Nothing now appeared so urgent to Ellis, as flying the fatal sight of
Harleigh. To wander again alone, to seek strange succour, new faces, and
unknown haunts; to expose her helplessness, plead her poverty, and
confess her mysterious, nameless situation; even to risk delay in
receiving the letter upon which hung all her ultimate expectations,
seemed preferable to the danger of another interview, that might lead to
the most horrible of catastrophes;--if, already, the danger were not
removed by a termination the most tragic.
To escape privately from Brighthelmstone, and commit to accident, since
she had no motive for choice, the way that she should go, was, therefore
her determination. Her debts were all paid, save what their discharge
had made her incur with that very Harleigh from whom she must now
escape; though to the resources which he had placed in her hands, she
owed the liberation from her creditors, that gave her power to be gone;
and must owe, also, the means for the very flight which she projected
from himself. Severely she felt the almost culpability of an action,
that risked implications of encouragement to a persevering though
rejected man. But the horrour of instigating self-murder conquered every
other; even the hard necessity of appearing to act wrong, at the very
moment when she was braving every evil, in the belief that she was doing
right.
She ordered a post-chaise, in which she resolved to go on stage; and
then to wait at some decent house upon the road, for the first passing
public vehicle; in which, whithersoever it might be destined, she would
proceed.
At an early hour the chaise was ready; and she was finishing her
preparations for removal, when a tap at her chamber-door, to which,
imagining it given by the maid, she answered, 'Come in,' presented
Harleigh to her affrighted view.
'Ah heaven!' she cried, turning pale with dismay, 'are you then fixed,
Mr Harleigh, to rob me of peace for life?'
'Be not,' cried he, rapidly, 'alarmed! I will not cost you a moment's
danger, and hardly a moment's uneasiness. A few words will remove every
fear; but I must speak them myself. Elinor is at this instant out of all
but wilful danger; wilful danger, however, being all that she had had to
encounter, it must be guarded against as sedulously as if it were
inevitable. To this end, I must leave Brighthelmstone immediately--'
'No, Sir,' interrupted Ellis; 'it is I who must leave Brighthelmstone;
your going would be the height of inhumanity.'
'Pardon me, but it is to clear this mistake that, once more, I force
myself into your sight. I divined your design when I saw an empty
post-chaise drive up to your door; which else, at a time such as this, I
should unobtrusively have passed.'
'Quick! quick!' cried Ellis, 'every moment affrights me!'
'I am gone. I cannot oppose, for I partake your fears. Elinor has
demanded to see us together to-morrow morning.'
'Terrible!' cried Ellis, trembling; 'what may be her design? And what is
there not to dread! Indeed I dare not encounter her!'
'There can be, unhappily, but one opinion of her purpose,' he answered:
'She is wretched, and from impatience of life, wishes to seek death.
Nevertheless, the cause of her disgust to existence not being any
intolerable calamity, though the most probing, perhaps, of
disappointments, life, with all its evils, still clings to her; and she
as little knows how to get rid of, as how to support it.'
'You cannot, Sir, mean to doubt her sincerity?'
'Far from it. Her mind is as noble as her humour and taste are flighty;
yet, where she has some great end in view, she studies, in common with
all those with whom the love of frame is the ruling passion, Effect,
public Effect, rather than what she either thinks to be right, or feels
to be desirable.'
'Alas, poor Miss Joddrel! You are still, then, Sir, unmoved--' She
stopt, and blushed, for the examining eyes of Harleigh said, 'Do you
wish to see me conquered?'
Pleased that she stopt, enchanted that she blushed, an expression of
pleasure illumined his countenance, which instantly drew into that of
Ellis a cold severity, that chilled, or rather that punished his rising
transport. Ah! thought he, was it then but conscious modesty, not
anxious doubt, that mantled in her cheek?
'Pity,' he returned, 'in a woman to a man, is grateful, is lenient, is
consoling. It seems an attribute of her sex, and the haughtiest of ours
accepts it from her without disdain or disgrace; but pity from a
man--upon similar causes--must be confined to his own breast. Its
expression always seems insolent. Who is the female that could wish,
that could even bear to excite it? Not Elinor, certainly! with all her
excentricities, she would consider it as an outrage.'
'Give it her, then,' cried Ellis, with involuntary vivacity, 'the sooner
to cure her!'
'Nay, who knows,' he smilingly returned, 'since extremes meet, that
absconding may not produce the same effect? At all events, it will
retard the execution of her terrible project; and to retard an act of
voluntary violence, where the imagination is as ardent, the mind as
restless, and the will as despotic as those of Elinor, is commonly to
avert it. Some new idea ordinarily succeeds, and the old one, in losing
its first moment of effervescence, generally evaporates in disgust.'
'Do not, Sir, trust to this! do not be so cruel as to abandon her! Think
of the desperation into which you will cast her; and if you scruple to
avow your pity, act at least with humanity, in watching, soothing, and
appeasing her, while you suffer me quietly to escape; that neither the
sound, nor the thought, of my existing so near her, may produce fresh
irritation.'
'I see,--I feel,--' cried he, with emotion, 'how amiable for her,--yet
how barbarous for me,--is your recommendation of a conduct, my honour,
from regard to her reputation, in a union to which every word that you
utter, and every idea to which you give expression, make me more and
more averse!--'
Ellis blushed and paused; but presently, with strengthened resolution,
earnestly cried, 'If this, Sir, is the sum of what you have to say,
leave me, I entreat, without further procrastination! Every moment that
you persist in staying presents to me the image of Miss Joddrel,
breaking from her physicians, and darting bloody and dying, into the
room to surprize you!'
'Pardon, pardon me, that I should have given birth to so dreadful an
apprehension! I will relieve you this instant: and omit no possible
precaution to avert every danger. But that least reflexion, to a mind
delicate as yours, will exculpate me from blame in not remaining at her
side,--after the scene of last night,--unless I'purposed to become her
permanent guardian. The tattling world would instantly unite--or
calumniate us. But you, who, if you retreat, will be doubted and
suspected, you, must at present, stay, and openly, clearly, and
unsought, be seen. Elinor, who breathes but to spur her misery by
despair, that she may end it, reserves for me, and for my presence,--to
astonish, to shock, or to vanquish me,--every horrour she can devise. In
my absence, rest assured, no evil will be perpetrated. 'Tis for her,
then, for her sake, that you must remain, and that I must depart.'
Ellis could not contest a statement which, thus explained, appeared to
be just; and, gratified by her concurrence, he no longer resisted her
urgent injunctions that he would be gone. He tried, in quitting her, to
seize and kiss her hand; but she drew back, with an air not to be
disputed; and a look of reproach, though not of displeasure. He
submitted, with a look, also, of reproach; though expressive, at the
same time, of reverence and admiration mixt with the deepest regret.
Mechanically, rather than intentionally, she went to the window, when he
had left her, whence she saw him cross the way, and then wistfully look
up. She felt the most painful blushes mount into her cheeks, upon
observing that he perceived her. She retreated like lightning; yet could
not escape remarking the animated pleasure that beamed from his
countenance at this surprise.
She sat down, deeply confused, and wept.
The postilion sent in the maid for orders.
She satisfied and discharged him; and then, endeavouring to dismiss all
rumination upon the past, deliberated upon the course which she ought
immediately to pursue.
Her musical plan once more became utterly hopeless; for what chance had
she now of any private scholars? what probability of obtaining any new
protection, when, to the other mysterious disadvantages under which she
laboured, would be added an accusation of perjury, denounced at the
horrible moment of self-destruction?
While suggesting innumerable new schemes, which, presented by
desperation, died in projection, she observed a small packet upon the
ground, directed to herself. The inside was sealed, but upon the cover
she found these words:
'This packet was prepared to reach you by an unknown messenger; but
I see that you are departing, and I must not risk its missing you.
As a friend only, a disinterested, though a zealous one, I have
promised to address you. Repel not, then, my efforts towards
acquiescence, by withholding the confidence, and rejecting the
little offices, which should form the basis of that friendship.
'Tis as your banker, only, that I presume to enclose these notes.
'A. H.'
* * * * *
Ellis concluded that, upon seeing the chaise at the door, he had entered
some shop to write these lines.
The silence which she had guarded, relative to his former packet,
from terrour of the conflicts to which such a subject might lead,
had made him now, she imagined, suppose it not partially but completely
expended. And can he think, she cried, that not alone I have had
recourse,--unacknowledged, yet essential recourse,--to his generosity in
my distress, but that I am contented to continue his pensioner?
She blushed; but not in anger: she felt that it was from his view of her
situation, notions of her character, that he pressed her thus to
pecuniary obligation. She would not, however, even see the amount, or
contents, of what he had sealed up, which she now enclosed, and sealed
up herself, with the remaining notes of the first packet.
The lines which he had written in the cover, she read a second time. If,
indeed, she cried, he could become a disinterested friend!... She was
going to read them again, but checked by the suggested doubt,--the
if,--she paused a moment, sighed, felt herself blush, and, with a quick
motion that seemed the effect of sudden impulse, precipitately destroyed
them; murmuring to herself, while brushing off with her hand a starting
tear, that she would lose no time and spare no exertions, for replacing
and returning the whole sum.
Yet she was forced, with whatever reluctance, to leave the development
of her intentions to the chances of opportunity; for she knew not the
address of Harleigh, and durst not risk the many dangers that might
attend any enquiry.
A short time afterwards, she received a letter from Selina, containing a
summons from Elinor for the next morning.
Mr Naird, the surgeon, had induced Mrs Maple to consent to this measure,
which alone deterred Elinor from tearing open her wound; and which had
extorted from her a promise, that she would remain quiet in the
interval. She had positively refused to admit a clergyman; and had
affronted away a physician.
Ellis could not hesitate to comply with this demand, however terrified
she felt at the prospect of the storm which she might have to encounter.
The desperate state of her own affairs, called, nevertheless, for
immediate attention; and she decided to begin a new arrangement, by
relinquishing the far too expensive apartment which Miss Arbe had forced
her to occupy.
In descending to the shop, to give notice of her intention, she heard
the voice of Miss Matson, uttering some sharp reprimand; and presently,
and precipitately, she was passed, upon the stairs, by a forlorn,
ill-dressed, and weeping female; whose face was covered by her
handkerchief, but whose air was so conspicuously superiour to her garb
of poverty, that it was evidently a habit of casual distress, not of
habitual indigence. Ellis looked after her with quick-awakened interest;
but she hastily mounted, palpably anxious to escape remark.
Miss Matson, softened in her manners since she had been paid, expressed
the most violent regret, at losing so genteel a lodger. Ellis knew well
how to appreciate her interested and wavering civility; yet availed
herself of it to beg a recommendation to some decent house, where she
might have a small and cheap chamber; and again, to solicit her
assistance in procuring some needle-work.
A room, Miss Matson replied, with immediate abatement of complaisance,
of so shabby a sort as that, might easily enough be found; but as to
needle-work, all that she had had to dispose of for some time past, had
been given to her new lodger up two pair of stairs, who had succeeded Mr
Riley; and who did it quicker and cheaper than any body; which, indeed,
she had need do, for she was extremely troublesome, and always wanting
her money.
'And for what else, Miss Matson,' said Ellis, dryly, 'can you imagine
she gives you her work?'
'Nay, I don't say any thing as to that,' answered Miss Matson, surprised
by the question: 'I only know it's sometimes very inconvenient.'
Ah! thought Ellis, must we be creditors, and poor creditors, ourselves,
to teach us justice to debtors? And must those who endure the toil be
denied the reward, that those who reap its fruits may retain it?
Miss Matson accepted the warning, and Ellis resolved to seek a new
lodging the next day.