At five o'clock, on the following morning, the house of Miss Matson was
disturbed, by a hurrying message from Elinor, demanding to see Miss
Ellis without delay. Ellis, arose, with the utmost trepidation: it was
the beginning of May, and brightly light; and she accompanied the
servant back to the house.
She found all the family in the greatest disorder, from the return of
another messenger, who had been forwarded to Mr Harleigh, with the
unexpected news that that gentleman had quitted Brighthelmstone. The
intelligence was conveyed in a letter, which he had left at the hotel,
for Miss Maple; and in which another was enclosed for Elinor. Mrs Maple
had positively refused to be the bearer of such unwelcome tidings to the
sick room; protesting that she could not risk, before the surgeon and
the nurse, the rude expression which her poor niece might utter; and
could still less hazard imparting such irritating information _tete a
tete_.
'Why, then,' said Ireton, 'should not Miss Ellis undertake the job?
Nobody has had a deeper share in the business.'
This idea was no sooner started, than it was seized by Mrs Maple; who
was over-joyed to elude the unpleasant task imposed upon her by
Harleigh; and almost equally gratified to mortify, or distress, a person
whom she had been led, by numberless small circumstances, which upon
little minds operate more forcibly than essential ones, to consider as a
source of personal disgrace to her own dignity and judgement. Deaf,
therefore, to the remonstrances of Ellis, upon whom she forced the
letter, she sent for Mr Naird, charged him to watch carefully by the
side of her poor niece, desired to be called if any thing unhappy should
take place; and, complaining of a violent head-ache, retired to lie
down.
Ellis, terrified at this tremendous commission, and convinced that the
feelings and situation of Elinor were too publicly known for any attempt
at secresy, applied to Mr Naird for counsel how to proceed.
Mr Naird answered that, in cases where, as in the present instance, the
imagination was yet more diseased than the body, almost any certainty
was less hurtful than suspense. 'Nevertheless, with so excentrical a
genius,' he added, 'nothing must be risked abruptly: if, therefore, as I
presume, this letter is to acquaint the young lady, with the proper
modifications, that Mr Harleigh will have nothing to say to her; you
must first let her get some little inkling of the matter by
circumstances and surmizes, that the fact may not rush upon her without
warning: keep, therefore, wholly out of her way, till the tumult of her
wonder and her doubts, will make any species of explication medicinal.'
She had certainly, he added, some new project in contemplation; for,
after extorting from her, the preceding evening, a promise that she
would try to sleep, he heard her, when she believed him gone, exclaim,
from Cato's soliloquy:
'Sleep? Ay, yes,--This once I'll favour thee,
That may awaken'd soul may take its flight
Replete with all its pow'rs, and big with life,
An offering fit for ... Glory, Love, ... and Harleigh!'
'Our kind-hearted young ladies of Sussex,' continued Mr Naird, 'are as
much scandalized that Mr Harleigh should have the insensibility to
resist love so heroic, as their more prudent mammas that he should so
publicly be made its object. No men, however,--at least none on this
side the Channel,--can wonder that he should demur at venturing upon a
treaty for life, with a lady so expert in foreign politics, as to make
an experiment, in her own proper person, of the new atheistical and
suicidical doctrines, that those ingenious gentlemen, on t'other side
the water, are now so busily preaching for their fellow-countrymen's
destruction.[2] Challenging one's existence for every quarrel with one's
Will; and running one's self through the Body for every affront to one's
Mind; used to be thought peculiar to the proud and unbending humour of
John Bull; but John did it rarely enough to make it a subject of
gossipping, and news-paper squibs, for at least a week. Our merry
neighbours, on the contrary, now once they have set about it, do the
job with an air, and a grace, that shew us we are as drowsy in our
desperation, as we are phlegmatic in our amusements. They talk of it
wherever they go; write of it whenever they hold a pen; and are so
piqued to think that we got the start of them, in beginning the game
first, that they pop off more now in a month, than we do in a year: and
I don't in the least doubt, that their intention is to go on with the
same briskness, till they have made the balance even.'
[Footnote 2: During the dominion of Robespierre.]
Looking then archly at Ellis, 'However clever,' he added, 'this young
lady may be; and she seems an adept in their school of turning the world
upside down; she did not shew much skill in human nature, when she fired
such a broadside at the heart of the man she loved, at the very instant
that he had forgotten all the world, in his hurry to fire one himself
upon the heart of another woman.'
Ellis blushed, but was silent; and Mrs Golding, Elinor's maid, came,
soon after, to hasten Mr Naird to her mistress; who, persuaded, she
said, by their non-appearance, that Mr Harleigh had eloped with Miss
Ellis, was preparing to dress herself; and was bent to pursue them to
the utmost extremity of the earth.
Mr Naird, then, entering the room, heard her in the agitated voice of
feverish exultation, call out, 'Joy! Joy and peace, to my soul! They are
gone off together!--'Tis just what I required, to "spur my almost
blunted purpose!--"'
Ellis, beckoned by Mr Naird, now appeared.
Elinor was struck with astonishment; and her air lost something of its
wildness. 'Is Harleigh,' she cried, 'here too?'
Ellis durst not reply; nor, still less, deliver the letter; which she
dropt unseen upon a table.
Amazed at this silence, Elinor repeated her enquiries: 'Why does he not
come to me? Why will he not answer me?'
'Nay, I should think it a little odd, myself,' said Mr Naird, 'if I did
not take into consideration, that our hearing requires an approximation
that our wishes can do without.'
'Is he not yet arrived, then?--Impenetrable Harleigh! And can he sleep?
O noble heart of marble! polished, white, exquisite--but
unyielding!--Ellis, send to him yourself! Call him to me immediately! It
is but for an instant! Tell him it is but for an instant.'
Ellis tremblingly drew back. The impatience of Elinor was redoubted, and
Mr Naird thought proper to confess that Mr Harleigh could not be found.
Her vehemence was then converted into derision, and, with a contemptuous
laugh, 'You would make me believe, perhaps,' she cried, 'that he has
left Brighthelmstone? Spare your ingenuity a labour so absurd, and my
patience so useless a disgust. From me, indeed, he may be gone! for his
soul shrinks from the triumph in which it ought to glory! 'Tis pity! Yet
in him every thing seems right; every thing is becoming. Even the narrow
feelings of prudence, that curb the expansions of greatness, in him seem
graceful, nay noble! Ah! who is like him? The poor grovelling wretches
that call themselves his fellow creatures, sink into nothingness before
him, as if beings of another order! Where is he? My soul sickens to see
him once more, and then to be extinct!'
No one venturing to speak, she again resolved to seek him in person;
convinced, she said, that, since Ellis remained, he could not be far
off. This appeared to Mr Naird the moment for producing the letter.
At sight of the hand-writing of Harleigh, addressed, to herself, every
other feeling gave way to rapturous joy. She snatched the letter from Mr
Naird, blew it all around, as if to disperse the contagion of any
foreign touch, and then, in a transport of delight, pressed it to her
lips, to her heart, and again to her lips, with devouring kisses. She
would not read it, she declared, till night: all she experienced of
pleasure was too precious and too rare, not to be lengthened and enjoyed
to its utmost possible extent; yet, nearly at the same moment, she broke
the seal, and ordered every one to quit the room; that the air which
would vibrate with words of Harleigh, should be uncontaminated by any
breath but her own. They all obeyed; though Mr Naird, fearing what might
ensue, stationed himself where, unsuspectedly, he could observe her
motions. Eagerly, rapidly, and without taking breath till she came to
the conclusion, she then read aloud the following lines:
'To Miss JODDREL.
'I fly you, O Elinor, not to irritate those feelings I dare not
hope to soothe! My heart recoils, with prophetic terrour, from the
summons which you have issued for this morning. I know you too
noble to accept, as you have shewn yourself too sincere to present,
a heartless hand; but will you, therefore, blight the rest of my
existence, by making me the cause of your destruction? Will you
only seek relief to your sufferings, by means that must fix
indelible horrour on your survivors? Will you call for peace and
rest to yourself, by an action that must nearly rob me of both?
'Where death is voluntary, without considering our ultimate
responsibility, have we none that is immediate? For ourselves only
do we exist? No, generous Elinor, such has not been your plan. For
ourselves alone, then, should we die? Shall we seek to serve and to
please merely when present, that we may be served and pleased
again? Is there no disinterested attachment, that would suffer, to
spare pain to others? that would endure sooner than inflict?
'If to die be, as you hold, though as I firmly disbelieve, eternal
sleep, would you wish the traces that may remain of that period in
which you thought yourself awake, to be marked, for others, by
blessings, or by misfortune? Would you desire those whom you have
known and favoured whilst amongst them, gratefully to cherish your
remembrance, or to shrink with horrour from its recollection? Would
you bequeath to them the pleasing image of your liberal kindness,
or the terrific one of your despairing vengeance?
'To you, to whom death seems the termination of all, the
extinguisher, the absorber of unaccounted life, this airy way of
meeting, of invoking it, may appear suitable:--to me, who look
forward to corporeal dissolution but as to the opening to spiritual
being, and the period of retribution for our past terrestrial
existence; to me it seems essential to prepare for it with as much
awe as hope, as much solicitude as confidence.
'Wonder not, then, that, with ideas so different, I should fly
witnessing the crisis which so intrepidly you invite. Would you
permit your cooler reason to take the governance of your too
animated feelings, with what alacrity, and what delight, should I
seek your generous friendship!
'The Grave, you say, is the end of All, of soul and of body alike!
'Pause, Elinor!--should you be mistaken!...
'Pause!--The less you believe yourself immortal, the less you
should deem yourself infallible.
'You call upon us all, in this enlightened age, to set aside our
long, old, and hereditary prejudices. Give the example with the
charge, in setting aside those that, new, wilful, and self-created,
have not even the apology of time or habit to make them sacred; and
listen, O Elinor, to the voice and dictates of religion! Harden not
your heart against convictions that may pour balm into all its
wounds!
'Consent to see some learned and pious divine.
'If, upon every science, every art, every profession, you respect
the opinions of those who have made them their peculiar study; and
prefer their authority, and the result of their researches; to the
sallies, the loose reasoning, and accidental knowledge of those who
dispute at large, from general, however brilliant conceptions; from
partial, however ingenious investigations; why in theology alone
must you distrust the fruits of experience? the proofs of
examination? the judgement of habitual reflexion?
'Consent, then, to converse with some devout, yet enlightened
clergyman. Hear him patiently, meditate upon his doctrine
impartially; and you will yet, O Elinor, consent to live, and life
again will find its reviving, however chequered, enjoyments.
'Youth, spirits, fortune, the liveliest parts, the warmest heart,
are yours. You have only to look around you to see how rarely such
gifts are thus concentrated; and, grateful for your lot, you will
make it, by blessing others, become a blessing to yourself: and you
will not, Elinor, harrow to the very soul, the man who flattered
himself to have found in you the sincerest of friends, by a stroke
more severe to his peace than he could owe to his bitterest enemy.
'ALBERT HARLEIGH.'
The excess of the agitation of Elinor, when she came to the conclusion,
forced Mr Naird to return, but rendered her insensible to his
re-appearance. She flung off her bandages, rent open her wound, and tore
her hair; calling, screaming for death, with agonizing wrath. 'Is it for
this,' she cried, 'I have thus loved--for this I have thus adored the
flintiest of human hearts? to see him fly me from the bed of death?
Refuse to receive even my parting sigh? Make me over to a dissembling
priest?'
Ellis, returning also, urged Mr Naird, who stood aloof, stedfastly, yet
quietly fixing his eyes upon his patient, to use his authority for
checking this dangerous violence.
Without moving, or lowering his voice, though Ellis spoke in a whisper,
he drily answered, 'It is not very material.'
'How so?' cried Ellis, extremely alarmed: 'What is it you mean, Sir?'
'It cannot, now,' he replied, 'occasion much difference.'
Ellis, shuddering, entreated him to make some speedy effort for her
preservation.
He thoughtfully stroked his chin, but as Elinor seemed suddenly to
attend to them, forbore making further reply.
'What have you been talking of together?' cried she impatiently, 'What
is that man's opinion of my situation?--When may I have done with you
all? Say! When may I sleep and be at rest?--When, when shall I be no
longer the only person in this supine world, awake? He can sleep!
Harleigh can sleep, while he yet lives!--He, and all of you! Death is
not wanted to give repose to hearts of adamant!'
Ellis, in a low voice, again applied to Mr Naird; but Elinor, watchful
and suspicious, insisted upon hearing the subject of their discourse.
Mr Naird, advancing to the bed-side, said, 'Is there any thing you wish,
my good lady? Tell me if there is any thing we can do, that will procure
you pleasure?'
In vain Ellis endeavoured to give him an hint, that such a question
might lead her to surmise her danger: the perceptions of Elinor were too
quick to allow time for retraction or after precaution: the deepest
damask flushed her pallid cheeks; her eyes became wildly dazzling, and
she impetuously exclaimed, 'The time, then, is come! The struggle is
over!--and I shall quaff no more this "nauseous draught of life[3]?"'
[Footnote 3: Dryden.]
She clasped her hands in an extacy, and vehemently added,
'When--when--tell me if possible, to a moment! when eternal stillness
may quiet this throbbing breast?--when I may bid a final, glad adieu to
this detestable world, to all its servile customs, and all its
despicable inhabitants?--Why do you not speak?--Be brief, be brief!'
Mr Naird, slowly approaching her, silently felt her pulse.
'Away with this burlesque dumb shew!' cried she, indignantly. 'No more
of these farcical forms! Speak! When may your successor close these
professional mockeries? fit only for weak patients who fear your
sentence: to me, who boldly, eagerly demand it, speak reason and truth.
When may I become as insensible as Harleigh?--Colder, death itself has
not power to make me!'
Again he felt her pulse, and, while her eyes, with fiery impatience,
called for a prompt decision, hesitatingly pronounced, that if she had
any thing to settle, she could not be too expeditious.
Her countenance, her tone, her whole appearance, underwent, now, a
sudden change; and she seemed as powerfully struck as if the decree
which so earnestly she had sought, had been internally unexpected. She
sustained herself, nevertheless, with firmness; thanked him, though in a
low and husky voice, for his sincerity; and crossing her arms, and
shutting her eyes, to obviate any distraction to her ideas by
surrounding objects, delivered herself up to rapt meditation: becoming,
in a moment, as calm, and nearly as gentle, as if a stranger by nature
to violent passions, or even to strong feelings.
An impression so potent, made by the no longer doubted, and quick
approximation of that Death, which, in the vigour and pride of Life, and
Health, she had so passionately invoked, forcibly and fearfully affected
Ellis; who uttered a secret prayer, that her own preparations for an
event, which though the most indispensably common, could never cease to
be the most universally tremendous of mortality, might be frequent
enough, and cheerful enough, to take off horrour from its approach,
without substituting presumption.
After a long pause, Elinor opened her eyes; and, in a subdued voice and
manner, that seemed to stifle a struggling sigh, softly said, 'There is
no time, then, it seems, to lose? My short race is already run,--yet
already has been too long! O Harleigh! had I been able to touch your
heart!--'
Tears gushed into her eyes: she dispersed them hastily with her fingers;
and, looking around her with an air of inquietude and shame, said, with
studied composure, 'You have kindly, Mr Naird, offered me your services.
I thankfully accept them. Pursue and find, without delay, Mr Harleigh,
repeat to him what you have just pronounced, and tell him....' She
blushed deeply, sighed; checked herself, and mildly went on, 'This is no
season for pride! Tell him my situation, and that I beg, I entreat, I
conjure, I even implore him to let me once more--' Again she stopt,
almost choaked with repressed emotions; but presently, with a calmer
accent, added, 'Say to him, he will not merely soften, but delight my
last moments, in being then the sole object I shall behold, as, from the
instant that I first saw him, he has been the only one who has engaged
my thoughts:--the imperious, constant master of my mind!'
Mr Naird respectfully accepted the commission; demanding only, in
return, that she would first permit him once more to dress her wound.
This she opposed; though so faintly, that it was evident that she was
more averse to being thought cowardly, or inconsistent, than to stopping
the quicker progress of dissolution. When Mr Naird, therefore
represented, that it was sending him upon a fruitless errand, if she
meant to bleed to death in his absence, she complied. He then enjoined
her to be quiet, and went forth.
With the most perfect stillness she awaited his return; neither speaking
nor moving; and holding her watch in her hand, upon which she fixed her
eyes without intermission; except to observe, from time to time, whether
Ellis were in sight.
When he re-appeared, she changed colour, and covered her face with her
hand; but, soon removing it, and shewing a steady countenance, she
raised her head. When however, she perceived that he was alone; and,
after looking vainly towards the door, found that no one followed, she
tremulously said,
'Will he not, then, come?'
Mr Naird answered, that it had not been possible to overtake him; a
note, however, had been left at his lodgings, containing an earnest
request, that a daily written account of the patient, till the danger
should be over, might be forwarded to Cavendish Square; where it would
follow him with the utmost expedition.
Elinor now looked almost petrified.
'Danger!' she repeated: 'He knows me, then, to be in danger,--yet flies
me! And for Him I have lived;--and for Him I die!'
This reflexion destroyed all her composure; and every strong passion,
every turbulent emotion, resumed its empire over her mind. She commanded
Mr Naird from the room, forced Golding to dress her, and ordered a
chaise and four horses immediately to the door. She was desperate, she
said, and careless alike of appearances and of consequences. She would
seek Harleigh herself. His icy heart, with all its apathy, recoiled from
the sound of her last groan; but she would not spare him that little
pain, since its infliction was all that could make the end of her career
less intolerable than its progress.
She was just ready, when Mrs Maple, called up by Mr Naird, to dissuade
her niece from this enterprize, would have represented the impropriety
of the intended measure. But Elinor protested that she had finally taken
leave of all fatiguing formalities; and refused even to open the
chamber-door.
She could not, however, save herself from hearing a warm debate between
Mrs Maple and Mr Naird, in which the following words caught her ears:
'Shocking, Madam, or not, it is indispensable, if go she will, that you
should accompany her; for the motion of a carriage in her present
inflamed, yet enfeebled state, may shorten the term of your solicitude
from a few days to a few hours. I am sorry to pronounce such a
sentence; but as I find myself perfectly useless, I think it right to
put you upon your guard, before I take my leave.'
Elinor changed colour, ceased her preparations, and sunk upon the bed.
Presently, however, she arose, and commanded Golding to call Mr Naird.
'I solemnly claim from you, Mr Naird,' she cried, 'the same undisguised
sincerity that you have just practised with Mrs Maple.' Then, fixing her
eyes upon his face, with investigating severity, 'Tell me,' she
continued, 'in one word, whether you think I have strength yet left to
reach Cavendish Square?'
'If you go in a litter, Madam, and take a week to make the journey--'
'A week?--I would arrive there in a few hours!--Is that impossible?'
'To arrive?--no; to arrive is certainly--not impossible.'
'Dead, you perhaps mean?--To arrive dead is not impossible?--Speak
clearly!'
'A medical man, Madam, lives in a constant round of perplexity; for
either he must risk killing his patients by telling them unpleasant
truths; or letting them kill themselves by nourishing false hopes.'
'Take some other time for bewailing your own difficulties, Sir! and
speak to the point, without that hateful official cant.'
'Well, Madam, if nothing but rough honesty will satisfy you, bear it, at
least, with fortitude. The motion of a carriage is so likely to open
your wound, that, in all probability, before you could gain
Cuckfield--or Reigate, at furthest,--'
He stopt. Elinor finished for him: 'I should be no more?'
He was silent.
'I thank you, Sir!' she cried, in a firm voice, though with livid
cheeks. 'And pray, how long,--supposing I do just, and only, what you
bid me,--how long do you think it likely I should linger?'
'O, some days, I have no doubt. Perhaps a week.'
The storm, now, again kindled in her disordered mind: 'How!' she cried,
'have I done all this--dared, risked, braved all things human,--and not
human--to die, at last, a common death?--to expire, in a fruitless
journey, an unacknowledged, and unoffered sacrifice?--or to lie down
tamely in my bed, till I am extinct by ordinary dissolution?--'
Wringing then her hands, with mingled anguish and resentment, 'Mr
Naird,' she cried, 'if you have the smallest real skill; the most
trivial knowledge or experience in your profession; bind up my wound so
as to give me strength to speed to him! and then, though the lamp of
life should be instantly extinguished; though the same moment that
bless annihilate me, I shall be content--O more than content! I shall
expire with transport!'
Mr Naird making no reply, she went on yet more impetuously: 'Oh snatch
me,' she cried, 'snatch me from the despicable fate that threatens
me!--With energies so pure, with affections so genuine, with feelings so
unadulterated, as mine, let me not be swept from the earth, with the
undistinguished herd of common broken-hearted, broken-spirited,
love-sick fanatics! Let me but once more join Harleigh! once more see
that countenance which is life, light, and joy to my soul! hear, once
more, that voice which charms all my senses, which thrills every
nerve!--and then, that parting breath which rapturously utters,
Harleigh, I come to die in beholding thee! shall bless you, too, as my
preserver, and bid him share with you all that Elinor has to bequeath!'
She uttered this with a rapidity and agitation that nearly exhausted her
remnant strength; and, tamed by feeling her dependance upon medical
skill, she listened patiently to the counsels and propositions of Mr
Naird; in consequence of which, an express was sent to Harleigh,
explaining her situation, her inability to be removed, her request to
see him, and her immediate danger, if not kept quiet both in body and
mind.
This done, satisfied that Harleigh could not read such a letter without
hastening back, she agreed to all the prescriptions that were proposed;
and even suffered a physician to be called to the assistance of Mr
Naird, in her fear lest, if Harleigh should not be found in Cavendish
Square, she might expire, before the sole instant for which she desired
either to live or to die, should arrive.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Wanderer (Volume 2 of 5), by Fanny Burney