The affairs of Mrs Maple kept her a week longer in London; but the
impatience of the Wanderer to reach Brighthelmstone, was compelled to
yield to an utter inability of getting thither unaided. During this
period, she gathered, from various circumstances, that Elinor had been
upon the point of marriage with the younger brother of Harleigh, a
handsome and flourishing lawyer; but that repeated colds, ill treated,
or neglected, had menaced her with a consumption, and she had been
advised to try a change of climate. Mrs Maple accompanied her to the
south of France, where she had resided till her health was completely
re-established. Harleigh, then, in compliment to his brother, who was
confined by his profession to the capital, crossed the Channel to attend
the two ladies home. They had already arrived at ---- on their return,
when an order of Robespierre cast them into prison, whence enormous
bribes, successful stratagems, and humane, though concealed assistance
from some compassionate inhabitants of the town, enabled them, in common
with the Admiral, the Iretons, and Riley, to effect their escape to a
prepared boat, in which, through the friendly darkness of night, they
reached the harbour of their country and their wishes.
The stranger learnt also from Elinor, by whom secresy or discretion were
as carelessly set aside, as by herself they were fearfully practised,
that young Ireton, urged by a rich old uncle, and an entailed estate, to
an early marriage, after addressing and jilting half the women of
England, Scotland, and Ireland, had run through France, Switzerland, and
Italy, upon the same errand; yet was returned home heart-whole, and
hand-unshackled; but that, she added, was not the extraordinary part of
the business, male coquets being just as common, and only more
impertinent than female; all that was worth remarking, was his conduct
for the last few days. Some accounts which he had to settle with her
aunt, had obliged him to call at their house, the morning after their
arrival in London. He then saw Selina, Elinor's younger sister, a wild
little girl, only fourteen years of age, who was wholly unformed, but
with whom he had become so desperately enamoured, that, when Mrs Maple,
knowing his character, and alarmed by his assiduities, cautioned him not
to make a fool of her young niece, he abruptly demanded her in marriage.
As he was very rich, Mrs Maple had, of course, Elinor added, given her
consent, desiring only that he would wait till Selina reached her
fifteenth birth-day; and the little girl, when told of the plan, had
considered it as a frolic, and danced with delight.
During this interval, the time of the stranger was spent in the tranquil
employment of needle-work, for which she was liberally supplied with
cast-off materials, to relieve her necessities, from the wardrobe of
Elinor, through whose powerful influence she was permitted to reside
entirely up stairs. Here she saw only her protectress, into whose
apartment Mrs Maple did not deign, and no one else dared, to intrude
unbidden. The spirit of contradiction, which was termed by Elinor the
love of independence, fixed her design of supporting the stranger, to
whom she delighted to do every good office which Mrs Maple deemed
superfluous, and whom she exulted in thus exclusively possessing, as a
hidden curiosity. But when she found that no enquiry produced any
communication, and that nothing fresh offered for new defiance to Mrs
Maple, a total indifference to the whole business took place of its
first energy, and the young woman, towards the end of the week, fell
into such neglect that it was never mentioned, and hardly even
remembered, that she was an inhabitant of the house.
When the morning, most anxiously desired by herself, for the journey to
Lewes, arrived, she heard the family engaged in preparations to set off,
yet received no intimation how she was to make one of the party. With
great discomfort, though with tolerable patience, she awaited some
tidings, till the sound of carriages driving up to the street door,
alarmed her with apprehensions of being deserted, and, hastily running
down stairs, she was drawn by the voice of Elinor to the door of the
breakfast-parlour; but the sound of other voices took from her the
courage to open it, though the baggage collected around her shewed the
journey so near, that she deemed it unsafe to return to her chamber.
In a few minutes, Harleigh, loaded with large drawings, crossed the
hall, and, observing her distress, enquired into its cause.
She wished to speak to Miss Joddrel.
He entered the parlour, and sent out Elinor, who, exclaiming, 'O, it's
you, is it? Mercy on me! I had quite forgotten you!--' ran back, crying,
'Aunt, here's your old friend, the grim French voyager! Shall she come
in?'
'Come in? What for, Miss Joddrel? Because Mr Harleigh was so kind as to
make a hoy of my boat, does it follow that you are to make a booth of my
parlour?'
'She is at the door!' said Harleigh, in a low voice.
'Then she is at her proper place; where else should such a sort of body
be?'
Harleigh took up a book.
'O, but do let her come in, Aunt, do let her come in!' cried the young
Selina. 'I was so provoked at not seeing her the other day, that I could
have cried with pleasure! and sister Elinor has kept her shut up ever
since, and refused me the least little peep at her.'
The opposition of Mrs Maple only the more strongly excited the curiosity
of Selina, who, encouraged by the clamorous approbation of Elinor, flew
to the door.
There, stopping short, she called out, 'La! here's nothing but a young
woman!--La! Aunt, I'm afraid she's run away!'
'And if she is, Niece, we shall not break our hearts, I hoped not but,
if she's decamped, it's high time I should enquire whether all is safe
in the house.'
'Decamped?' cried Elinor, 'Why she's at the door! Don't you know her,
Aunt? Don't you see her, Ireton?'
The stranger, abashed, would have retreated. Harleigh, raising his eyes
from his book, shook his head at Elinor, who, laughing and regardless,
seized the hand of the young person, and dragged her into the parlour.
'Who is this?' said Mrs Maple.
'Who, Aunt? Why your memory is shorter than ever! Don't you recollect
our dingy French companion, that you took such a mighty fancy to?'
Mrs Maple turned away with angry contempt; and the housekeeper, who had
been summoned, appearing, orders were given for a strict examination
whether the swarthy traveller, who followed them from France, were
gone.
The stranger, changing colour, approached Elinor, and with an air that
claimed her protection, said, 'Will you not, Madam, have the goodness to
explain who I am?'
'How can I,' cried Elinor, laughing, 'when I don't know it myself?'
Every one stared; Harleigh turned round; the young woman blushed, but
was silent.
'If here is another of your Incognitas, Miss Joddrel,' said Mrs Maple,
'I must beg the favour that you'll desire her to march off at once. I
don't chuse to be beset by such sort of gentry quite so frequently.
Pray, young woman, what is it you want here?'
'Protection, Madam, and compassion!' replied the stranger, in a tone of
supplication.
'I protest,' said Mrs Maple, 'she has just the same sort of voice that
that black girl had! and the same sort of cant! And pray, young woman,
what's your name?'
'That's right, Mrs Maple, that's right!' cried Ireton; 'make her tell
her name!'
'To be sure I shall!' said Mrs Maple, seating herself on a sofa, and
taking out her snuff-box. 'I have a great right to know the name of a
person that comes, in this manner, into my parlour. Why do you not
answer, young woman?'
The stranger, looking at Elinor, clasped her hands in act of entreaty
for pity.
'Very fine, truly!' said Mrs Maple: 'So here's just the second edition
of the history of that frenchified swindler!'
'No, no, Aunt; it's only the sequel to the first part, for it's the same
person, I assure you. Did not you come over with us from France,
Mademoiselle? In the same boat? and with the same surly pilot?'
The stranger silently assented.
Mrs Maple, now, doubly enraged, interrogated her upon the motives of her
having been so disfigured, with the sternness and sharpness of
addressing a convicted cheat.
The stranger, compelled to speak, said, with an air of extreme
embarrassment, 'I am conscious, Madam, how dreadfully all appearances
are against me! Yet I have no means, with any prudence, to enter into an
explanation: I dare not, therefore, solicit your good opinion, though my
distress is so urgent, that I am forced to sue for your assistance,--I
ought, perhaps, to say your charity!'
'I don't want,' said Mrs Maple, 'to hear all that sort of stuff over
again. Let me only know who you are, and I shall myself be the best
judge what should be done for you. What is it, then, once for all, that
you call yourself? No prevarications! Tell me your name, or go about
your business.'
'Yes, your name! your name!' repeated Elinor.
'Your name! your name!' echoed Selina.
'Your name! your name!' re-echoed Ireton.
The spirits and courage of the stranger seemed now to forsake her; and,
with a faultering voice, she answered, 'Alas! I hardly know it myself!'
Elinor laughed; Selina tittered; Ireton stared; the leaves of the book
held by Harleigh were turned over with a speed that shewed how little
their contents engaged him; and Mrs Maple, indignantly swelling,
exclaimed, 'Not know your own name? Why I hope you don't come into my
house from the Foundling Hospital?'
Harleigh, throwing down his book, walked hastily to Mrs Maple, and said,
in a low voice, 'Yet, if that should be the case, would she be less an
object of compassion? of consideration?'
'What your notions may be upon such sort of heinous subjects, Mr
Harleigh,' Mrs Maple answered, with a look of high superiority, 'I do
not know; but as for mine, I think encouraging things of that kind, has
a very immoral tendency.'
Harleigh bowed, not as acquiescent in her opinion, but as declining to
argue it, and was leaving the room, when Elinor, catching him by the
arm, called out, 'Why, Harleigh! what are you so sour for? Are you,
also, angry, to see a clean face, and a clean gown? I'll make the
demoiselle put on her plasters and patches again, if that will please
you better.'
This forced him to smile and to stay; and Elinor then ended the
inquisition, by proposing that the stranger should go to Lewes in the
chaise with Golding, her own maid, and Fenn, Mrs Maple's housekeeper.
Mrs Maple protested that she would not allow any such indulgence to an
unknown pauper; and Mrs Fenn declared, that there were so many hats,
caps, and things of consequence to take care of, that it would be
impossible to make room for a mouse.
Elinor, ever alert to carry a disputed point, felt her generosity doubly
excited to support the stranger; and, after some further, but
overpowered opposition from Mrs Maple, the hats, caps, and things of
consequence were forced to submit to inferior accommodation, and the
young woman obtained her request, to set off for Sussex, with the
housekeeper and Elinor's maid.