Upon reaching the British shore, while Mrs Maple, her niece, the elderly
lady, and two maid-servants, claimed and employed the aid of the
gentlemen, the Incognita, disregarding an offer of Harleigh to return
for her, darted forward with such eagerness, that she was the first to
touch the land, where, with a fervour that seemed resistless, she
rapturously ejaculated, 'Heaven, Heaven be praised!'
The pilot, when he had safely disembarked his passengers, committed the
charge of his vessel to a boy, and, abruptly accosting the stranger,
demanded a recompence for the risk which he had run in saving her life.
She was readily opening her work bag to seek for her purse, but the old
sea officer, approaching, and holding her arm, gravely asked whether she
meant to affront him; and, turning to the pilot, somewhat dictatorially
said, 'Harkee, my lad! we took this gentlewoman in ourselves; and I have
seen no reason to be sorry for it: but she is our passenger, and not
your's. Come to the inn, therefore, and you shall be satisfied,
forthwith, for her and the rest of us, in a lump.'
'You are infinitely good, Sir,' cried the stranger, 'but I have no
claim--.'
'That's your mistake, gentlewoman. An unprotected female, provided she's
of a good behaviour, has always a claim to a man's care, whether she be
born amongst our friends or our foes. I should be ashamed to be an
Englishman, if I held it my duty to think narrower than that. And a man
who could bring himself to be ashamed of being an Englishman, would find
it a difficult solution, let me tell you, my good gentlewoman, to
discover what he might glory in. However, don't think that I say this to
affront you as a foreigner, for I hope I am a better Christian. I only
drop it as a matter of fact.'
'Worthy Admiral,' said Mr Harleigh, now joining them, 'you are not, I
trust, robbing me of my office? The pecuniary engagement with the pilot
was mine.'
'But the authority which made him act,' returned the officer, 'was
mine.'
A bright smile, which lightened up the countenance of the Incognita,
again contrasted her white teeth with her dingy complexion; while
dispersing the tears that started into her eyes, 'Fie upon me!' she
cried, 'to be in England and surprised at generosity!'
'Gentlewoman,' said the Admiral, emphatically, 'if you want any help,
command my services; for, to my seeming, you appear to be a person of as
right a way of thinking, as if you had lisped English for your
mother-tongue.'
He then peremptorily insisted that the boat's company should discharge
the pilot, without any interference on the part of the lone traveller,
as soon as it had done with the custom-house officers.
This latter business was short; there was nothing to examine: not a
trunk, and scarcely a parcel, had the hurry and the dangers of escape
hazarded.
They then proceeded to the principal inn, where the Admiral called all
the crew, as he styled the party, to a spacious room, and a cheering
fire, of which he undertook the discipline.
The sight of this meanly attired person, invited into the apartment both
by the Admiral and Mr Harleigh, with a civility that seemed blind to her
shabby appearance, proved so miraculous a restorative to Mrs Maple,
that, rising from a great chair, into which, with a declaration that she
was half dead from her late fright and sickness, she had thrown herself,
she was endowed with sudden strength of body to stand stiffly upright,
and of lungs to pronounce, in shrill but powerful accents, 'Pray, Mr
Harleigh, are we to go on any farther as if we were to live all our
lives in a stage coach? Why can't that body as well stay in the
kitchen?'
The stranger would hastily have retired, but the Admiral, taking her
softly by the shoulder, said, 'I have been a commanding officer the best
part of my life, Gentlewoman; and though a devil of a wound has put me
upon the superannuated list, I am not sunk into quite such a fair
weather chap, as to make over my authority, in such a little pitiful
skiff's company as this, to petticoat government;--though no man has a
better respect for the sex, in its proper element; which, however, is
not the sea. Therefore, Madam,' turning to Mrs Maple, 'this gentlewoman
being my own passenger, and having comported herself without any offence
either to God or man, I shall take it kind if you will treat her in a
more Christian-like manner.'
While Mrs Maple began an angry reply, the stranger forced herself out of
the apartment. The Admiral followed.
'I hope, gentlewoman,' he was beginning, 'you won't be cast down, or
angry, at a few vagaries--' when, looking in her face, he saw a
countenance so gaily happy, that his condolence was changed into pleased
astonishment. 'Angry!' she repeated, 'at a moment such as this!--a
moment of so blessed an escape!--I should be the most graceless of
wretches, if I had one sensation but of thankfulness and joy!'
'You are a very brave woman,' said the Admiral, 'and I am sorry,'
looking at her tattered clothing, 'to see you in no better plight:
though, perchance, if you had been born to more glitter without, you
might have had less ore within. However, if you don't much like the
vapouring of that ancient lady, which I have no very extraordinary
liking to myself, neither, why stay in another room till we have done
with the pilot; and then, if I can be of any use in helping you to your
friends, I shall be glad to be at your service. For I take it for
granted, though you are not in your own country, you are too good a
woman to be without friends, as I know no worse sign of a person's
character.'
He then joined his fellow-voyagers, and the stranger went on to enquire
for the master of the house.
Sounds from without, that seemed to announce distress, catching, soon
after, the attentive ear of Harleigh, he opened the door, and perceived
that the stranger was returned to the passage, and in evident disorder.
The sea officer briskly advanced to her. 'How now!' he cried,
'disheartened at last? Well! a woman can be but a woman! However, unless
you have a mind to see all my good opinion blown away--thus!--in a
whiff, you won't think of drooping, now once you are upon British
ground. For though I should scorn, I hope, to reproach you for not being
a native born, still, not to be over-joyed that you can say, Here I am!
would be a sure way to win my contempt. However, as I don't take upon me
to be your governor, I'll send your own countryman to you, if you like
him better,--the pilot?'
'Not for the universe! Not for the universe!' she eagerly cried, and,
darting into an empty room, with a hasty apology, shut the door.
'Mighty well, indeed!' said Mrs Maple, who, catching the contagion of
curiosity, had deigned to listen; 'so her own countryman, the only
person that she ought to belong to, she shuts the door upon!'
She then protested, that if the woman were not brought forth, before the
pilot, who was already paid and gone, had re-embarked, she should always
be convinced that she had lost something, though she might not find out
what had been taken from her, for a twelve-month afterwards.
The landlord, coming forward, enquired whether there were any
disturbance; and, upon the complaint and application of Mrs Maple, would
have opened the door of the closed apartment; but the Admiral and
Harleigh, each taking him by an arm, declared the person in that room to
be under their protection.
'Well, upon my word,' cried Mrs Maple, 'this is more than I could have
expected! We are in fine hands, indeed, for a sea officer, and an
Admiral, that ought to be our safe-guard, to take part with our native
enemy, that, I make no doubt, is sent amongst us as a spy for our
destruction!'
'A lady, Madam,' said the Admiral, looking down rather contemptuously,
'must have liberty to say whatever she pleases, a man's tongue being as
much tied as his hands, not to annoy the weaker vessel; so that, let her
come out with what she will, she is amenable to no punishment; unless
she take some account of a man's inward opinion; in which case she can't
be said to escape quite so free as she may seem to do. This, Madam, is
all the remark that I think fit to make to you. But as for you, Mr
Landlord, when the gentlewoman in this room has occasion to consult you,
she speaks English, and can call you herself.'
He would then have led the way to a general retreat, but Mrs Maple
angrily desired the landlord to take notice, that a foreigner, of a
suspicious character, had come over with them by force, whom he ought to
keep in custody, unless she would tell her name and business.
The door of the apartment was now abruptly opened by the stranger, who
called out 'O no! no! no!--Ladies!--Gentlemen!--I claim your
protection!'
'It is your's, Madam!' cried Harleigh, with emotion.
'Be sure of it, Gentlewoman!' cried the old officer; 'We did not bring
you from one bad shore to another. We'll take care of you. Be sure of
it!'
The stranger wept. 'I thought not,' she cried, 'to have shed a tear in
England; but my heart can find no other vent.'
'Very pretty! very pretty, indeed, Gentlemen!' said Mrs Maple; 'If you
can answer all this to yourselves, well and good; but as I have not
quite so easy a conscience, I think it no more than my duty to inform
the magistrates myself, of my opinion of this foreigner.'
She was moving off; but the stranger rushed forth, and with an
expression of agonized affright, exclaimed, 'Stay! Madam, stay! hear but
one word! I am no foreigner,--I am English!'--
Equal astonishment now seized every one; but while they stared from her
to each other, the Admiral said: 'I am cordially glad to hear it!
cordially! though why you should have kept secret a point that makes as
much for your honour as for your safety, I am not deep enough to
determine. However, I won't decide against you, while I am in the dark
of your reasons; though I own I have rather a taste myself for things
more above board. But for all that, Ma'am, if I can be of any use to
you, make no scruple to call upon me.'
He walked back to the parlour, where all now, except Harleigh, assembled
to a general breakfast, of which, during this scene, Riley, for want of
an associate, had been doing the honors to himself. The sick lady, Mrs
Ireton, was not yet sufficiently recovered to take any refreshment; and
the young man, her son, had commanded a repast on a separate table.
Harleigh repeated to the stranger, as she returned, in trembling, to her
room, his offer of services.
'If any lady of this party,' she answered, 'would permit me to say a few
words to her not quite in public, I should thankfully acknowledge such a
condescension. And if you, Sir, to whom already I owe an escape that
calls for my eternal gratitude, if you, Sir, could procure me such an
audience--'
'What depends upon me shall surely not be left undone,' he replied; and,
returning to the parlour, 'Ladies,' he said, 'this person whom we have
brought over, begs to speak with one of you alone.'
'Alone!' repeated Mrs Maple, 'How shocking! Who can tell what may be her
designs?'
'She means that we should go out to hold a conference with her in the
passage, I suppose?' said Mrs Ireton, the sick lady, to whom the
displeasure raised by this idea seemed to restore strength and speech;
'or, perhaps, she would be so good as to receive us in the kitchen? Her
condescension is really edifying! I am quite at a loss how I shall shew
my sense of such affability.'
'What, is that black insect buzzing about us still?' cried her son, 'Why
what the deuce can one make of such a grim thing?'
'O, it's my friend the demoiselle, is it?' said Riley; 'Faith, I had
almost forgotten her. I was so confoundedly numbed and gnawn, between
cold and hunger, that I don't think I could have remembered my father, I
don't, faith! before I had recruited. But where's poor demoiselle?
What's become of her? She wants a little bleaching, to be sure; but she
has not bad eyes; nor a bad nose, neither.'
'I am no great friend to the mystical,' said the Admiral, 'but I
promised her my help while she stood in need of my protection, and I
have no tide to withdraw it, now that I presume she is only in need of
my purse. If any of the ladies, therefore, mean to go to her, I beg to
trouble them to carry this.' He put a guinea upon the table.
'Now that she is so ready to tell her story,' said Elinor, 'I am
confident that there is none to tell. While she was enveloped in the
mystical, as the Admiral phrases it, I was dying with curiosity to make
some discovery.'
'O the poor demoiselle!' cried Riley, 'why you can't think of leaving
her in the lurch, at last, ladies, after bringing her so far? Come, lend
me one of your bonnets and your fardingales, or what is it you call your
things? And twirl me a belt round my waist, and something proper about
my neck, and I'll go to her myself, as one of your waiting maids: I
will, faith!'
'I am glad, at least, niece Elinor, that this once,' said Mrs Maple,
'you are reasonable enough to act a little like me and other people. If
you had really been so wild as to sustain so glaring an impostor----'
'If, aunt?--don't you see how I am scalding my throat all this time to
run to her?' replied Elinor, giving her hand to Harleigh.
As they re-entered the passage, the stranger, rushing from her room with
a look the most scared and altered, exclaimed, that she had lost her
purse.
'This is complete!' cried Elinor, laughing; 'and will this, too,
Harleigh, move your knight-errantry? If it does--look to your heart! for
I won't lose a moment in becoming black, patched, and pennyless!'
She flew with this anecdote to the breakfast parlour; while the
stranger, yet more rapidly, flew from the inn to the sea-side, where she
carefully retraced the ground that she had passed; but all examination
was vain, and she returned with an appearance of increased dismay.
Meeting Harleigh at the door, his expression of concern somewhat calmed
her distress, and she conjured him to plead with one of the ladies, to
have the charity to convey her to London, and thence to help her on to
Brighthelmstone. 'I have no means,' she cried, 'now, to proceed unaided;
my purse, I imagine, dropt into the sea, when, so unguardedly! in the
dark, I cast there--' She stopt, looked confused, and bent her eyes upon
the ground.
'To Brighthelmstone?' repeated Harleigh; 'some of these ladies reside
not nine miles from that town. I will see what can be done.'
She merely entreated, she said, to be allowed to travel in their suite,
in any way, any capacity, as the lowest of attendants. She was so
utterly reduced by this dreadful loss, that she must else beg her way on
foot.
Harleigh hastened to execute this commission; but the moment he named
it, Elinor called out, 'Do, pray, Mr Harleigh, tell me where you have
been secreting your common sense?--Not that I mean to look for
it!--'twould despoil me of all the dear freaks and vagaries that give
zest to life!'
'Poor demoiselle!' cried Riley, throwing half a crown upon the table,
'she shall not be without my mite, for old acquaintance sake.'
'What! has she caught even you, Mr Cynical Riley?' cried Elinor; 'you,
who take as much pleasure in lowering or mortifying your
fellow-creatures, as Mr Harleigh does in elevating, or relieving them?'
'Every one after his own fashion, Miss Nelly. The best amongst us has as
little taste for being thwarted as the worst. He has, faith! We all
think our own way the only one that has any common sense. Mine, is that
of a diver: I seek always for what is hidden. What is obvious soon
surfeits me. If this demoiselle had named herself, I should never have
thought of her again; but now, I'm all agog to find her out.'
'Why does she not say who she is at once?' cried Mrs Maple. 'I give
nothing to people that I know nothing of; and what had she to do in
France? Why don't she tell us that?'
'Can such a skin, and such a garb, be worth so much breath?' demanded
Ireton, taking up a news-paper.
Harleigh enquired of Mrs Ireton, whether she had succeeded in her
purposed search, of a young woman to replace the domestic whom she had
left in France, and to attend her till she arrived at her house in town.
'No, Sir,' she answered; 'but you don't mean, I presume, to recommend
this vagabond to be about my person? I should presume not; I should
presume you don't mean that? Not but that I should be very sensible to
such a mark of distinction. I hope Mr Harleigh does not doubt that? I
hope he does not suspect I should want a proper sensibility to such an
honour?'
'If you think her a vagabond, Madam,' replied Harleigh, 'I have not a
word to offer: but neither her language nor her manners incline me to
that opinion. You only want an attendant till you reach your family, and
she merely desires and supplicates to travel free. Her object is to get
to Brighthelmstone. And if, by waiting upon you, she could earn her
journey to London, Mrs Maple, perhaps, in compassion to her pennyless
state, might thence let her share the conveyance of some of her people
to Lewes, whence she might easily find means to proceed.'
The two elderly ladies stared at each other, not so much as if
exchanging enquiries how to decline, but in what degree to resent this
proposition; while Elinor, making Harleigh follow her to a window, said,
'No, do inform me, seriously and candidly, what it is that urges you to
take the pains to make so ridiculous an arrangement?'
'Her apparently desolate state.'
'Now do put aside all those fine sort of sayings, which you know I laugh
at, and give me, instead, a little of that judgment which you so often
quarrel with me for not giving to you; and then honestly tell me, can
you really credit that any thing but a female fortune-hunter, would
travel so strangely alone, or be so oddly without resource?'
'Your doubts, Elinor, are certainly rational; and I can only reply to
them, by saying, that there are now and then uncommon causes, which,
when developed, shew the most extraordinary situations to be but their
mere simple effect.'
'And her miserable accoutrement?--And all those bruises, or sores, and
patches, and bandages?--'
'The detail, I own, Elinor, is unaccountable and ill looking: I can
defend no single particular, even to myself; but yet the whole, the
all-together, carries with it an indescribable, but irresistible
vindication. This is all I can say for befriending her.'
'Nay, if you think her really distressed,' cried Elinor, 'I feel ready
enough to be her handmaid; and, at all events, I shall make a point to
discover whom and what she may be, that I may know how to value your
judgment, in odd cases, for the future. Who knows, Harleigh, but I may
have some to propose for your decision of my own?'
The Admiral, after some deliberation, said, that, as it was certainly
possible that the poor woman might really have lost her purse, which
he, for one, believed to be the simple truth, he could not refuse to
help her on to her friends; and, ringing for the landlord, he ordered
that a breakfast should be taken to the gentlewoman in the other room,
and that a place should be secured for her in the next day's stage to
London; for all which he would immediately deposit the money.
'And pray, Mr Landlord,' said Mrs Maple, 'let us know what it was that
this body wanted, when she desired to speak with you?'
'She asked me to send and enquire at the Post-office if there were any
letter directed for L.S., to be left till called for; and when she heard
that there was none, I thought, verily, that she would have swooned.'
Elinor now warmly united with Harleigh, in begging that Mrs Maple would
let her servants take charge of the young woman from London to Lewes,
when, through the charity of the Admiral, she should arrive in town. Mrs
Maple pronounced an absolute negative; but when Elinor, not less
absolutely, declared that, in that case, she would hire the traveller
for her own maid; and the more readily because she was tired to death of
Golding, her old one, Mrs Maple, though with the utmost ill will, was
frightened into compliance; and Elinor said that she would herself carry
the good news to the Incognita.
The landlord desired to know in what name the place was to be taken.
This, also, Elinor undertook to enquire, and, accompanied by Harleigh,
went to the room of the stranger.
They found her standing pensively by the window; the breakfast, which
had been ordered for her by the Admiral, untouched.
'I understand you wish to go to Brighthelmstone?' said Elinor.
The stranger courtsied.
'I believe I know every soul in that place. Whom do you want to see
there?--Where are you to go?'
She looked embarrassed, and with much hesitation, answered, 'To ... the
Post-office, Madam.'
'O! what, you are something to the post-master, are you?'
'No, Madam ... I ... I ... go to the Post-office only for a letter!'
'A letter? Well! an hundred or two miles is a good way to go for a
letter!'
'I am not without hopes to find a friend.--The letter I had expected
here was only to contain directions for the meeting.'
'O! if your letter is to be personified, I have nothing more to say. A
man, or a woman?--which is it?'
'A woman, Madam.'
'Well, if you merely wish to go to Brighthelmstone, I'll get you
conveyed within nine miles of that place, if you will come to me, at Mrs
Maple's, in Upper Brooke-street, when you get to town.'
Surprise and pleasure now beamed brightly in the eyes of the stranger,
who said that she should rejoice to pass through London, where, also,
she particularly desired to make some enquiries.
'But we have no means for carrying you thither, except by the stage; and
one of our gentlemen offers to take a place in it for you.'
The stranger looked towards Harleigh, and confusion seemed added to her
embarrassment.
Harleigh hastily spoke. 'It is the old officer,--that truly benevolent
veteran, who wishes to serve you, and whose services, from the nobleness
of his character, confer still more honour than benefit.'
Again she courtsied, and with an air in which Harleigh observed, with
respect, not displeasure, her satisfaction in changing the object of
this obligation.
'Well, that's settled,' said Elinor; 'but now the landlord wants your
name, for taking your place.'
'My place?--Is there no machine, Madam, that sets off immediately?'
'None sooner than to-morrow. What name am I to tell him?'
'None sooner than to-morrow?'
'No; and if you do not give in your name, and secure it, you may be
detained till the next day.'
'How very unfortunate!' cried she, walking about the room.
'Well, but what is your name?'
A crimson of the deepest hue forced its way through her dark complexion:
her very eyes reddened with blushes, as she faintly answered, 'I cannot
tell my name!'
She turned suddenly away, with a look that seemed to expect resentment,
and anticipate being abandoned.
Elinor, however, only laughed, but laughed 'in such a sort' as
proclaimed triumph over Harleigh, and contempt for the stranger.
Harleigh drew Elinor apart, saying, 'Can this, really, appear to you so
ridiculous?'
'And can you, really, Harleigh, be allured by so glaring an adventurer?
a Wanderer,--without even a name!'
'She is not, at least, without probity, since she prefers any risk, and
any suspicion, to falsehood. How easily, otherwise, might she assume any
appellation that she pleased!'
'You are certainly bewitched, Harleigh!'
'You are certainly mistaken, Elinor! yet I cannot desert her, till I am
convinced that she does not merit to be protected.'
Elinor returned to the stranger. 'You do not chuse, then, to have your
place secured?'
'O yes Madam!--if it is impossible for me to attend any lady to town.'
'And what name shall you like for the book-keeper? Or what
initials?--What think you of L.S.?'
She started; and Harleigh, again taking Elinor aside, more gravely said,
'Elinor, I am glad I am not--at this moment--my brother!--for certainly
I could not forbear quarrelling with you!'
'I heartily wish, then,' cried she, with quickness, 'that,--at this
moment!--you were your brother!'
Harleigh, now, addressing the stranger, in whose air and manner distress
seemed palpably gaining ground, gently said, 'To save you any further
trouble, I will take a place in my own name, and settle with the
landlord, that, if I do not appear to claim it, it is to be made over to
the person who produces this card. The book-keeper shall have such
another for a check.'
He put into her hand a visiting ticket, on which was engraven Mr
Harleigh, and, not waiting for her thanks, conducted Elinor back to the
parlour, saying, 'Pardon me, Elinor, that I have stopt any further
enquiries. It is not from a romantic admiration of mystery, but merely
from an opinion that, as her wish of concealment is open and confessed,
we ought not, through the medium of serving her, to entangle her into
the snares of our curiosity.'
'Oh, you are decided to be always right, I know!' cried Elinor,
laughing, though piqued; 'and that is the very reason I always hate you!
However, you excite my curiosity to fathom her; so let her come to me in
town, and I'll take her under my own care, if only to judge your
discernment, by finding out how she merits your quixotism.'
Harleigh then returned to the young woman, and hesitatingly said,
'Pardon my intrusion, but--permit me, as you have so unfortunately lost
your purse-'
'If my place, Sir,' hastily interrupted the stranger, 'is taken, I can
require nothing else.'
'Yet--you have the day to pass here; and you will with difficulty exist
merely upon air, even where so delightedly you inhale it; and Miss
Joddrel, I fear, has forgotten to bring you the little offering of your
veteran friend; therefore--'
'If he has the infinite goodness to intend me any, sir, permit, at
least, that he may be my only pecuniary creditor! I shall want no
addition of that sort, to remember,--gratefully and for ever! to whom it
is I owe the deepest obligation of my life!'
Is this a house-maid? thought Harleigh; and again he rejoiced in the
perseverance with which he had supported her; and, too much respecting
her refusal to dispute it, expressed his good wishes for her welfare,
and took leave; yet would not set out upon his journey till he had again
sought to interest the old officer in her favour.
The guinea was still upon the tea-table; but the Admiral, who, in the
fear of double dealing, had conceived some ideas to the disadvantage of
the Incognita, no sooner heard that she had declined receiving any
succour except from himself, than, immediately softened, he said that he
would take care to see her well treated.
Harleigh then drove after the carriage of Mrs Maple and Elinor, who were
already on their way to London.