"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 r.e.t.a.r.d the execution of her terrible project; and to r.e.t.a.r.d 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sured, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sistance 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 _tete a tete_.
"Why, then," said Ireton, "should not Miss Ellis undertake the job?
n.o.body 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Suss.e.x," 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] 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 amus.e.m.e.nts. 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."
[Footnote 2: During the dominion of Robespierre.]
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.