"You force me, Madam, to speak!" indignantly cried Juliet; "though you will not, thus publicly, force me to an explanation. For your own sake, Madam, for decency"s, if not for humanity"s sake, press me no further, till we are alone! or the blush with which you upbraid me, now, may hereafter be yours! And not a blush like mine, from the indignation of innocence injured--yet unsullied; but the blush of confusion and shame; latent, yet irrepressible!"
Rage, now, is a word inadequate to express the violent feelings of Mrs Howel, which, nevertheless, she still strove to curb under an appearance of disdain. "You would spare me, then," she cried, "this humiliation?
And you suppose I can listen to such arrogance? Undeceive yourself, young woman; and produce the contents of your work-bag at once, or expect its immediate seizure for examination, by an officer of justice."
"What, Madam, do you mean?" cried Juliet, endeavouring, but not very successfully, to speak with unconcern.
"To allow you the choice of more, or fewer witnesses to your boasted innocence!"
"If your curiosity, Madam," said Juliet, more calmly, yet not daring any longer to resist, "is excited to take an inventory of my small property, I must endeavour to indulge it."
She was preparing to untie the strings of her work-bag; when a sudden recollection of the bank-notes of Harleigh, for the possession of which she could give no possible account, checked her hand, and changed her countenance.
Mrs Howel, perceiving her embarra.s.sment, yet more haughtily said, "Will you deliver your work-bag, young woman, to Rawlins?"
"No, Madam!" answered Juliet, reviving with conscious dignity; "I will neither so far offend myself at this moment,--nor you for every moment that shall follow! I can deliver it only into your own hands."
"Enough!" cried Mrs Howel. "Rawlins, order Hilson to enquire out the magistrate of this village, and to desire that he will send to me some peace-officer immediately."
She then opened the door of a small inner room, into which she shut herself, with an air of deadly vengeance.
Mrs Rawlins, at the same time, pa.s.sed to the outer room, to summon Hilson.
Juliet, confounded, remained alone. She looked from one side to the other; expecting either that Mrs Howel would call upon her, or that Mrs Rawlins would return for further orders. Neither of them re-appeared, or spoke.
Alarmed, now, yet more powerfully than disgusted, she compelled herself to tap at the door of Mrs Howel, and to beg admission.
She received no answer. A second and a third attempt failed equally.
Affrighted more seriously, she hastened to the outer room; where a man, Hilson, she supposed, was just quitting Mrs Rawlins.
"Mrs Rawlins," she cried; "I beseech you not to send any one off, till you have received fresh directions."
Mrs Rawlins desired to know whether this were the command of her lady.
"It will be," Juliet replied, "when I have spoken to her again."
Mrs Rawlins answered, that her lady was always accustomed to be obeyed at once; and told Hilson to make haste.
Juliet entreated for only a moment"s delay; but the man would not listen.
Though from justice Juliet could have nothing to fear, the idea of being forced to own herself, when a peace-officer was sent for, to avoid being examined as a criminal, filled her with such horrour and affright, that, calling out, "Stop! stop! I beseech you stop!--" she ran after the man, with a precipitate eagerness, that made her nearly rush into the arms of a gentleman, who, at that moment, having just pa.s.sed by Hilson, filled up the way.
Without looking at him, she sought to hurry on; but, upon his saying, "I ask pardon, Ma"am, for barricading your pa.s.sage in this sort;" she recognized the voice of her first patron, the Admiral.
Charmed with the hope of succour, "Is it you, Sir?" she cried. "Oh Sir, stop that person!--Call to him! Bid him return! I implore you!--"
"To be sure I will, ma"am!" answered he, courteously taking off his hat, though appearing much amazed; and hallooing after Hilson, "Hark"ee, my lad! be so kind to veer about a bit."
Hilson, not venturing to shew disrespect to the uniform of the Admiral, stood still.
The Admiral then, putting on his hat, and conceiving his business to be done, was pa.s.sing on; and Hilson grinning at the short-lived impediment, was continuing his route; but the calls and pleadings of Juliet made the Admiral turn back, and, in a tone of authority, and with the voice of a speaking trumpet, angrily cry, "Halloo, there! Tack about and come hither, my lad! What do you go t"other way for, when a lady calls you?
By George, if they had you aboard, they"d soon teach you better manners!"
Juliet, again addressing him, said, "Oh Sir! how good you are! how truly benevolent!--Detain him but till I speak with his lady, and I shall be obliged to you eternally!"
"To be sure I will, Ma"am!" answered the wondering Admiral. "He sha"n"t pa.s.s me. You may depend upon that."
Juliet, meaning now to make her sad and forced confession, re-entered the first apartment; and was soliciting, through Mrs Rawlins, for an audience with Mrs Howel; when Hilson, surlily returning, preceded the pet.i.tioner to his lady; and complained that he had been set upon by a bully of the young woman"s.
Mrs Howel, coming forth, with a wrath that was deaf to prayer or representation, gave orders that the master of the house should be called to account for such an insult to one of her people.
The master of the house appearing, made a thousand excuses for what had happened; but said that he could not be answerable for people"s falling to words upon the stairs.
Mrs Howel insisted upon reparation; and that those who had affronted her people should be told to go out of the house; or she herself would never enter it again.
The landlord declared that he did not know how to do such a thing, for the gentleman was his honour the Admiral; who was come to spend two or three days there, from the shipping at Torbay.
If it were a general-officer who had acted thus, she said, he could certainly give some reason for his conduct; and she desired the landlord to ask it of him in her name.
In vain, during this debate, Juliet made every concession, save that of delivering her work-bag to the scrutiny of Mrs Rawlins; nothing less would satisfy the enraged Mrs Howel, who resisted all overtures for a _tete a tete_; determined publicly to humble the object of her wrath.
The Admiral, who was found standing sentinel at the door, desired an audience of the lady himself.
Mrs Howel accorded it with readiness; ordering Hilson, Mrs Rawlins, and the landlord, to remain in the room.
CHAPTER Lx.x.xVII
Mrs Howel received the Admiral, seated, with an air of state, upon her arm-chair; at one side of which stood Mrs Rawlins, and at the other Hilson. The landlord was stationed near the door; and Juliet, indignant, though trembling, placed herself at a window; determining rather, with whatever mortification, to seek the protection of the Admiral, than to avow who she was thus publicly, thus disgracefully, and thus compulsorily.
The Admiral entered with the martial air of a man used to command; and whose mind was made up not to be put out of his way. He bestowed, nevertheless, three low bows, with great formality, to the s.e.x of Mrs Howel; to the first of which she arose and courtsied, returning the two others by an inclination of the head, and bidding Hilson bring the Admiral a chair.
The Admiral, having adjusted himself, his hat, and his sword to his liking, said, "I wish you good morning, Ma"am. You won"t take it amiss, I hope, that I make free to wait upon you myself, for the sake of having a small matter of discourse with you, about a certain chap that I understand to be one of your domestics; a place whereof, if I may judge by what I have seen of him, he is not over and above worthy."
"If any of my people, Sir," answered Mrs Howel, "have forgotten what is due to an officer of your rank, I shall take care to make them sensible of my displeasure."
The Admiral, much gratified, made her a low bow, saying, "A lady, Ma"am, such as I suppose you to be, can"t fail having a right way of thinking.
But that sort of gentry, as I have taken frequent note, have an ugly kind of a knack, of treating people rather short that have got a favour to ask; the which I don"t uphold. And this is the main reason that I think it right to give you an item of my opinion upon this matter, respecting that lad; who just now, in my proper view, let a young gentlewoman call and squall after him, till she was black in the face, without so much as once veering round, to say, Pray, Ma"am, what do you please to want?"
Hilson, now, triumphant that he could plead his haste to obey the commands of his lady, was beginning an affronted self-defence; when the Admiral, accidentally perceiving Juliet, hastily arose; and in a fit of unrestrained choler, clinching his double fist at Hilson, cried, "Why what sort of a fellow are you, Sir? to bring me a chair while you see a lady standing? Which do you take to be strongest? An old weather beaten tar, such as I am; or a poor weak female, that could not lend a hand to the pump, thof the vessel were going to the bottom?"
Approaching Juliet, then with his own arm-chair, he begged her to be seated; saying, "The lad will take care to bring another to me, I warrant him! A person who has got a sc.r.a.p of gold-lace sewed upon his jacket, is seldom overlooked by that kind of gentry; for which reason I make no great account of complaisance, when I am dizened in my full dress uniform,--which, by the way, is a greater ceremony-monger than this, by thus much (measuring with his finger) more of tinsel!"
Juliet, gratefully thanking him, but declining his offer, thought this an opportunity not to be missed, to attempt, under his courageous auspice, to escape. She courtsied to him, therefore, and was walking away: but Mrs Howel, swelling with ire, already, at such civility to a creature whom she had condemned to scorn, now flamed with pa.s.sion, and openly told the landlord, to let that young woman pa.s.s at his peril.
Juliet, who saw in the anger which was mixed with the amazement of the Admiral, that she had a decided defender at hand, collected her utmost presence of mind, and, advancing to Mrs Howel, said, "I have offered to you, Madam, any explanation you may require alone; but in public I offer you none!"