"Why we are come, Mrs Ellis," said Miss Bydel, "to know the real reason of your not being at the rehearsal this morning. Pray what is it? Not a soul could tell it me, though I asked every body all round. So I should be glad to hear the truth from yourself. Was it real illness, now? or only a pretext?"
"Illness," cried Mr Giles, "with all those roses on her cheeks? No, no; she"s very well; as well as very pretty. But you should not tell stories, my dear: though I am heartily glad to see that there"s nothing the matter. But it"s a bad habit. Though it"s convenient enough, sometimes. But when you don"t like to do a thing, why not say so at once? People mayn"t be pleased, to be sure, when they are refused; but do you think them so ill natured, as to like better to hear that you are ill?"
Ellis, abashed, attempted no defence; and Harleigh addressed some discourse to Miss Bydel, upon the next day"s concert; while Mr Giles went on with his own idea.
"We should always honestly confess our likings and dislikings, for else what have we got them for? If every one of us had the same taste, half the things about us would be of no service; and we should scramble till we came to scratches for t"other half. But the world has no more business, my dear lady, to be all of one mind, than all of one body."
"O now, pray Mr Giles," cried Miss Bydel, "don"t go beginning your comical talk; for if once you do that, one can"t get in a word."
"But, for all that, we should all round try to help and be kind to one another; what else are we put all together for in this world? We might, just as well, each of us have been popt upon some separate bit of a planet, one by himself one. All I recommend, is, to tell truth, or to say nothing. We whip poor pretty children for telling stories, when they are little, and yet hardly speak a word, without some false turn or other, ourselves, when we grow big!"
"Well, but, Mr Giles," said Miss Bydel, "where"s the use of talking so long about all that, when I"m wanting to ask Mrs Ellis why she did not come to the rehearsal?"
"For my own part, Ma"am," continued Mr Giles, "if any body puts me to a difficulty, I do the best I can: but I"d rather do the worst than tell a fib. So when I am asked an awkward question, which some people can"t cure themselves of doing, out of an over curiosity in their nature, as, Giles, how do you like Miss such a one? or Mr such a one? or Mrs such a one? as Miss Bydel, for instance, if she came into any body"s head; or--"
"Nay, Mr Giles," interrupted Miss Bydel, "I don"t see why I should not come into a person"s head as well as another; so I don"t know what you say that for. But if that"s your notion of being so kind one to another, Mr Giles, I can"t pretend to say it"s mine; for I see no kindness in it."
"I protest, Ma"am, I did not think of you in the least!" cried Mr Giles, much out of countenance: "I only took your name because happening to stand just before you put it, I suppose, at my tongue"s end; but you were not once in my thoughts, I can a.s.sure you, Ma"am, upon my word of honour! No more than if you had never existed, I protest!"
Miss Bydel, neither accepting nor repelling this apology, said, that she did not come to talk of things of that sort, but to settle some business of more importance. Then, turning to Ellis, "I hear," she continued, "Mrs Ellis, that all of the sudden, you are grown very rich. And I should be glad to know if it"s true? and how it has happened?"
"I should be still more glad, Madam," answered Ellis, "to be able to give you the information!"
"Nay, Mrs Ellis, I had it from your friend Mr Giles, who is always the person to be telling something or other to your advantage. So if there be any fault in the account, it"s him you are to call upon, not me."
Mr Giles, drawn by the silence of Ellis to a view of her embarra.s.sment, became fearful that he had been indiscreet, and made signs to Miss Bydel to say no more upon the subject; but Miss Bydel, by no means disposed, at this moment, to oblige him, went on.
"Nay, Mr Giles, you know, as well as I do, "twas your own news. Did not you tell us all, just now, at the rehearsal, when Miss Brinville and Miss Sycamore were saying what a monstrous air they thought it, for a person that n.o.body knew any thing of, to send excuses about being indisposed; just as if she were a fine lady; or some famous singer, that might be as troublesome as she would; did you not tell us, I say, that Mrs Ellis deserved as much respect as any of us, on account of her good character, and more than any of us on account of her prettiness and her poverty? Because her prettiness, says you, tempts others, and her poverty tempts herself; and yet she is just as virtuous as if she were as rich and as ordinary as any one of the greatest consequence amongst you. These were your own words, Mr Giles."
Harleigh, who, conscious that he ought to go, had long held by the lock of the door, as if departing, could not now refrain from changing the position of his hand, by placing it, expressively, upon the arm of Mr Giles.
"And if all this," Miss Bydel continued, "is not enough to make you respect her, says you, why respect her for the same thing that makes you respect one another, her money. And when we all asked how she could be poor, and have money too, you said that you had yourself seen ever so many bank-notes upon her table."
Ellis coloured; but not so painfully as Harleigh, at the sight of her blushes, unattended by any refutation; or any answer to this extraordinary a.s.sertion.
"And then, Mr Giles, as you very well know, when I asked, if she has money, why don"t she pay her debts? you replied, that she had paid them all. Upon which I said, I should be glad to know, then why I was to be the only person left out, just only for my complaisance in waiting so long? and upon that I resolved to come myself, and see how the matter stood. For though I have served you with such good will, Mrs Ellis, while I thought you poor, I must be a fool to be kept out of my money, when I know you have got it in plenty: and Mr Giles says that he counted, with his own hands, ten ten-pound bank-notes. Now I should be glad if you have no objection, to hear how you came by all that money, Mrs Ellis; for ten ten-pound bank-notes make a hundred pounds."
Oh! absent--unguarded--dangerous Mr Giles Arbe! thought Ellis, how much benevolence do you mar, by a distraction of mind that leads to so much mischief!
"I hope I have done nothing improper?" cried Mr Giles, perceiving, with concern, the disturbance of Ellis, "in mentioning this; for I protest I never recollected, till this very minute, that the money is not your own. It slipt my memory, somehow, entirely."
"Nay, nay, how will you make that out, Mr Giles?" cried Miss Bydel. "If it were not her own, how came she to pay her tradesmen with it, as you told us that she did, Mr Giles?"
Ellis, in the deepest embarra.s.sment, knew not which way to turn her head.
"She paid them, Miss Bydel," said Mr Giles, "because she is too just, as well as too charitable, to let honest people want, only because they have the good nature to keep her from wanting herself; while she has such large sums, belonging to a rich friend, lying quite useless, in a bit of paper, by her side. For the money was left with her by a very rich friend, she told me herself."
"No, Sir,--no, Mr Giles," cried Ellis, hastily, and looking every way to avoid the anxious enquiring, quick-glancing eyes of Harleigh: "I did not ... I could not say...." she stopt, scarcely knowing what she meant either to deny or to affirm.
"Yes, yes, "twas a rich friend, my dear lady, you owned that. If you had not given me that a.s.surance, I should not have urged you to make use of it. Besides, who but a rich friend would leave you money in such a way as that, neither locked, nor tied, nor in a box, nor in a parcel; but only in a little paper cover, directed For Miss Ellis, at her leisure?"
At these words, which could leave no doubt upon the mind of Harleigh, that the money in question was his own; and that the money, so often refused, had finally been employed in the payment of her debts, Ellis involuntarily, irresistibly, but most fearfully, stole a hasty glance at him; with a transient hope that they might have escaped his attention; but the hope died in its birth: the words, in their fullest meaning, had reached him, and the sensation which they produced filled her with poignant shame. A joy beamed in his countenance that irradiated every feature; a joy that flushed him into an excess of rapture, of which the consciousness seemed to abash himself; and his eyes bent instantly to the ground. But their checked vivacity checked not the feelings which illumined them, nor the alarm which they excited, when Ellis, urged by affright to s.n.a.t.c.h a second look, saw the brilliancy with which they had at first sought her own, terminate in a sensibility more touching; saw that they glistened with a tender pleasure, which, to her alarmed imagination, represented the potent and dangerous inferences that enchanted his mind, at a discovery that he had thus essentially succoured her; and that she had accepted, at last, however secretly, his succour.
This view of new danger to her sense of independence, called forth new courage, and restored an appearance of composure; and, addressing herself to Miss Bydel, "I entreat you," she cried, "Madam, to bear a little longer with my delay. To-morrow I shall enter upon a new career, from the result of which I hope speedily to acknowledge by obligation to your patience; and to acquit myself to all those to whom I am in any manner, pecuniarily obliged;--except of the lighter though far more lasting debt of grat.i.tude."
Harleigh understood her determined perseverance with cruel disappointment, yet with augmented admiration of her spirited delicacy; and, sensible of the utter impropriety of even an apparent resistance to her resolution in public, he faintly expressed his concern that she had no letters prepared for town, and with a deep, but stifled sigh, took leave.
Miss Bydel continued her interrogations, but without effect; and soon, therefore, followed. Mr Giles remained longer; not because he obtained more satisfaction, but because, when not answered, he was contented with talking to himself.
The rest of the day was pa.s.sed free from outward disturbance to Ellis; and what she might experience internally was undivulged.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
The day now arrived which Ellis reluctantly, yet firmly, destined for her new and hazardous essay. Resolute in her plan, she felt the extreme importance of attaining courage and calmness for its execution. She shut herself up in her apartment, and gave the most positive injunctions to the milliners, that no one should be admitted. The looks of Harleigh, as he had quitted her room, had told her that this precaution would not be superfluous, and, accordingly, he came; but was refused entrance: he wrote; but his letters were returned unread. His efforts to break, served but to fix her purpose: she saw the expectations that he would feed from any concession; and potent as had hitherto been her objection to the scheme, they all subsided, in preference to exciting, or pa.s.sively permitting, any doubts of the steadiness of her rejection.
Still, however, she could not practise: her voice and her fingers were infected by the agitation of her mind, and she could neither sing nor play. She could only hope that, at the moment of performance, the positive necessity of exertion, would bring with it, as so often is its effect, the powers which it requires.
The tardiness of her resolution caused, however, such an acc.u.mulation of business, not only for her thoughts, but for her time, from the indispensable arrangements of her attire, that scarcely a moment remained either for the relief or the anxieties of rumination. She set off, therefore, with tolerable though forced composure, for the rooms, in the carriage of Miss Arbe; that lady, once again, chusing to a.s.sume the character of her patroness, since as such she could claim the merit of introducing her to the public, through an obligation to her own new favourite, M Vinstreigle.
Upon stopping at the hotel, in which the concert was to be held, a strange figure, with something foreign in his appearance, twice crossed before the chariot, with a menacing air, as if purposing to impede her pa.s.sage. Easily startled, she feared descending from the carriage; when Harleigh, who was watching, though dreading her arrival, came in sight, and offered her his hand. She declined it; but, seeing the intruder retreat abruptly, into the surrounding crowd of spectators, she alighted and entered the hotel.
Pained, at once, and charmed by the striking elegance of her appearance, and the air of gentle dignity which shewed such attire to be familiar to her, Harleigh felt irresistibly attracted to follow her, and once more plead his cause. "Hear, hear me!" he cried, in a low, but touching voice: "One moment hear me, I supplicate, I conjure you! still it is not too late to avert this blow! Indisposition cannot be disputed, or, if doubted, of what moment would be the suspicion, if once, generously, trustingly, you relinquish this cruel plan?"
He spoke in a whisper, yet with an impetuosity that alarmed, as much as his distress affected her; but, when she turned towards him, to call upon his forbearance, she perceived immediately at his side, the person who had already disconcerted her. She drew hastily back, and he brushed quickly past, looking round, nevertheless, and evidently and anxiously marking her. Startled, uneasy, she involuntarily stopt; but was relieved by the approach of one of the door-keepers, to the person in question; who haughtily flung at him a ticket, and was pa.s.sing on; but who was told that he could not enter the concert-room in a slouched hat.
A sort of attendant, or humble friend, who accompanied him, then said, in broken English, that the poor gentleman only came to divert himself, by seeing the company, and would disturb n.o.body, for he was deaf and dumb, and very inoffensive.
Re-a.s.sured by this account, Ellis again advanced, and was met by Mr Vinstreigle; who had given instructions to be called upon her arrival, and who, now, telling her that it was late, and that the concert was immediately to be opened, handed her to the orchestra. She insisted upon seating herself behind a violencello-player, and as much out of sight as possible, till necessity must, of course, bring her forward.
From her dislike to being seen, her eyes seemed rivetted upon the music-paper which she held in her hand, but of which, far from studying the characters, she could not read a note. She received, with silent civility, the compliments of M Vinstreigle; and those of his band, who could approach her; but her calmness, and what she had thought her determined courage, had been so shaken by personal alarm, and by the agitated supplications of Harleigh, that she could recover them no more.
His desponding look, when he found her inexorable, pursued her; and the foreign clothing, and foreign servant, of the man who, though deaf and dumb, had so marked and fixt her, rested upon her imagination, with a thousand vague fears and conjectures.
In this shattered state of nerves, the sound of many instruments, loud however harmonious, so immediately close to her ears, made her start, as if electrified, when the full band struck up the overture, and involuntarily raise her eyes. The strong lights dazzled them; yet prevented her not from perceiving, that the deaf and dumb man had planted himself exactly opposite to the place, which, by the disposition of the harp, was evidently prepared for her reception. Her alarm augmented: was he watching her from mere common curiosity? or had he any latent motive, or purpose? His dress and figure were equally remarkable.
He was wrapt in a large scarlet coat, which hung loosely over his shoulders, and was open at the breast, to display a brilliant waistcoat of coloured and spangled embroidery. He had a small, but slouched hat, which he had refused to take off, that covered his forehead and eye-brows, and shaded his eyes; and a cravat of enormous bulk encircled his chin, and enveloped not alone his ears, but his mouth. Nothing was visible but his nose, which was singularly long and pointed. The whole of his habiliment seemed of foreign manufacture; but his air had something in it that was wild, and uncouth; and his head was continually in motion.
To the trembling Ellis, it now seemed but a moment before she was summoned to her place, though four pieces were first performed. M Vinstreigle would have handed her down the steps; she declined his aid, hoping to pa.s.s less observed alone; but the moment that she rose, and became visible, a violent clapping was begun by Sir Lyell Sycamore, and seconded by every man present.
What is new, of almost any description, is sure to be well received by the public; but when novelty is united with peculiar attractions, admiration becomes enthusiasm, and applause is nearly clamour. Such, upon the beholders, was the effect produced by the beauty, the youth, the elegance, and the timidity of Ellis. Even her attire, which, from the bright pink sa.r.s.enet, purchased by Miss Arbe, she had changed into plain white satin, with ornaments of which the simplicity shewed as much taste as modesty, contributed to the interest which she inspired. It was suited to the style of her beauty, which was Grecian; and it seemed equally to a.s.similate with the character of her mind, to those who, judging it from the fine expression of her countenance, conceived it to be pure and n.o.ble. The a.s.sembly appeared with one opinion to admire her, and with one wish to give her encouragement.
But, unused to being an object of tumultuous delight, the effect produced by such transports was the reverse of their intention; and Ellis, ashamed, embarra.s.sed, confused, lost the recollection, that custom demanded that she should postpone her acknowledgements till she arrived at her post. She stopt; but in raising her eyes, as she attempted to courtesy, she was struck with the sight of her deaf and dumb tormentor; who, in agitated watchfulness, was standing up to see her descend; and whose face, from the full light to which he was exposed, she now saw to be masked; while she discerned in his hand, the glitter of steel. An horrible surmise occurred, that it was Elinor disguised, and Elinor come to perpetrate the b.l.o.o.d.y deed of suicide.
Agonized with terror at the idea, she would have uttered a cry; but, shaken and dismayed, her voice refused to obey her; her eyes became dim; her tottering feet would no longer support her; her complexion wore the pallid hue of death, and she sunk motionless on the floor.
In an instant, all admiring acclamation subsided into tender pity, and not a sound was heard in the a.s.sembly; while in the orchestra all was commotion; for Harleigh no sooner saw the fall, and that the whole band was in movement, to offer aid, than, springing from his place, he overcame every obstacle, to force a pa.s.sage to the spot where the pale Ellis was lying. There, with an air of command, that seemed the offspring of rightful authority, he charged every one to stand back, and give her air; desired M Vinstreigle to summon some female to her aid; and, s.n.a.t.c.hing from him a phial of salts, which he was attempting to administer, was greatly bending down with them himself, when he perceived that she was already reviving: but the instant that he had raised her, what was his consternation and horror, to hear a voice, from the a.s.sembly, call out: