Fortunately for the intentions of Juliet, which were instantly to make known to Mrs Pierson the new danger of her daughter, Flora waited not for any answer to this injunction; but set out, prattling incessantly as they went on, to put the willing Juliet on her way to Lewes.
The cry, however, from young Gooch, of "Come! Where are the young ladies? The pig"s ready!" caught the ears of Flora, with charm not to be resisted; and, hastily pointing out a style, to pa.s.s into the meadow, and another, to pa.s.s thence to the high road, she capered briskly back; fearing to miss some of the sport, if not a seat next to the Baronet.
CHAPTER L
Juliet, as earnest to avoid, as Flora felt eager to pursue, the opening feats, hurried from the destined spot, after charging the simple damsel not to make known her departure. Unavailing, however, was the caution; and immaterial alike the prudence or the indiscretion of Flora: Juliet had no sooner crossed the first style, than she perceived Sir Lyell Sycamore sauntering in the meadow.
She would promptly have returned to the farm, but a shout of noisy merriment reached her ears from the company that she was quitting, and pointed out the danger of pa.s.sing the evening in the midst of such turbulent and vulgar revelry. She hastened, therefore, on; but neither the lightness of her step, nor the swiftness of her speed, could save her from the quick approach of the Baronet. "My angel!" he cried, "whither are you going? and why this prodigious haste? What is it my angel fears? Can she suppose me rascal enough, or fool enough, to make use of any violence? No, my angel, no! I only ask to be regaled, from your own sweet lips, with the delicious tale of divine partiality, that the quaint old knight began revealing. I sigh, I pant to hear confirmed--"
"Hold, Sir Lyell!" interrupted Juliet. "If Sir Jaspar is the author of this astonishing mistake, I trust he will have the honour to rectify it.
When I named you to him, it was but with a view to rescue a credulous young creature from your pursuit, whom I feared it might injure; not to expose to it one whom it never can endanger; however deeply it may offend."
Struck and disappointed at the courage and coolness of this explanation, Sir Lyell looked mortified and amazed; but, upon seeing her reach the style, he sprang over it, and, recovering his usual effrontery, offered her his hand.
Juliet knew not whether her risk were greater to proceed or to return; but while she hesitated, a phaeton, which was driving by, stopt, and an elderly lady, addressing the Baronet, in a tone of fawning courtesy, enquired after his health, and added, "So you are come to this famous junket, Sir Lyell?"
Sir Lyell forced a laugh, and bowed low; though he muttered, loud enough for Juliet to hear, "What cursed spies!"
Juliet now perceived Mrs and Miss Brinville; and neither innocence, nor contempt of calumny, could suppress a rising blush, at being surprised, by persons already unfavourably disposed towards her, in a situation apparently so suspicious.
The countenance of the mother exhibited strong chagrin at sight of Juliet; while the daughter, in a tone of pique, said, "No doubt but you are well amused, Sir Lyell?"
They drove on; not, however, very fast, and with so little self-command, as frequently to allow themselves to look back. This indelicacy, however ill adapted to raise them in the esteem of the Baronet, at least rescued Juliet from his persecution. Disconcerted himself, he felt the necessity of decency; and, quitting her, with affected carelessness, he hummed an air, while grumbling curses, and, swinging his switch to and fro, walked off; not more careful that the ladies in the phaeton should see him depart, than a.s.siduous to avoid with them any sort of junction.
The relief caused to Juliet by his retreat, was cruelly clouded by her terrour of the false suggestions to which this meeting made her liable.
Neither mother nor daughter would believe it accidental; nor credit it to have been contrived without equal guilt in both parties. Is there no end, then, she cried, to the evils of defenceless female youth? And, even where actual danger is escaped, must slander lie in wait, to misconstrue the most simple actions, by surmising the most culpable designs?
Neither to follow the footsteps of Sir Lyell, nor to remain where he might return, she was going back to the farm; when she was met by Flora, who, with a species of hysterical laughter, nearly of kin to crying, called out, "So Ma"am! so Miss Ellis! I"ve caught you at last! I"ve surprised you at last! a-courting with my sweetheart!"
Pitying her credulous ignorance, Juliet would have cleared up this mistake; but the petulant Flora would not listen. "I"ll speak to the gentleman myself!" she cried, running forward to the style; "for I have found out your design; so it"s of no use to deny it! I saw you together all the way I came; so you may as well not try to make a ninny of me, Miss Ellis, for it i"n"t so easy!"
Catching a glimpse of the Baronet as he descended the road, she jumped over the style to run after him; but seeing him look round, and, though he perceived her, quietly walk on, she stopt, crying bitterly: "Very well, Miss Ellis! very well! you"ve got your ends! I see that! and, I don"t thank you for it, I a.s.sure you, for I liked him very well; and it i"n"t so easy to find a man of quality every day; so it i"n"t doing as you"d be done by; for n.o.body likes much to be forsaken, no more than I, I believe, for it i"n"t so agreeable. And I had rather you had not served me so by half! In particular for a man of quality!"
Juliet, though vainly, was endeavouring to appease and console her, when a young lady, bending eagerly from the window of a post chaise which was pa.s.sing by, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Ellis!" and Juliet, with extreme satisfaction, perceived Elinor.
The chaise stopt, and Juliet advanced to it with alacrity; but before she could speak, the impatient Elinor, still looking pale, meagre, and wretched, burst forth, with rapid and trembling energy, into a string of disordered, incoherent, scarcely intelligible interrogatories. "Ellis!
what brings you to this spot?--Whither is it you go?--What project are you forming?--What purpose are you fulfilling?--Whom are you flying--Whom are you following?--What is it you design?--What is it you wish?--Why are you here alone?--Where--Where--"
Leaning, then, still further out of the window, she fixed her nearly haggard, yet piercing eyes upon those of Juliet, and, in a hollow voice, dictatorially added: "Where--tell me, I charge you! where--is Harleigh?"
Consternation at sight of her altered countenance, and affright at the impetuosity of her questions, produced a hesitation in the answer of Juliet, that, to the agitated Elinor, seemed the effect of surprised guilt. Her pallid cheeks then burnt with the mixed feelings of triumph and indignation; yet her voice sought to disguise her wounded feelings, and in subdued, though broken accents, ""Tis well!" she cried, "You no longer, at least, seek to deceive me, and I thank you!" Deaf to explanation or representation, she then hurried her weak frame from the chaise, aided by her foreign lackey; and, directing Juliet to follow, crossed the road to a rising ground upon the Downs; seated herself; sent off her a.s.sistant, and made Juliet take a place by her side; while Flora returned, crying and alone, to the farm.
"Now, then," she said, "that you try no more to delude, to cajole, to blind me, tell me now, and in two words,--where is Harleigh?"
"Believe me, Madam,--" Juliet was tremblingly beginning, when Elinor, casting off the little she had a.s.sumed of self-command, pa.s.sionately, cried, "Must I again be played upon by freezing caution and duplicity?
Must I die without end the lingering death of cold inaction and uncertainty? breathe for ever without living? Where, I demand, is Harleigh? Where have you concealed him? Why will Harleigh, the n.o.ble Harleigh, degrade himself by any concealment? Why stoop to the subtilty of circ.u.mspection, to spare himself the appearance of destroying one whose head, heart, and vitals, all feel the reality of the destruction he inflicts? And yet not he! No, no! "tis my own ruthless star! He loves me not! he is not responsible for my misery, though he is master of my fate! Where is he? where is he? You,--who are the tyrant of his! tell me, and at once!"
"I solemnly protest to you, Madam, with the singleness of the most scrupulous truth," cried Juliet, recovering her presence of mind, "I am entirely ignorant of his abode, his occupations, and his intentions." Ah why, she secretly added, am I not equally unacquainted with his feelings and his wishes!
Unable to discredit the candour with which this was p.r.o.nounced, and filled with wonder, yet involuntarily consoled, the features of Elinor lost their rigidity, and her eyes their fierceness; and, in milder accents, she replied, "Strange! how strange! Where, then, can he be?--with whom?--how employed?--Does he fly the whole world as well as Elinor? Has no one his society?--no one his confidence?--his society, which, by contrast, makes all existence without it disgusting!--his confidence, which, to obtain, I would yet live, though doomed daily to the rack! O Harleigh! love like mine, who has felt?--love like mine, who but you, O matchless Harleigh! ever inspired!"
Tears now gushed into her eyes. Ashamed, and angry with herself, she hastily brushed them off with the back of her hand, and, with forced vivacity, continued, "He thinks, perchance, to sicken me into the pining end of a love-sick consumption? to avert the kindly bowl or dagger, that cut short human misery, for the languors, the sufferings, and despair of a loathsome natural death? And for what?--to restore, to preserve me?
No! I have no share in the arrangement; no interest, no advantage from the plan. Appearances alone are considered; all else is regarded as immaterial; or sacrificed. And he, Harleigh, the n.o.blest,--the only n.o.ble of men!--can level himself with the narrowest and most illiberal of his race, to pay coward obeisance to appearances!"
Again she then repeated her personal interrogatories to Juliet; and demanded whether she should set off immediately for Gretna Green, with Lord Melbury; or whether she must wait till he should be of age.
"Neither!" Juliet solemnly answered; and frankly recounted her recent difficulties; and entreated the advice of Elinor for adopting another plan of life.
Elinor, interrupting her, said, "Nay, "twas your own choice, you know, to live in a garret, and hem pocket-handkerchiefs."
"Choice, Madam! Alas! deprived of all but personal resource, I fixed upon a mode of life that promised me, at least, my mental freedom. I was not then aware how imaginary is the independence, that hangs for support upon the uncertain fruits of daily exertions! Independent, indeed, such situations may be deemed from the oppressions of power, or the tyrannies of caprice and ill humour; but the difficulty of obtaining employment, the irregularity of pay, the dread of want,--ah! what is freedom but a name, for those who have not an hour at command from the subjection of fearful penury and distress?"
"If all this is so," said Elinor, "which, unless you wait for Lord Melbury"s majority, is more than incomprehensible; what say you, now, to an asylum safe, at least, from torments of this sort;--will you commission me, at length, to apply to Mrs Ireton?"
Juliet, instinctively, recoiled at the very name of that lady; yet a little reflection upon the dangers to which she was now exposed, through unprotected poverty; through the lawless pursuit of Sir Lyell Sycamore; and the vindictive calumnies of the Brinvilles, made the wish of solid safety repress the disgusts of offended sensibility; and, after a painful pause, she recommended herself to the support of Elinor: resolving to accept, for the moment, any proposition, that might secure her an honourable refuge from want and misconception.
Elinor, looking at her suspiciously, said, "And Harleigh?--Will he let you submit to such slavery?"
Mr Harleigh, Juliet protested, could have no influence upon her determination.
"But you yourself, who a month or two ago, could so ill bear her tauntings, how is it you are thus suddenly endued with so much humility?"
"Alas, Madam, all choice, all taste, all obstacles sink before necessity! When I came over, I had expectations of immediate succour. I knew not that the friend I sought was herself ruined, as well as unhappy! I had hopes, too, of speedy intelligence that might have liberated me from all my difficulties...."
She stopt; Elinor exclaimed, "From whence?--From abroad?--"
Juliet was silent; and Elinor, after a few pa.s.sing sallies against secrets and mystery, sarcastically bid her consider, before she adopted this new scheme, that Harleigh never visited at Mrs Ireton"s; having taken, in equal portions, a dose of aversion for the mother, and of contempt for the son.
Juliet calmly replied, that such a circ.u.mstance could be but an additional motive to seek the situation; and, hopeless, for the moment, of doing better, seriously begged that proper measures might be taken to accelerate the plan.
Elinor, now, from mingled wonder, satisfaction, and scorn, recovered all her wonted vivacity. "You are really, and bona fide, contented, then,"
she cried, "to be shut up as completely from Harleigh, through his horrour of that woman"s irascible temper, as if you were separated by bolts, bars, dungeons, towers, and bastilles? I applaud your taste, and wish you the full enjoyment of its fruits! Yet what materials you can be made of, to see the first of men at your feet, and voluntarily to fly him, to be trampled under by those of the most odious of women, I cannot divine! "Tis an exuberance of apathy that surpa.s.ses my comprehension.
And can He, the spirited Harleigh, love, adore, such a composition of ice, of snow, of marble?"
She could not, however, disguise the elation with which she looked forward, to depositing Juliet where information might constantly be procured of her visitors and her actions. They went together to the carriage; and Elinor conveyed her submissive and contemned, yet agonizingly envied rival, to Brighthelmstone.
In her usually unguarded manner, Elinor, by the way, communicated the various, but successless efforts by which she had endeavoured to gain intelligence whither Harleigh had rambled. "If I pursued him," she cried, "with the vanity of hope; or with the meanness of flattery, he would do well to shun me; but the pure-minded Harleigh is capable of believing, that the moment is over for Elinor to desire to be his! And, to sustain at once and shew my principles, I never seek his sight, but in presence of her who has blasted even my wishes! Else, thus clamourously to invoke, thus pertinaciously to follow him, might, indeed, merit avoidance. But Elinor, now, would be as superiour to accepting, ... as she is to forgetting him!"
"Yet his obdurate seclusion," she continued, "is the only mark I receive, that I escape his disdain. It shews me that he fears the event of a meeting. He does not, therefore, utterly deride the pusillanimity of my abortive attempt. O could I justify his good opinion!--All others, I doubt not, insult me by the most ludicrous suspicions; they are welcome. They judge me by their little-minded selves. But thou, O Harleigh! could I see thee once more!--in thy sight, thy loved sight, could I sink, at last, my sorrows and my disgrace to rest! to oblivion, to sleep eternal!"--
Vainly Juliet essayed to plead the cause of religion, and the duties of life; unanswered, unmarked, unheard, she talked but to the air. All that was uttered in return, began and ended alike with Harleigh, death, and annihilation.