Various customers, though for small purchases, had, from time to time,
interrupted, but not broken this narration. The Baronet respectfully
made way for whoever came, but resumed his place the instant that it was
vacated; spending the interval in selecting new pieces of ribbon; till,
ere the history was finished, not a remnant of that article remained
unsold. It was his purpose, he gallantly said, to present a top-knot,
for a twelve-month to come, to every fair syren who, either by face,
voice, shape, feature, complexion, size, air, or manner, should afford
him so much pleasure as to remind him, however transiently, of the
adorable haberdasher, whose taper fingers had put it into his
possession.
Gabriella interrupted these compliments, to observe, with some anxiety,
two strange men, who were sauntering up and down the street, and who,
from time to time, peeped in at the window.
'And how can they do any better?' said the Baronet; 'unless you invite
them into your apartments? 'Tis precisely what I shall enact myself, if
you turn me out of doors! Do you fancy you are to dart yourselves, you
and your mischievous partner, into as many hearts as you can find
spectators, and then bid your poor wounded gazers go lie down and bleed,
in the kennel, like so many puppies; without allowing them even a
lamenting yell, or friendly barking, to call themselves into notice
before they give up the ghost? I pity the poor caitiffs with all my
heart.
'A fellow-feeling makes one wond'rous kind!'[2]
[Footnote 2: Garrick.]
'Let me, however, hope, that the seductive tale which I have been
quaffing, has not intoxicated all my senses only to my own destruction!
that my poor nerves have not been pierced and pinched; that my feelings
have not been twitched and tweaked, and my senses scared and confounded,
only to drag my own crazy folly into fuller view!'
He paused a few minutes, during which Gabriella began making out the
account of her ribbons; and then, with a mild voice, but an arch brow,
'Hear me,' he resumed, 'my dulcet frog! for such, you know, is your
destined classification in this country; hear, and under your auspices
let me proceed. If this fair marvellous Wanderer,--in her birth no
longer an Incognita, yet an Incognita still in her history; will venture
to put herself under my protection,--honourably I mean; so don't frown!
for nothing so spoils the forehead! Besides, who can look at you, and
not mean honourably? With all your sweetness, there is a fire in your
eye, that, if I harboured a naughty idea, only for a moment, would, I
see plainly, consume me. Let us, however, talk the matter over with
becoming seriousness. It may, perchance, be less difficult than you may
imagine, to establish your fair journeywoman's rights.'
'O make the attempt, then,' cried Gabriella; 'exert yourself in so noble
a trial!'
'A little activity,' he continued, 'and a great deal of menacing,
adroitly put in play, will now and then do wonders. A little money, too,
dexterously handled, rarely does much harm. When Lord Denmeath sees all
these at work, take my word for it, he will think twice, before he will
let them operate upon the public. We like mighty well to reap the fruits
of our address in the world; but we have a sagacious tendency to keeping
our ways and means to ourselves. Lord Denmeath, after all, as a worldly
man, does but his office, in putting to sleep his conscience for the
better keeping awake his interest. This is simply in the ordinary course
of things: but, when the blood that is youthful is not generous; when
life is begun with the crafty hardness that years, experience, and
disappointment have given to those who are ending it; when we see even
striplings, who ought to be made up of wild romance, and credulous
enthusiasm, meanly, basely, heartlessly, for a few pitiful thousands,
suffer an orphan to be cheated, despoiled of her rank in life, and made
an alien to her country, as well as to her family;--then it is, that I
curse Vanity as an imp of darkness, and Pride as a demon of hell! When a
boy like Lord Melbury, a young girl such as Lady Aurora--'
'They are innocent, Sir Jaspar! they are noble! they are faultless!'
called out Juliet, eagerly returning to the shop; 'they dream not of my
claims; they have not the most distant idea that I have the honour to
belong to their house. Innocent? they are meritorious! Conceiving me
simply a helpless, unpatronized, and indigent Wanderer, they have
treated me with a kindness, a consideration, an heavenly benevolence,
that, towards a stranger so forlorn, could have been dictated only by
the most angelic of natures!'
'Astonishing! incredible!' exclaimed Sir Jaspar. 'What! do they not know
your story? Have you made no appeal to their justice, their affections?'
'You will cease, Sir, to wonder, and cease also, I hope, to question me,
when I tell you that here, even here, I have not made my situation
known! here, even here,--to the friend of my heart, the confidant of my
life, the loved and honoured descendant of the house by which I have
been preserved, and from which alone I hope for protection! Judge then,
how powerful must be my motives for secresy! And she,--she submits to my
silence! Too high-minded for distrust, too nobly mistress of herself for
impatience; and conscious that even a wish, expressed, would to me have
the force of a command, she waits my time! She knows the most dire and
barbarous obstacles could alone lead me to reserve and concealment,
where my softest consolation would be openness and sympathy!'
Gabriella could offer no answer but by wide extended arms, with which
Juliet, gushing into tears, was fondly encircled; while the Baronet,
touched, amazed, and enchanted, repeatedly wiped his eyes; when
Gabriella, observing, again, at the window, one of the men of whom she
had spoken, whispered Juliet to compose herself, or to retire.
There was not time: Riley, who had seen her, bounced into the shop.
'Ah, ha, I have caught you at last, have I, Demoiselle?' he cried,
rubbing his hands with joy. 'I could not devise where the deuce you had
hidden yourself. I only knew you were in some shabby little bit of a
shop in this street. And who do you think is my author for this
intelligence?--Won't you guess?--Why Surly! your old friend, Surly!'
Apprehensive of some attack similar to that which she had endured at
Brighthelmstone, Juliet ventured not to speak, though she felt too
anxious to withdraw: while Sir Jaspar, extremely curious, repeated, 'Old
Surly?' in a tone that invited explanation.
'The same, faith! He's come over o' purpose to hunt you out,
Demoiselle.'
'Me?' cried Juliet, changing colour; 'and why?--And who is he?'
'Who is he? Well! that's droll, faith! Why you have not forgotten your
old crony, the pilot?'
Juliet looked down, to conceal the alarm with which she was seized.
'Why, I'll tell you how it all happened,' continued Riley, mounting upon
the counter, as he might have mounted upon his horse; 'I'll tell you how
it all happened. About a month ago, in one of my rambles, I met Master
Surly; and, for old acquaintance sake, I was prodigiously glad to see
him: for I like, as a curiosity, to shew John Bull a Mounseer that i'n't
a milk-sop. So we talked over our voyage; but when I told him that I had
met with the Demoiselle at Brighthelmstone; and that she had cast off
her slough, and was grown a beauty; he asked me a hundred questions, and
said that, most likely, she was a person of whom he was in search; and
after whom there had been a great hue and cry.'
Juliet now opened various small drawers, shutting them almost at the
same moment; but always with her face turned from Riley.
'Well, we parted, and I saw no more of him, and thought no more of him
neither, faith! till this very morning, when I popt upon him, all at
once, in Piccadilly. And then, he told me that he was just come from
Brighthelmstone, where he had been looking for you.'
Juliet though in a tremour that shook her whole frame, faintly said,
'And why?'
'Because, by my account of you, he was satisfied you must be the very
person that he was commissioned to find.'
Juliet now seemed scarcely able to sustain herself. Gabriella and Sir
Jaspar saw, with deep concern, her emotion; but Riley, unobservant, went
on.
'At Brighton, he had discovered that you had journied up to town, in the
stage. And he came up after you, in the very same carriage, only
yesterday. And, by means of a boy at the inn, who had called your
hackney-coach, he had just found out coachy; who informed him, that he
had set down a pretty young damsel, that had arrived from Brighton about
a week ago, at a small shop in Frith-street, Soho. Upon that, I offered
to help him in his search; and we jogged on to these quarters together:
for I always liked you, Demoiselle, and always had a prodigious mind to
know who you were. But the deuce a bit would you ever tell me. So we
have been sauntering and maundering up and down the street, one on one
side, and t'other on t'other, in search of you; peeping and peering into
every shop, and lounging and squinting at every window. We have had the
devil of a job of it to find you, Demoiselle; we have, faith!--But my
best sport will be to make Monsieur Surly look you full in the face, as
I did myself, without knowing you! though he pretends that that's all
one. The French always say that to every thing that they don't like;
_c'est egal!_ cries Monsieur, whenever he's put out of his way. However,
old Surly stands to it, that he shall discover you in a twinkling; for
he's got your description.'
'My description?' Juliet repeated; in a tone of terrour.
'Ay; and there he is, faith! on t'other side the way! An old owl!' cried
Riley; striding to the door, and calling aloud, 'Surly! old Surly! Come
over, Mounseer Surly!'
Juliet was now precipitately gliding into the little room; but Sir
Jaspar, intercepting her flight, warmly entreated, whatever might be her
fears or her difficulties, to be accepted as her protector: and, while
she was struggling, with speechless impatience, to pass him, the pilot,
pulled into the shop by Riley, stood full before her; stared hardily in
her face; looked at a paper which he held in his hand, and, grinning
horribly a scoffing smile, walked away, without speaking.
Juliet, who seemed nearly fainting, was drawn tenderly into the
adjoining room by Gabriella; who was herself in almost equal
consternation.
'A pretty feat you have performed here, Sir! An admirable exploit!' said
Sir Jaspar, angrily, to Riley; who, laughing heartily at the savage
satisfaction of the pilot, had re-mounted the counter. 'And what sort of
man must you be to find it so dulcet and recreative, to give chace to a
timid, defenceless lamb?'
'What sort of man?' returned Riley; 'faith, I don't know! I don't,
faith! But who does? If you can tell me the man who knows himself,
you'll do more than has been done yet since the days of old Adam. I
never trouble myself with vain researches, and combinations, and
developments, and metaphysical analysings. What do they do for us,
beside cracking our skulls? They only leave us where they found us;
forced to eat and drink, and sleep and wake, and live and die, just the
same, since all the discoveries of Newton, as we did before we knew a
square from an angle.'
'O ho, you are a philosopher, Sir, then, are you?' said Sir Jaspar; 'a
Cynic? guided by contempt of mankind?'
'Not a whit! I only follow my humour. If that happens to please my
friends, so much the better; if not, I am but little "of the melting
mood;" I go on all the same. I never stop to weigh opinion in the scale
of my proceedings.'
'And do you never weigh humanity, neither, Sir? the feelings of others?
the good or ill of society?'
'No! I never think of all that. I let the world take its own course, as
I take mine. I have long had a craving desire to know who this girl is;
and she would never tell me. Her obstinacy doubles my curiosity; and
when my curiosity gets at the helm, it does just what it will with me.
It does, faith!'
Gabriella, now returning, demanded of Riley what business detained him
in the shop, with an air of dignity that surprised him into making
something like an apology; to which he added, that he only stayed to
have a little further parley with the demoiselle.
That young lady was indisposed, and could be spoken to no more.
'Indisposed?' he repeated; 'I am sorry for that! I am, faith! Poor
demoiselle! she has been liberal enough of diversion to me, one way or
another. However, I shall soon discover who she is; for I know where to
catch Master Surly; and he says he is promised a thumping reward, if he
finds that she is the right person. He is but an agent, poor Surly: but
he expects his principal, with the cash, over every hour; if he i'n't
landed already.'
Gabriella, who had returned to the little parlour, perceived, now, that
the face of Juliet looked convulsed with horrour. She procured her a
glass of hartshorn and water; and entreated the Baronet, who seemed
transfixed with concern, to force Riley away; and to be gone, also,
himself.
Sir Jaspar could not refuse compliance; but neither could he deny
himself advancing, for an instant, to say, in a low voice, to Juliet,
'Bow not down your lovely head, sweet lilly! I have friends who will
find means to succour and protect you, be who will your assaulter!'
Offering Riley, then, a place in his chariot, and dropping, as he
passed, his purse into the till-box, he drove off, with his new
acquaintance.
For some minutes, excess of terrour robbed Juliet of speech, and of all
power of exertion; but when, by the cares and soothings of Gabriella,
she was, in some degree, restored, 'Oh my beloved friend!' she cried,
'we must part again,--immediately part!'
A tear stole down the cheek of Gabriella as she heard this
annunciation; but she offered no remonstrance; she permitted herself no
enquiry; her eye alone said, 'Why, why this!'
Juliet saw, but shrunk from this mute eloquence, hastily arranging
herself for going out; making up a packet of linen to carry in her hand,
and hanging a loaded work-bag upon her arm.
Casting herself, then, into the arms of her friend, 'Oh my Gabriella,'
she cried, 'I must fly,--instantly fly!--or entail a misery upon the
rest of my existence too horrible for description! Whither,--which way
to go, I know not,--but I must be hidden from all mankind!--To-morrow I
will write to you;--constantly I will write to you,--dear, generous,
noblest of friends, farewell, farewell!'
They embraced, mingled their tears, embraced again, and separated.