Escape and immediate safety thus secured, her tender friendship for
Gabriella superseding all fear, and leaving behind all solicitude, made
Juliet nearly pronounce aloud, what internally she repeated without
intermission, 'I come to you, then, at last, my beloved Gabriella!'
Cheerful, therefore, was her heart, in defiance of her various
distresses: she was quitting Mrs Ireton, to join Gabriella!--What could
be the circumstances that could make such a change severe to Juliet?
Juliet, who felt ill treatment more terribly than misfortune; and to
whom kindness was more essential than prosperity?
Her journey was free from accident, and void of event. Absorbed in her
own ruminations, she listened not to what was said, and scarcely saw by
whom she was surrounded; though her fellow-travellers surveyed her with
curiosity, and, from time to time, assailed her with questions.
Arrived at London, she put herself into a hackney-coach; and, almost
before her fluttered spirits suffered her to perceive that she had left
the inn-yard, she found herself in a haberdasher's shop, in Frith
Street, Soho; and in the arms of her Gabriella.
It was long ere either of them could speak; their swelling hearts denied
all verbal utterance to their big emotions; though tears of poignant
grief at the numerous woes by which they had been separated, were
mingled with feelings of the softest felicity at their re-union.
Yet vaguely only Juliet gave the history of her recent difficulties; the
history which had preceded them, and upon which hung the mystery of her
situation, still remained unrevealed.
Gabriella forbore any investigation, but her look shewed disappointment.
Juliet perceived it, and changed colour. Tears gushed into her eyes,
and her head dropt upon the neck of her friend. 'Oh my Gabriella!' she
cried, 'if my silence wounds, or offends you,--it is at an end!'
Gabriella, instantly repressing every symptom of impatience, warmly
protested that she would await, without a murmur, the moment of
communication; well satisfied that it could be withheld from motives
only that would render its anticipation dangerous, if not censurable.
With grateful tears, and tenderest embraces, Juliet expressed her thanks
for this acquiescence.
Of Gabriella, the history was brief and gloomy. She had entered into
business with as little comprehension of its attributes, as taste for
its pursuit; her mind, therefore, bore no part in its details, though
she sacrificed to them the whole of her time. Of her son alone she could
speak or think. From her husband she reaped little consolation. Married
before the Revolution, from a convent, and while yet a child; according
to the general custom of her country, which rarely permits any choice
even to the man; and to the female allows not even a negative; chance
had not, as sometimes is kindly the case, played the part of election,
in assorting the new married couple. Gabriella was generous, noble, and
dignified: exalted in her opinions, and full of sensibility: Mr ---- was
many years older than herself, haughty and austere, though brave and
honourable; but so cold in his nature, that he was neither struck with
her virtues nor her graces, save in considering them as appendages to
their mutual rank; nor much moved even by the death of his little son,
but from repining that he had lost the heir to his illustrious name. He
was now set off, _incognito_, to an appointed meeting with a part of his
family, upon the continent.
Again a new scene of life opened to Juliet. The petty frauds, the
over-reaching tricks, the plausible address, of the craft shop-keeper in
retail, she had already witnessed: but the difficulties of honest trade
she had neither seen nor imagined. The utter inexperience of Gabriella,
joined to the delicacy of her probity, made her not more frequently the
dupe of the artifices of those with whom she had to deal, than the
victim of her own scruples. New to the mighty difference between buying
and selling; to the necessity of having at hand more stores than may
probably be wanted, for avoiding the risk of losing customers from
having fewer; and to the usage of rating at an imaginary value whatever
is in vogue, in order to repair the losses incurred from the failure of
obtaining the intrinsic worth of what is old-fashioned or faulty;--new
to all this, the wary shop-keeper's code, she was perpetually mistaken,
or duped, through ignorance of ignorance, which leads to hazards,
unsuspected to be hazards.
Repairs for the little shop were continually wanted, yet always
unforeseen; taxes were claimed when she was least prepared to discharge
them; and stores of merchandize accidentally injured, were obliged to be
sold under prime cost, if not to be utterly thrown away.
Unpractised in every species of business, she had no criterion whence to
calculate its chances, or be aware of its changes, either from varying
seasons or varying modes; and to all her other intricacies, there was
added a perpetual horrour of bankruptcy, from the difficulty of
accelerating payment for what she sold, or of procrastinating it for
what she bought.
Every embarrassment, however, at this period, was accommodated by
Juliet; who had the exquisite satisfaction not only to bring to her
beloved friend personal consolation, but solid and effectual comfort.
The purse of Lord Melbury, which Juliet would only consider as the loan
of Lady Aurora, was but little lightened by the small expences of the
short journey from Brighthelmstone; and all that remained of its
contents were instantly assigned to relieving the most painful of the
distresses of Gabriella, those in which others were involved through her
means.
Gabriella, with a grace familiar, if not peculiar, to her nation, of
sharing, without the confusion of false pride, the offerings of tender
friendship, or generous sympathy, accepted with noble frankness the
assistance thus proposed; though Juliet again was obliged to hide her
face from the enquiring eye, that seemed strangely to wonder whence this
resource arose, and why its spring was concealed.
Juliet now became a partner in all the occupations and cares of her
friend: together they prepared the shop for their customers every
morning, and decked it out to attract passers bye; together they
examined and re-arranged their goods every night; cast up their
accounts, deposited sums for their creditors, and entered claims into
their books for their debtors: together they sat in the shop, where one
served and waited upon customers, and the other aided the household
economy by the industry of her needle. Yet, laborious as might seem this
existence to those who had known 'other times,' Juliet, by the side of
Gabriella, thought every employment delightful; Gabriella, in the
society of Juliet, felt every exertion lightened, and every sorrow
softened.