint, as it behoved a
good Christian to do, for their future amendment, of the reasons of
their exclusion. All mankind, he affirmed, would behave better, if the
good were not as cowardly as the bad are audacious.
To spare at least the pride, though he could not the softer feelings of
Elinor, Harleigh thought it right to communicate to her himself, by
letter, the news of his marriage. She received it with a consternation
that cruelly opened her eyes to the false hopes which, however
disclaimed and disowned, had still duped her wishes, and played upon her
fancy, with visions that had brought Harleigh, ultimately, to her feet.
Despair, with its grimmest horrour, grasped her heart at this
self-detection; but pride supported her spirit; and Time, the healer of
woe, though the destroyer of life, moderated her passions, in
annihilating her expectations; and, when her better-qualities found
opportunity for exertion, her excentricities, though always what were
most conspicuous in her character, ceased to absorb her whole being. Yet
in the anguish of her disappointment, 'Alas! alas!' she cried, 'must
Elinor too,--must even Elinor!--like the element to which, with the
common herd, she owes, chiefly, her support, find,--with that herd!--her
own level?--find that she has strayed from the beaten road, only to
discover that all others are pathless!'
Here, and thus felicitously, ended, with the acknowledgement of her
name, and her family, the DIFFICULTIES of the WANDERER;--a being who had
been cast upon herself; a female Robinson Crusoe, as unaided and
unprotected, though in the midst of the world, as that imaginary hero in
his uninhabited island; and reduced either to sink, through inanition,
to nonentity, or to be rescued from famine and death by such resources
as she could find, independently, in herself.
How mighty, thus circumstanced, are the DIFFICULTIES with which a FEMALE
has to struggle! Her honour always in danger of being assailed, her
delicacy of being offended, her strength of being exhausted, and her
virtue of being calumniated!
Yet even DIFFICULTIES such as these are not insurmountable, where mental
courage, operating through patience, prudence, and principle, supply
physical force, combat disappointment, and keep the untamed spirits
superiour to failure, and ever alive to hope.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Wanderer (Volume 5 of 5), by Fanny Burney