The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 2 of 5)

CHAPTER XXXIX

Nothing now appeared so urgent to Ellis, as flying the fatal sight of Harleigh. To wander again alone, to seek strange succour, new faces, and unknown haunts; to expose her helplessness, plead her poverty, and confess her mysterious, nameless situation; even to risk delay in receiving the letter upon which hung all her ultimate expectations, seemed preferable to the danger of another interview, that might lead to the most horrible of catastrophes; – if, already, the danger were not removed by a termination the most tragic.

To escape privately from Brighthelmstone, and commit to accident, since she had no motive for choice, the way that she should go, was, therefore her determination. Her debts were all paid, save what their discharge had made her incur with that very Harleigh from whom she must now escape; though to the resources which he had placed in her hands, she owed the liberation from her creditors, that gave her power to be gone; and must owe, also, the means for the very flight which she projected from himself. Severely she felt the almost culpability of an action, that risked implications of encouragement to a persevering though rejected man. But the horrour of instigating self-murder conquered every other; even the hard necessity of appearing to act wrong, at the very moment when she was braving every evil, in the belief that she was doing right.

She ordered a post-chaise, in which she resolved to go on stage; and then to wait at some decent house upon the road, for the first passing public vehicle; in which, whithersoever it might be destined, she would proceed.

At an early hour the chaise was ready; and she was finishing her preparations for removal, when a tap at her chamber-door, to which, imagining it given by the maid, she answered, 'Come in,' presented Harleigh to her affrighted view.

'Ah heaven!' she cried, turning pale with dismay, 'are you then fixed, Mr Harleigh, to rob me of peace for life?'

'Be not,' cried he, rapidly, 'alarmed! I will not cost you a moment's danger, and hardly a moment's uneasiness. A few words will remove every fear; but I must speak them myself. Elinor is at this instant out of all but wilful danger; wilful danger, however, being all that she had had to encounter, it must be guarded against as sedulously as if it were inevitable. To this end, I must leave Brighthelmstone immediately – '

'No, Sir,' interrupted Ellis; 'it is I who must leave Brighthelmstone; your going would be the height of inhumanity.'

'Pardon me, but it is to clear this mistake that, once more, I force myself into your sight. I divined your design when I saw an empty post-chaise drive up to your door; which else, at a time such as this, I should unobtrusively have passed.'

'Quick! quick!' cried Ellis, 'every moment affrights me!'

'I am gone. I cannot oppose, for I partake your fears. Elinor has demanded to see us together to-morrow morning.'

'Terrible!' cried Ellis, trembling; 'what may be her design? And what is there not to dread! Indeed I dare not encounter her!'

'There can be, unhappily, but one opinion of her purpose,' he answered: 'She is wretched, and from impatience of life, wishes to seek death. Nevertheless, the cause of her disgust to existence not being any intolerable calamity, though the most probing, perhaps, of disappointments, life, with all its evils, still clings to her; and she as little knows how to get rid of, as how to support it.'

'You cannot, Sir, mean to doubt her sincerity?'

'Far from it. Her mind is as noble as her humour and taste are flighty; yet, where she has some great end in view, she studies, in common with all those with whom the love of frame is the ruling passion, Effect, public Effect, rather than what she either thinks to be right, or feels to be desirable.'

'Alas, poor Miss Joddrel! You are still, then, Sir, unmoved – ' She stopt, and blushed, for the examining eyes of Harleigh said, 'Do you wish to see me conquered?'

Pleased that she stopt, enchanted that she blushed, an expression of pleasure illumined his countenance, which instantly drew into that of Ellis a cold severity, that chilled, or rather that punished his rising transport. Ah! thought he, was it then but conscious modesty, not anxious doubt, that mantled in her cheek?

'Pity,' he returned, 'in a woman to a man, is grateful, is lenient, is consoling. It seems an attribute of her sex, and the haughtiest of ours accepts it from her without disdain or disgrace; but pity from a man – upon similar causes – must be confined to his own breast. Its expression always seems insolent. Who is the female that could wish, that could even bear to excite it? Not Elinor, certainly! with all her excentricities, she would consider it as an outrage.'

'Give it her, then,' cried Ellis, with involuntary vivacity, 'the sooner to cure her!'

'Nay, who knows,' he smilingly returned, 'since extremes meet, that absconding may not produce the same effect? At all events, it will retard the execution of her terrible project; and to retard an act of voluntary violence, where the imagination is as ardent, the mind as restless, and the will as despotic as those of Elinor, is commonly to avert it. Some new idea ordinarily succeeds, and the old one, in losing its first moment of effervescence, generally evaporates in disgust.'

'Do not, Sir, trust to this! do not be so cruel as to abandon her! Think of the desperation into which you will cast her; and if you scruple to avow your pity, act at least with humanity, in watching, soothing, and appeasing her, while you suffer me quietly to escape; that neither the sound, nor the thought, of my existing so near her, may produce fresh irritation.'

'I see, – I feel, – ' cried he, with emotion, 'how amiable for her, – yet how barbarous for me, – is your recommendation of a conduct, my honour, from regard to her reputation, in a union to which every word that you utter, and every idea to which you give expression, make me more and more averse! – '

Ellis blushed and paused; but presently, with strengthened resolution, earnestly cried, 'If this, Sir, is the sum of what you have to say, leave me, I entreat, without further procrastination! Every moment that you persist in staying presents to me the image of Miss Joddrel, breaking from her physicians, and darting bloody and dying, into the room to surprize you!'

'Pardon, pardon me, that I should have given birth to so dreadful an apprehension! I will relieve you this instant: and omit no possible precaution to avert every danger. But that least reflexion, to a mind delicate as yours, will exculpate me from blame in not remaining at her side, – after the scene of last night, – unless I'purposed to become her permanent guardian. The tattling world would instantly unite – or calumniate us. But you, who, if you retreat, will be doubted and suspected, you, must at present, stay, and openly, clearly, and unsought, be seen. Elinor, who breathes but to spur her misery by despair, that she may end it, reserves for me, and for my presence, – to astonish, to shock, or to vanquish me, – every horrour she can devise. In my absence, rest assured, no evil will be perpetrated. 'Tis for her, then, for her sake, that you must remain, and that I must depart.'

Ellis could not contest a statement which, thus explained, appeared to be just; and, gratified by her concurrence, he no longer resisted her urgent injunctions that he would be gone. He tried, in quitting her, to seize and kiss her hand; but she drew back, with an air not to be disputed; and a look of reproach, though not of displeasure. He submitted, with a look, also, of reproach; though expressive, at the same time, of reverence and admiration mixt with the deepest regret.

Mechanically, rather than intentionally, she went to the window, when he had left her, whence she saw him cross the way, and then wistfully look up. She felt the most painful blushes mount into her cheeks, upon observing that he perceived her. She retreated like lightning; yet could not escape remarking the animated pleasure that beamed from his countenance at this surprise.

She sat down, deeply confused, and wept.

The postilion sent in the maid for orders.

She satisfied and discharged him; and then, endeavouring to dismiss all rumination upon the past, deliberated upon the course which she ought immediately to pursue.

Her musical plan once more became utterly hopeless; for what chance had she now of any private scholars? what probability of obtaining any new protection, when, to the other mysterious disadvantages under which she laboured, would be added an accusation of perjury, denounced at the horrible moment of self-destruction?

While suggesting innumerable new schemes, which, presented by desperation, died in projection, she observed a small packet upon the ground, directed to herself. The inside was sealed, but upon the cover she found these words:

'This packet was prepared to reach you by an unknown messenger; but I see that you are departing, and I must not risk its missing you. As a friend only, a disinterested, though a zealous one, I have promised to address you. Repel not, then, my efforts towards acquiescence, by withholding the confidence, and rejecting the little offices, which should form the basis of that friendship. 'Tis as your banker, only, that I presume to enclose these notes.

'A. H.'

Ellis concluded that, upon seeing the chaise at the door, he had entered some shop to write these lines.

The silence which she had guarded, relative to his former packet, from terrour of the conflicts to which such a subject might lead, had made him now, she imagined, suppose it not partially but completely expended. And can he think, she cried, that not alone I have had recourse, – unacknowledged, yet essential recourse, – to his generosity in my distress, but that I am contented to continue his pensioner?

She blushed; but not in anger: she felt that it was from his view of her situation, notions of her character, that he pressed her thus to pecuniary obligation. She would not, however, even see the amount, or contents, of what he had sealed up, which she now enclosed, and sealed up herself, with the remaining notes of the first packet.

The lines which he had written in the cover, she read a second time. If, indeed, she cried, he could become a disinterested friend!.. She was going to read them again, but checked by the suggested doubt, – the if, – she paused a moment, sighed, felt herself blush, and, with a quick motion that seemed the effect of sudden impulse, precipitately destroyed them; murmuring to herself, while brushing off with her hand a starting tear, that she would lose no time and spare no exertions, for replacing and returning the whole sum.

Yet she was forced, with whatever reluctance, to leave the development of her intentions to the chances of opportunity; for she knew not the address of Harleigh, and durst not risk the many dangers that might attend any enquiry.

A short time afterwards, she received a letter from Selina, containing a summons from Elinor for the next morning.

Mr Naird, the surgeon, had induced Mrs Maple to consent to this measure, which alone deterred Elinor from tearing open her wound; and which had extorted from her a promise, that she would remain quiet in the interval. She had positively refused to admit a clergyman; and had affronted away a physician.

Ellis could not hesitate to comply with this demand, however terrified she felt at the prospect of the storm which she might have to encounter.

The desperate state of her own affairs, called, nevertheless, for immediate attention; and she decided to begin a new arrangement, by relinquishing the far too expensive apartment which Miss Arbe had forced her to occupy.

In descending to the shop, to give notice of her intention, she heard the voice of Miss Matson, uttering some sharp reprimand; and presently, and precipitately, she was passed, upon the stairs, by a forlorn, ill-dressed, and weeping female; whose face was covered by her handkerchief, but whose air was so conspicuously superiour to her garb of poverty, that it was evidently a habit of casual distress, not of habitual indigence. Ellis looked after her with quick-awakened interest; but she hastily mounted, palpably anxious to escape remark.

Miss Matson, softened in her manners since she had been paid, expressed the most violent regret, at losing so genteel a lodger. Ellis knew well how to appreciate her interested and wavering civility; yet availed herself of it to beg a recommendation to some decent house, where she might have a small and cheap chamber; and again, to solicit her assistance in procuring some needle-work.

A room, Miss Matson replied, with immediate abatement of complaisance, of so shabby a sort as that, might easily enough be found; but as to needle-work, all that she had had to dispose of for some time past, had been given to her new lodger up two pair of stairs, who had succeeded Mr Riley; and who did it quicker and cheaper than any body; which, indeed, she had need do, for she was extremely troublesome, and always wanting her money.

'And for what else, Miss Matson,' said Ellis, dryly, 'can you imagine she gives you her work?'

'Nay, I don't say any thing as to that,' answered Miss Matson, surprised by the question: 'I only know it's sometimes very inconvenient.'

Ah! thought Ellis, must we be creditors, and poor creditors, ourselves, to teach us justice to debtors? And must those who endure the toil be denied the reward, that those who reap its fruits may retain it?

Miss Matson accepted the warning, and Ellis resolved to seek a new lodging the next day.

CHAPTER XL

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

tête à tête

.

'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

2

  During the dominion of Robespierre.

 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.'

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,