She had no difficulty, now, to leave the house without further interruption, so astonished was Mrs Ireton, at what she thought the effrontery of a speech, that seemed, in some measure, to level her with this adventurer; though, in her own despite, she was struck with the air of calm dignity with which it was uttered.
The Wanderer obtained a direction to the house of Mrs Maple, from a servant; and demanded another to t.i.tchfield Street. To the latter she rapidly bent her steps; but, there arrived, her haste ended in disappointment and perplexity. She discovered the apartment in which, with her husband and child, the lady whom she sought had resided; but it was no longer inhabited; and she could not trace whether her friend had set off for Brighthelmstone, or had only changed her lodging. After a melancholy and fruitless search, she repaired, though with feet and a mind far less eager, to Upper Brooke Street, where she soon read the name of Mrs Maple upon the door of one of the capital houses. She enquired for Miss Joddrel, and begged that young lady might be told, that a person who came over in the same boat with her from France, requested the honour of admission.
To this message she presently heard the voice of Elinor, from the landing-place, answer, "O, she"s come at last! Bring her up Tomlinson, bring her up!"
"Yes, Ma"am; but I"ll promise you she is none of the person you have been expecting."
"How can you tell that Tomlinson? What sort of figure is she?"
"As pretty as can be."
"As pretty as can be, is she? Go and ask her name."
The man obeyed.
The stranger, disconcerted, answered, "My name will not be known to Miss Joddrel, but if she will have the goodness to receive, I am sure she will recollect me."
Elinor, who was listening, knew her voice, and, calling Tomlinson up stairs, and heartily laughing, said, "You are the greatest fool in the whole world, Tomlinson! It is she! Bid her come to me directly."
Tomlinson did as he was ordered, but grinned, with no small satisfaction, at sight of the surprise with which, when they reached the landing-place, his young mistress looked at the stranger.
"Why, Tomlinson," she cried, "who have you brought me hither?"
Tomlinson smirked, and the Incognita could not herself refrain from smiling, but with a countenance so little calculated to excite distrust, that Elinor, crying, "Follow me," led the way into her dressing room.
The young woman, then, with an air that strongly supplicated for indulgence, said, "I am truly shocked at the strange appearance which I must make; but as I come now to throw myself upon your protection, I will briefly--though I can enter into no detail--state to you how I am circ.u.mstanced."
"O charming! charming!" cried Elinor, clapping her hands, "you are going, at last, to relate your adventures! Nay, no drawing back! I won"t be disappointed! If you don"t tell me every thing that ever you did in your life, and every thing that ever you said, and every thing that ever you thought,--I shall renounce you!"
"Alas!" answered the Incognita, "I am in so forlorn a situation, that I must not wonder if you conclude me to be some outcast of society, abandoned by my friends from meriting their desertion,--a poor dest.i.tute Wanderer, in search of any species of subsistence!"
"Don"t be cast down, however," cried Elinor, "for I will help you on your way. And yet you have exactly spoken Aunt Maple"s opinion of you."
"And I have no right, I acknowledge, to repine, at least, none for resentment: yet, believe me, Madam, such is not the case! and if, as you have given me leave to hope, you will have the benevolence to permit me to travel in your party, or in whatever way you please, to Brighthelmstone, I may there meet with a friend, under whose protection I may acquire courage to give a more intelligible account of myself."
A rap at the street door made Elinor ring the bell, and order, that when Mr Harleigh came, he should be shewn immediately up stairs.
Harleigh, presently appearing, looked round the apartment, with striking eagerness, yet evident disappointment; and, slightly bowing to the scarcely noticed, yet marked courtsie of the stranger, said, "Tomlinson told me that our fellow-traveller was at last arrived?"
Elinor, taking the young woman apart, whispered a hasty injunction that she would not discover herself. Then, addressing Harleigh, "I believe,"
she said, "you dream of nothing but that dismal Incognita. However, do not fancy you have all the mysterious charmers to yourself. I have one of my own, now; and not such a dingy, dowdy heroine as yours!"
Harleigh turned with quickness to the stranger; but she looked down, and her complexion, and bloom, and changed apparel, made a momentary suspicion die away.
Elinor demanded what news he had gathered of their strayed voyager?
None, he answered; and uneasily added, that he feared she had either lost herself, or been misled, or betrayed, some other way.
"O, pray don"t waste your anxiety!" cried Elinor; "she is in perfect safety, I make no doubt."
"I should be sorry," he gravely replied, "to think you in equal danger."
"Should you?" cried she in a softened tone; "should you, Harleigh, be sorry if any evil befel me?"
"But why," he asked, "has Tomlinson given me this misinformation?"
"And why, Mr Harleigh, because Tomlinson told you that a stranger was here, should you conclude it could be no other than your black fugitive?"
Again Harleigh turned to the traveller, and fixed his eyes upon her face: the patch, the bandage, the large cap, had hitherto completely hidden its general form; and the beautiful outline he now saw, with so entire a contrast of complexion to what he remembered, again checked, or rather dissolved his rising surmizes.
Elinor begged him to be seated, and to quiet his perturbed spirit.
He took a chair, but, in pa.s.sing by the young woman, her s.e.x, her beauty, her modest air, gave him a sensation that repelled his using it, and he leant upon its back, looking expressively at Elinor; but Elinor either marked not the hint, or mocked it. "So you have really," she said, "taken the pains to go to that eternal inn again, to enquire after this maimed and defaced Dulcinea? What in the world can have inspired you with such an interest for this wandering Creole?
""Tis not her face does love create, For there no graces revel."--
The bell of Mrs Maple now ringing, Elinor made a sign to the Incognita not to avow herself, and flew down stairs to caution Tomlinson to silence.
The chair which Harleigh had rejected for himself, he then offered to the fair unknown. She declined it, but in a voice that made him start, and wish to hear her speak again. His offer then became a request, and she thanked him in a tone that vibrated certainty upon his ears, that it could be no other than the voice of his fellow-voyager.
He now looked at her with an earnest gaze, that seemed nearly to draw his eyes from their sockets. The embarra.s.sment that he occasioned her brought him to his recollection, and, apologising for his behaviour, he added; "A person--a lady--who accompanied us, not long since, from abroad, had a voice so exactly resembling yours--that I find it rather impossible than difficult not to believe that I hear the same. Permit me to ask--have you any very near relation returned lately from France?"
She blushed, but without replying.
"I fancy," he cried, "I must have encountered two sisters?--yet you have some reason, I own, to be angry at such a supposition--such a comparison--"
He paused, and a smile, which she could not repress, forced her to speak; "By no means!" she cried; "I know well how good you have been to the person to whom you allude, and I beg you will allow me--in her name--to return you the most grateful acknowledgements."
Harleigh, now, yet more curiously examining her, said, "It would not have been easy to have forborne taking an interest in her fate. She was in evident distress, yet never suffered herself to forget that she had escaped from some yet greater. Her mind seemed fraught with strength and native dignity. There was something singular, indescribable, in her manner of supporting the most hara.s.sing circ.u.mstances. It was impossible not to admire her."
The blush of the stranger now grew deeper, but she remained silent, till Elinor, re-entering, cried, "Well, Harleigh, what say you to my new demoiselle? And where would you have looked for your heart, if such had seemed your Dulcinea?"
"I should, perhaps, have been but the safer!" answered he, laughing.
"Pho! you would not make me believe any thing so out of nature, as that, when you were in such a tindery fit as to be kindled by that dowdy, you could have resisted being blown into flames at once by a creature such as this?"
"Man is a perverse animal, Elinor; that which he regards as pointed for his destruction, frequently proves harmless. We are all--boys and libertines alone excepted--upon our guard against beauty; for, as every sense is up in arms to second its a.s.sault, our pride takes the alarm, and rises to oppose it. Our real danger is where we see no risk."
"You enchant me, Harleigh! I am never so delighted as when I hear beauty set at nought--for I always suspect, Harleigh, that you do not think me handsome?"
"If I think you better than handsome, Elinor--"
"Pho! you know there is no such better in nature; at least not in such nature as forms taste in the mind of man; which I certainly do not consider as the purest of its works; though you all hold it, yourselves, to be the n.o.blest. Nevertheless, imagination is all-powerful; if, therefore, you have taken the twist to believe in such sublimity, you may, perhaps, be seriously persuaded, that your heart would have been more stubborn to this dainty new Wanderer than to your own walnut-skinned gypsey."
"Walnut-skinned?"
"Even so, n.o.ble knight-errand, even so! This person whom you now behold, and whom, if we believe our eyes, never met them till within this half hour, if we give credit to our ears, scrambled over with us in that crazy boat from France."