Elinor was writing, and too intently occupied to heed the opening of the door. The motion of her hand was so rapid, that her pen seemed rather to skim over, than to touch her paper. Ellis gently approached her; but, finding that she did not raise her head, ventured not even to announce that her orders had been executed.
At length, her paper being filled, she looked up, and said, "Well! is he there?"
"I have delivered to him, Madam, your commands."
"Then," cried she, rising with an exulting air, "the moment of my triumph is come! Yes, Harleigh! if meanly I have offered you my person, n.o.bly, at least, I will consecrate to you my soul!"
Hastily rolling up what she had been writing, and putting it into a desk, "Ellis!" she added, "Mark me well! should any accident betide me, here will be found the last and unalterable codicil to my will. It is signed, but not witnessed: it is not, however, of a nature to be disputed; it is to desire only that Harleigh will take care that my bones shall be buried in the same charnel-house, in which he orders the interment of his own. All that remains, finally, of either of us, there, at least, may meet!"
Ellis turned cold with horrour. Her first idea was to send for Mrs Maple; yet that lady was so completely without influence, that any interference on her part, might rather stimulate than impede what it was meant to oppose. It seemed, therefore, safest to trust wholly to Harleigh.
The eyes of Elinor were wild and fierce, her complexion was livid, her countenance was become haggard; and, while she talked of triumph, and fancied it was what she felt, every feature exhibited the most tortured marks of impetuous sorrow, and ungoverned disappointment.
She took from her bureau the s.h.a.green case which she had so fondly caressed, and which Ellis concluded to contain some portrait, or cherished keep-sake of Harleigh; and hurried down stairs. Ellis fearfully followed her. No one happened to be in the way, and she was already in the garden, when, turning suddenly round, and perceiving Ellis, "Oh ho!" she cried, "you come unbidden? you are right; I shall want you."
She then precipitately entered the summer-house, in which Harleigh was awaiting her in the keenest anxiety.
His disturbance was augmented upon observing her extreme paleness, though she tried to meet him with a smile. She shut and bolted the door, and seated herself before she spoke.
a.s.suming then a mien of austerity, though her voice betrayed internal tremour, "Harleigh!" she cried, "be not alarmed. I have received your answer!--fear not that I shall ever expect--or would, now, even listen to another! "Tis to vindicate, not to lower my character that I am here.
I have given you, I am aware, a great surprise by what you conceive to be my weakness; prepare yourself for a yet greater, from an opposite cause. I come to explain to you the principles by which I am actuated, clearly and roundly; without false modesty, insipid affectation, or artful ambiguity. You will then know from what plan of reasoning I adopt my measures; which as yet, believing to be urged only by my feelings, you attribute, perhaps,--like that poor scared Ellis, to insanity."
Ellis forced a smile, and, seating herself at some distance, tried to wear the appearance of losing her apprehensions; while Harleigh, drawing a chair near Elinor, a.s.sured her that his whole mind was engaged in attention to what she might disclose.
Her voice now became more steady, and she proceeded.
"You think me, I know, tarnished by those very revolutionary ideas through which, in my own estimation, I am enn.o.bled. I owe to them that I dare hold myself intellectually, as well as personally, an equal member of the community; not a poor, degraded, however necessary appendent to it: I owe to them my enfranchis.e.m.e.nt from the mental slavery of subscribing to unexamined opinions, and being governed by prejudices that I despise: I owe to them the precious privilege, so shamefully new to mankind, of daring to think for myself. But for them--should I not, at this moment, be pining away my lingering existence, in silent consumption? They have rescued me from that slow poison!"
"In what manner," said Harleigh, "can I presume--"
She interrupted him. "Imagine not I am come to reproach you! or, still less, to soften you!" She stopt, confused, rose, and again seated herself, before she could go on. "No! littleness of that description belongs not to such energies as those which you have awakened! I come but, I repeat, to defend myself, from any injurious suspicion, of having lightly given way to a mere impulse of pa.s.sion. I come to bring you conviction that reason has guided my conduct; and I come to solicit a boon from you,--a last boon, before we separate for ever!"
"I am charmed if you have anything to ask of me," said Harleigh, "that my zeal, my friendship, my attachment, may find some vent; but why speak of so solemn a separation?"
"You will grant, then, what I mean to request?"
"What can it be I could refuse?"
"Enough! You will soon know. Now to my justification. Hear me, Harleigh!"
She arose, and, clasping her hands, with strong, yet tender, emotion, exclaimed. "That I should love you--" She stopt. Shame crimsoned her skin. She covered her face with both her hands, and sunk again upon her chair.
Harleigh was strongly and painfully affected. "O Elinor!" he cried, and was going to take her hand; but the fear of misinterpretation made him draw back; and Elinor, almost instantly recovering, raised her head, and said, "How tenacious a tyrant is custom! how it clings to our practice!
how it embarra.s.ses our conduct! how it awes our very nature itself, and bewilders and confounds even our free will! We are slaves to its laws and its follies, till we forget its usurpation. Who should have told me, only five minutes ago, that, at an instant such as this; an instant of liberation from all shackles, of defiance to all forms; its antique prescriptions should still retain their power to confuse and torment me?
Who should have told me, that, at an instant such as this, I should blush to p.r.o.nounce the attachment in which I ought to glory? and hardly know how to articulate.... That I should love you, Harleigh, can surprise no one but yourself!"
Her cheeks were now in flames; and those of Harleigh were tinted with nearly as high a colour. Ellis fixed her eyes stedfastly upon the floor.
Shocked, in despite of her sunk expectations, that words such as these could be heard by Harleigh in silence, she resumed again the haughty air with which she had begun the conference.
"I ought not to detain you so long, for a defence so unimportant. What, to you, can it matter, that my valueless preference should be acknowledged from the spur of pa.s.sion, or the dictates of reason?--And yet, to the receiver, as well as to the offerer, a sacrifice brings honour or disgrace, according to its motives. Listen, therefore, for both our sakes, to mine: though they may lead you to a subject which you have long since, in common with every man that breathes, wished exploded, the Rights of woman: Rights, however, which all your s.e.x, with all its arbitrary a.s.sumption of superiority, can never disprove, for they are the Rights of human nature; to which the two s.e.xes equally and unalienably belong. But I must leave to abler casuists, and the slow, all-arranging ascendence of truth, to raise our oppressed half of the human species, to the equality and dignity for which equal Nature, that gives us Birth and Death alike, designs us. I must spend my remaining moments in egotism; for all that I have time to attempt is my personal vindication. Harleigh! from the first instant that I saw you--heard you--knew you--"
She breathed hard, and spoke with difficulty; but forced herself on.
"From that first instant, Harleigh! I have lived but to cherish your idea!"
Her features now regained their highest expression of vivacity; and, rising, and looking at him with a sort of wild rapture, "Oh Harleigh!"
she continued, "have I attained, at last, this exquisite moment? What does it not pay of excruciating suspense, of hateful, laborious forebearance and unnatural self-denial? Harleigh! dearest Harleigh! you are master of my soul! you are sovereign of my esteem, my admiration, my every feeling of tenderness, and every idea of perfection!--Accept, then, the warm homage of a glowing heart, that beats but for you; and that, beating in vain, will beat no more!"
The crimson hue now mounted to her forehead, and reddened her neck: her eyes became l.u.s.trous; and she was preparing, with an air of extacy, to open the s.h.a.green case, which she had held folded to her bosom, when Harleigh, seizing her hand, dropt on one knee, and, hardly conscious of what he did, or what he felt, from the terrible impression made by a speech so full of love, despair, and menace, exclaimed, "Elinor! you crown me, then, with honours, but to kill me with torture?"
With a look of softness new to her features, new to her character, and emanating from sensations of delight new to her hopes, Elinor sunk gently upon her chair, yet left him full possession of her hand; and, for some instants, seemed silent from a luxury of inward enjoyment. "Is it Harleigh," she then cried, "Albert Harleigh, I see at my feet? Ah!
what is the period, since I have known him, in which I would not joyfully have resigned all the rest of my life, for a sight, a moment such as this! Dear, dear, delicious poison! thrill, thrill through my veins! throb at my heart! new string every fibre of my frame! Is it, then, granted me, at last, to see thee thus? and thus dare speak to thee? to give sound to my feelings; to allow utterance of my love? to dare suffer my own breath to emit the purest flame that ever warmed a virgin heart?--Ah! Harleigh! proud Harleigh!--"
Harleigh, embarra.s.sed had risen, though without quitting her hand, and re-seated himself.
"Proud, proud Harleigh!" she continued, angrily s.n.a.t.c.hing away her hand; "you think even this little moment of sympathy, too long for love and Elinor! you fear, perhaps, that she should expect its duration, or repet.i.tion? Know me, Harleigh, better! I come not to sue for your compa.s.sion,--I would not accept it!--Elinor may fail to excite your regard, but she will never make you blush that you have excited hers. My choice itself speaks the purity of my pa.s.sion, for are not Harleigh and Honour one?"
She paused to recover some composure, and then went on.
"You have attached neither a weak, giddy, unguarded fool, nor an idly wilful or romantic voluptuary. My defence is grated upon your character as much as upon my own. I could divide it into many branches; but I will content myself with only striking at its root, namely, the Right of woman, if endowed with senses, to make use of them. O Harleigh! why have I seen you wiser and better than all your race; sounder in your judgment, more elegant in your manners, more spirited in your conduct;--lively though benevolent,--gentle, though brilliant,--Oh Albert! Albert! if I must listen to you with the same dull ears, look at you with the same unmarking eyes, and think of you with the same unmeaning coldness, with which I hear, see, and consider the time-wearing, spirit-consuming, soul-wasting tribe, that daily press upon my sight, and offend my understanding? Can you ask, can you expect, can you wish to doom half your species to so degraded a state? to look down upon the wife, who is meant for the companion of your existence; and upon the mother, of whose nature you must so largely partake; as upon mere sleepy, slavish, uninteresting automatons? Say! speak! answer, Harleigh! can such be your lordly, yet most unmanly desire?"
"And is it seriously that Elinor would have me reply to such a question?"
"No, Harleigh! your n.o.ble, liberal nature answers it in every word, in every look! You accord, then,--you conceive, at least, all that const.i.tutes my defence, in allowing me the use of my faculties; for how better can I employ them than in doing honour to excellence? Why, for so many centuries, has man, alone, been supposed to possess, not only force and power for action and defence, but even all the rights of taste; all the fine sensibilities which impel our happiest sympathies, in the choice of our life"s partners? Why, not alone, is woman to be excluded from the exertions of courage, the field of glory, the immortal death of honour,--not alone to be denied deliberating upon the safety of the state of which she is a member, and the utility of the laws by which she must be governed:--must even her heart be circ.u.mscribed by boundaries as narrow as her sphere of action in life? Must she be taught to subdue all its native emotions? To hide them as sin, and to deny them as shame?
Must her affections be bestowed but as the recompence of flattery received; not of merit discriminated? Must every thing that she does be prescribed by rule? Must everything that she says, be limited to what has been said before? Must nothing that is spontaneous, generous, intuitive, spring from her soul to her lips?--And do you, even you, Harleigh, despise unbidden love!"
"No, Elinor, no!--if I durst tell you what I think of it--"
He stopt, embarra.s.sed.
"I understand you, Harleigh; you know not how to find expressions that may not wound me? Well! let me not pain you. Let us hasten to conclude.
I have spoken all that I am now capable to utter of my defence; nothing more remains but the boon I have to beg. Harleigh!--if there be a question you can resolve me, that may mitigate the horrour of my destiny, without diminishing its glory--for glory and horrour go hand in hand! would you refuse me--when I solicit it as a boon?--would you refuse, Harleigh, to satisfy me, even though my demand should be perplexing? could you, Harleigh, refuse me?--And at such a moment as this?"
"No, certainly not!"
"Tell me, then, and fear not to be sincere. Is it to some other attachment--" a sort of shivering fit stopt her for a moment, but she recovered from it by a pride that seemed to burn through every vein, as she added, "or is it to innate repugnance that I owe your dislike?"
"Dislike? repugnance?" Harleigh repeated, with quickness, "can Elinor be, at once, so generous and so unjust? Can she delineate her own feelings with so touching and so glowing a pencil, yet so ill describe, or so wilfully fail in comprehending mine?"
"Dare, then, to be ingenuous, and save me, Harleigh,--if with truth you can, the depression, the shame, of being rejected from impenetrable apathy! I ought, I know, to be above such narrow punctilio, and to allow the independence of your liberty; but I did not fall into the refining hands of philosophy, early enough to eradicate wholly from my mind, all dregs of the clinging first impressions of habit and education. Say, then, Harleigh, if it be in your power so to say, that it is not a free heart which thus coldly disdains me; that it is not a disengaged mind which refuses me its sympathy! that it is not to personal aversion, but to some previous regard, that I owe your insensibility! To me the event will be the same, but the failure will be less ign.o.ble."
"How difficult, O Elinor!--how next to impossible such a statement makes every species of answer!"
"At a period, Harleigh, awful and finite to our intercourse like this, fall not into what I have hitherto, with so much reverence, seen you, upon all occasions, superiour to, subterfuge and evasion! Be yourself, Harleigh!--what can you be more n.o.ble? and plainly, simply let me into the cause, since you cannot conceal from me the effect. Speak, then! Is it but in the sullen majesty of masculine superiority,
"Lord of yourself, unc.u.mber"d by a wife,"[8]
that you fly all marriage-bonds, with insulated, haughty singleness? or is it that, deceived by my apparent engagement, your heart never asked itself the worth of mine, till already all its own pulsations beat for another object?"