She then tenderly proposed their immediate re-union, at whatever cost of fatigue, or risk, it might be obtained; and besought Gabriella to seek some small room, and to enquire for some needle-work; determining to appropriate to a journey to town, the little sum which she might have to receive for the long and laborious fortnight, which she had consigned to the terrible enterprize of aiming at amusing, serving, or interesting, one whose sole taste of pleasure consisted in seeking, like Strife, in Spenser"s Fairy Queen, occasion for dissension.
With the apprehension, however, of losing, the desire of retaining her always revived; and now, as usual, proved some check to the recreations of spleen, in which Mrs Ireton ordinarily indulged herself. Yet, even in the midst of intended concession, the love of tormenting was so predominant, that, had the resolution of Juliet still wavered, whether to seek some new retreat, or still to support her present irksome situation, all indecision would have ceased from fresh disgust, at the sneers which insidiously found their way through every effort at civility. What had dropt from Mr Giles Arbe, relative to the bank-notes, had excited curiosity in all; tinted, in some, with suspicion, and, in Mrs Ireton, blended with malignity and wrath, that a creature whom she pleased herself to consider, and yet more to represent, as dependent upon her bounty for sustinence, should have any resources of her own.
Nor was this displeasure wholly free from surmises the most disgraceful; though to those she forbore to give vent, conscious that to suggest them would stamp with impropriety all further intercourse with their object.
And a moment that offered new food for inquisition, was the last to induce Mrs Ireton to relinquish her _protegee_. She confined her sarcasms, therefore, when she could not wholly repress them, to oblique remarks upon the happiness of those who were able to lay by private stores for secret purposes; lamenting that such was not her fate; yet congratulating herself that she might now sleep in peace, with respect to any creditors; since, should she be threatened with an execution, her house had a rich inmate, by whom she flattered herself that she should be a.s.sisted to give bail.
Already, the next morning, her resolution with regard to her nephew was reversed; and, the child desiring the change of scene, she gave directions that Miss Ellis should prepare herself to take him in charge during the excursion.
But Juliet was now initiated in the services and the endurance of an humble companion in public; she offered, therefore, to amuse and to watch him at home, but decidedly refused to attend him abroad; and her evident indifference whether to stay or begone herself, forced Mrs Ireton to deny the humoured boy his intended frolic.
Little accustomed to any privation, and totally unused to disappointment, the young gentleman, when his aunt was preparing to depart, had recourse to his usual appeals against restraint or authority, clamourous cries and unappeasable blubbering. Juliet, to whose room he refused to mount, was called upon to endeavour to quiet him, and to entice him into the garden; that he might not hear the carriage of his aunt draw up to the door.
But this commission the refractory spirit of the young heir made it impossible to execute, till he overheard a whisper to Juliet, that she would take care, should Mr Loddard chuse to go to the Temple, to place the silk-worms above his reach.
Suddenly, then, he sprang from his consolers and attendants, to run forward to the forbidden fruit; and, with a celerity that made it difficult for Juliet, even with her utmost speed, and longer limbs, to arrive at the spot in time to prevent the mischief for which she saw him preparing. She had just, however, succeeded, in depositing the menaced insects upon a high bracket, when a footman came to whisper to her the commands of his lady, that she would detain Mr Loddard till the party should be set off.
Before the man had shut himself out, Ireton, holding up his finger to him in token of secresy, slipt past him into the little building; and, having turned the key on the inside, and put it into his pocket, said, "I"ll stand centinel for little Pickle!" and flung himself, loungingly, upon an arm chair.
Confounded by this action, yet feeling it necessary to appear unintimidated, Juliet affected to occupy herself with the silk-worms; of which the young gentleman now, eager to romp with Ireton, thought no more.
"At last, then, I have caught you, my skittish dear!" cried Ireton, while jumping about the little boy, to keep him in good humour. "I have had the devil of a difficulty to contrive it. However, I shall make myself amends now, for they are all going to Arundel Castle, and you and I can pa.s.s the morning together."
The indignant look which this boldness excited, he pretended not to observe, and went on.
"I can"t possibly be easy without having a little private chat with you.
I must consult you about my affairs. I want devilishly to make you my friend. You might be capitally useful to me. And you would find your account in it, I promise you. What sayst thee, my pretty one?"
Juliet, not appearing to hear him, changed the leaves of the silk-worms.
"Can you guess what it is brings me hither to old madam my mother"s? It is not you, with all your beauty, you arch prude; though I have a great enjoyment in looking at you and your blushes, which are devilishly handsome, I own; yet, to say the truth, you are not--all together--I don"t know how it is--but you are not--upon the whole--quite exactly to my taste. Don"t take it ill, my love, for you are a devilish fine girl.
I own that. But I want something more skittish, more wild, more eccentric. If I were to fix my fancy upon such symmetry as you, I should be put out of my way every moment. I should always be thinking I had some Minerva tutoring, or some Juno awing me. It would not do at all. I want something of another cast; something that will urge me when I am hippish, without keeping me in order when I am whimsical. Something frisky, flighty, fantastic,--yet panting, blushing, dying with love for me!--"
Neither contempt nor indignation were of sufficient force to preserve the gravity of Juliet, at this unexpected ingenuousness of vanity.
"You smile!" he cried; "but if you knew what a deuced difficult thing it is, for a man who has got a little money, to please himself, you would find it a very serious affair. How the deuce can he be sure whether a woman, when once he has married her, would not, if her settlement be to her liking, dance at his funeral? The very thought of that would either carry me off in a fright within a month, or make me want to live for ever, merely to punish her. It"s a hard thing having money! a deuced hard thing! One does not know who to trust. A poor man may find a wife in a moment, for if he sees any one that likes him, he knows it is for himself; but a rich man,--as Sir Jaspar says,--can never be sure whether the woman who marries him, would not, for the same pin-money, just as willingly follow him to the outside of the church, as to the inside!"
At the name of Sir Jaspar, Juliet involuntarily gave some attention, though she would make no reply.
"From the time," continued Ireton, "that I heard him p.r.o.nounce those words, I have never been able to satisfy myself; nor to find out what would satisfy me. At least not till lately; and now that I know what I want, the difficulty of the business is to get it! And this is what I wish to consult with you about; for you must know, my dear, I can never be happy without being adored."
Juliet, now, was surprised into suddenly looking at him, to see whether he were serious.
"Yes, adored! loved to distraction! I must be idolized for myself, myself alone; yet publicly worshiped, that all mankind may see,--and envy,--the pa.s.sion I have been able to inspire!"
Suspecting that he meant some satire upon Elinor, Juliet again fixed her eyes upon her silk-worms.
"So you don"t ask me what it is that makes me so devilish dutiful all of a sudden, in visiting my mamma? You think, perhaps, I have some debts to pay? No; I have no taste for gaming. It"s the cursedest fatiguing thing in the world. If one don"t mind what one"s about, one is blown up in a moment; and to be always upon one"s guard, is worse than ruin itself. So I am upon no coaxing expedition, I give you my word. What do you think it is, then, that brings me hither? Cannot you guess?--Hay?--Why it is to arrange something, somehow or other, for getting myself from under this terrible yoke, that seems upon the point of enslaving me. My neck feels galled by it already! I have naturally no taste for matrimony. And now that the business seems to be drawing to a point, and I am called upon to name my lawyer, and cavilled with to declare, to the uttermost sixpence, what I will do, and what I will give, to make my wife merry and comfortable upon my going out of the world,--I protest I shudder with horrour! I think there is nothing upon earth so mercenary, as a young nymph upon the point of becoming a bride!"
"Except,--" Juliet here could not resist saying, "except the man,--young or old,--who is her bridegroom!"
"O, that"s another thing! quite another thing! A man must needs take care of his house, and his table, and all that: but the horridest thing I know, is the condition tied to a man"s obtaining the hand of a young woman; he can never solicit it, but by giving her a prospect of his death-bed! And she never consents to live with him, till she knows what she may gain by his dying! Tis the most shocking style of making love that can be imagined. I don"t like it, I swear! What, now, would you advise me to do?"
"I?"
"Yes; you know the sc.r.a.pe I am in, don"t you? Sir Jaspar"s estate, in case he should have no children, is entailed upon me; and, in case I should have none neither, is entailed upon a cousin; the heaviest dog you ever saw in your life, whom he hates and despises; and whom I wish at old Nick with all my heart, because I know he, and all his family, will wish me at the devil myself, if I marry; and, if I have children, will wish them and my wife there. I hate them all so heartily, that, whenever I think of them, I am ready, in pure spite, to be tied to the first girl that comes in my way: but, when I think of myself, I am taken with a fit of fright, and in a plaguey hurry to cut the knot off short.
And this is the way I have got the character of a male jilt. But I don"t deserve it, I a.s.sure you; for of all the females with whom I have had these little engagements, there is not one whom I have seriously thought of marrying, after the first half hour. They none of them hit my fancy further than to kill a little time."
The countenance of Juliet, though she neither deigned to speak nor to turn to him, marked such strong disapprobation, that he thought proper to add, "Don"t be affronted for little Selina Joddrel: I really meant to marry her at the time; and I should really have gone on, and "buckled to," if the thing had been any way possible: but she turns out such a confounded little fool, that I can"t think of her any longer."
"And was it necessary,--" Juliet could not refrain from saying, "to engage her first, and examine whether she could make you happy afterwards?"
"Why that seems a little awkward, I confess; but it"s a way I have adopted. Though I took the decision, I own, rather in a hurry, with regard to little Selina; for it was merely to free myself from the reproaches of Sir Jaspar, who, because he is seventy-five, and does not know what to do with himself, is always regretting that he did not take a wife when he was a stripling; and always at work to get me into the yoke. But, the truth is, I promised, when I went abroad, to bring him home a niece from France, or Italy; unless I went further east; and then I would look him out a fair Circa.s.sian. Now as he has a great taste for any thing out of the common way, and retains a constant hankering after Beauty, he was delighted with the scheme. But I saw nothing that would do! Nothing I could take to! The pretty ones were all too buckish; and the steady ones, a set of the yellowest frights I ever beheld."
"Alas for the poor ladies!"
"O, you are a mocker, are you?--So to lighten the disappointment to Sir Jaspar, I hit upon the expedient of taking up with little Selina, who was the first young thing that fell in my way. And I was too tired to be difficult. Besides, what made her the more convenient, was her extreme youth, which gave me a year to look about me, and see if I could do any better. But she"s a poor creature; a sad poor creature indeed! quite too bad. So I must make an end of the business as fast as possible. Besides, another thing that puts me in a hurry is,--the very devil would have it so!--but I have fallen in love with her sister!--"
Juliet, at a loss how to understand him, now raised her eyes; and, not without astonishment, perceived that he was speaking with a grave face.
"O that n.o.ble stroke! That inimitable girl! Happy, happy, Harleigh! That fellow fascinates the girls the more the less notice he takes of them! I take but little notice of them, neither; but, some how or other, they never do that sort of thing for me! If I could meet with one who would take such a measure for my sake, and before such an a.s.sembly,--I really think I should worship her!"
Then, lowering his voice, "You may be amazingly useful to me, my angel,"
he cried, "in this new affair. I know you are very well with Harleigh, though I don"t know exactly how; but if,--nay, hear me before you look so proud! if you"ll help me, a little, how to go to work with the divine Elinor, I"ll bind myself down to make over to you,--in case of success,--mark that!--as round a sum as you may be pleased to name!"
The disdain of Juliet at this proposition was so powerful, that, though she heard it as the deepest of insults, indignation was but a secondary feeling; and a look of utter scorn, with a determined silence to whatever else he might say, was the only notice it received.
He continued, nevertheless, to address her, demanding her advice how to manage Harleigh, and her a.s.sistance how to conquer Elinor, with an air of as much intimacy and confidence, as if he received the most cordial replies. He purposed, he said, unless she could counsel him to something better, making an immediate overture to Elinor; by which means, whether he should obtain, or not, the only girl in the world who knew how to love, and what love meant, he should, at least, in a very summary way, get rid of the little Selina.
Juliet knew too well the slightness of the texture of the regard of Selina for Ireton, to be really hurt at this defection; yet she was not less offended at being selected for the confidant of so dishonourable a proceeding; nor less disgusted at the unfeeling insolence by which it was dictated.
An attempt at opening the door at length silenced him, while the voice of Mrs Ireton"s woman called out, "Goodness! Miss Ellis, what do you lock yourself in for? My lady has sent me to you."
Juliet cast up her eyes, foreseeing the many disagreeable attacks and surmises to which she was made liable by this incident; yet immediately said aloud, "Since you have thought proper, Mr Ireton, to lock the door, for your own pleasure, you will, at least, I imagine, think proper to open it for that of Mrs Ireton."
"Deuce take me if I do!" cried he, in a low voice: "manage the matter as you will! I have naturally no taste for a prude; so I always leave her to work her way out of a sc.r.a.pe as well as she can. But I"ll see you again when they are all off." Then, throwing the key upon her lap, he softly and laughingly escaped out of the window.
Provoked and vexed, yet helpless, and without any means of redress, Juliet opened the door.
"Goodness! Miss Ellis," cried the Abigail, peeping curiously around, "how droll for you to shut yourself in! My lady sent me to ask whether you have seen any thing of Mr Ireton in the garden, or about; for she has been ready to go ever so long, and he said he was setting off first on horseback; but his groom is come, and is waiting for orders, and none of us can tell where he is."
"Mr Ireton," Juliet quietly answered, "was here just now; and I doubt not but you will find him in the garden."
"Yes," cried the boy, "he slid out of the window."
"Goodness! was he in here, then, Master Loddard? Well! my lady"ll be in a fine pa.s.sion, if she should hear of it!"
This was enough to give the tidings a messenger: the boy darted forward, and reached the house in a moment.
The Abigail ran after him; Juliet, too, followed, dreading the impending storm yet still more averse to remaining within the reach and power of Ireton. And the knowledge, that he would now, for the rest of the morning, be sole master of the house, filled her with such horrour, of the wanton calumny to which his unprincipled egotism might expose her, that, rather than continue under the same roof with a character so unfeelingly audacious, she preferred risking all the mortifications to which she might be liable in the excursion to Arundel Castle.