The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 2 of 5)

'How comes it, Mistress Ellis,' said Mrs Maple, 'that you had a message for me last night, from my niece, and that you never delivered it?'

Ellis, confounded, tried vainly to offer some apology.

Mrs Maple rose still more peremptorily in her demands, mingling the haughtiest menaces with the most imperious interrogations; attacking her as an accomplice in the clandestine scheme of Elinor; and accusing her of favouring disobedience and disorder, for some sinister purposes of her own.

Ireton scrupled not to speak in her favour; and Selina eagerly echoed all that he advanced: but, Harleigh, though trembling with indignant impatience to defend her, feared, in the present state of things, that to become her advocate might rather injure than support her; and constrained himself to be silent.

A succession of categorical enquiries, forced, at length, an avowal from Ellis, that her commission had been given to her in a letter. Mrs Maple, then, in the most authoritative manner, insisted upon reading it immediately.

Against the justice of this desire there was no appeal; yet how comply with it? The secret of Harleigh, with regard to herself, was included in that of Elinor; and honour and delicacy exacted the most rigid silence from her for both. Yet the difficulty of the refusal increased, from the increased urgency, even to fury, of Mrs Maple; till, shamed and persecuted beyond all power of resistance, she resolved upon committing the letter to the hands of Harleigh himself; who, to an interest like her own in its concealment, superadded courage and consequence for sustaining the refusal.

This, inevitably, must break into her design of avoiding him; but, hurried and harassed, she could devise no other expedient, to escape from an appearance of utter culpability to the whole house. When again, therefore, Mrs Maple, repeated, 'Will you please to let me see my niece's letter, or not?' She answered that there was a passage in it upon which Miss Joddrel had desired that Mr Harleigh might be consulted.

It would be difficult to say, whether this reference caused greater surprise to Mrs Maple or to Harleigh; but the feelings which accompanied it were as dissimilar as their characters: Mrs Maple was highly offended, that there should be any competition, between herself and any other, relative to a communication that came from her niece; while Harleigh felt an enchantment that glowed through every vein, in the prospect of some confidence. But when Mrs Maple found that all resistance was vain, and that through this channel only she could procure any information, her resentment gave way to her eagerness for hearing it, and she told Mr Harleigh to take the letter.

This was as little what he wished, as what Ellis meant: his desire was to speak with her upon the important subject open between them; and her's, was to make an apology for shewing him the letter, and to offer some explanation of a part of its contents. He approached her, however, to receive it, and she could not hold it back.

'If you will allow me,' said he, in taking it, 'to give you my plain opinion, when I have read it… Where may I have the pleasure of seeing you?'

Revived by this question, she eagerly answered, 'Wherever Mrs Maple will permit.'

Harleigh, who, in the scowl upon Mrs Maple's face, read a direction that they should remain where they were, would not wait for her to give it utterance; but, taking the hand of Ellis, with a precipitation to which she yielded from surprise, though with blushing shame, said, 'In this next room we shall be nearest to give the answer to Mrs Maple;' and led her to the adjoining apartment.

He did not dare shut the door, but he conducted her to the most distant window; and, having expressed, by his eyes, far stronger thanks for her trust than he ventured to pronounce with his voice, was beginning to read the letter; but Ellis, gently stopping him, said, 'Before you look at this, let me beg you, Sir, to believe, that the hard necessity of my strange situation, could alone have induced me to suffer you to see what is so every way unfit for your perusal. But Miss Joddrel has herself made known that she left a message with me for Mrs Maple; what right, then, have I to withhold it? Yet how – advise me, I entreat, – how can I deliver it? And – with respect to what you will find relative to Lord Melbury – I need not, I trust, mortify myself by disclaiming, or vindicating – '

He interrupted her with warmth: 'No!' he cried, 'with me you can have nothing to vindicate! Of whatever would not be perfectly right, I believe you incapable.'

Ellis thanked him expressively, and begged that he would now read the letter, and favour her with his counsel.

He complied, meaning to hurry it rapidly over, to gain time for a yet more interesting subject; but, struck, moved, and shocked by its contents, he was drawn from himself, drawn even from Ellis, to its writer. 'Unhappy Elinor!' he cried, 'this is yet more wild than I had believed you! this flight, where you can expect no pursuit! this concealment, where you can fear no persecution! But her intellects are under the controul of her feelings, – and judgment has no guide so dangerous.'

Ellis gently enquired what she must say to Mrs Maple.

He hastily put by the letter. 'Let me rather ask,' he cried, half smiling, 'what you will say to Me? – Will you not let me know something of your history, – your situation, – your family, – your name? The deepest interest occasions my demand, my inquietude. – Can it offend you?'

Ellis, trembling, looking down, and involuntarily sighing, in a faltering voice, answered, 'Have I not besought you, Sir, to spare me upon this subject? Have I not conjured you, if you value my peace, – nay, my honour! – what can I say more solemn? – to drop it for ever more?'

'Why this dreadful language?' cried Harleigh, with mingled impatience and grief: 'Can the impression of a cumpulsatory engagement – or what other may be the mystery that it envelopes? Will you not be generous enough to relieve a perplexity that now tortures me? Is it too much for a man lost to himself for your sake, – lost he knows not how, – knows not to whom, – to be indulged with some little explanation, where, and how, he has placed all his hopes? – Is this too much to ask?'

'Too much?' repeated Ellis, with quickness: 'O no! no! Were my confidence to depend upon my sense of what I owe to your generous esteem, your noble trust in a helpless Wanderer, – known to you solely through your benevolence, – were my opinion – and my gratitude my guides, – it would be difficult, indeed, to say what enquiries you could make, that I could refuse to satisfy; – what you could ask, that I ought not to answer! but alas! – '

She hesitated: heightened blushes dyed her cheeks; and she visibly struggled to restrain herself from bursting into tears.

Touched, delighted, yet affrighted, Harleigh tenderly demanded, 'O, why resist the generous impulse, that would plead for some little frankness, in favour of one who unreservedly devotes to you his whole existence?'

Suddenly now, as if self-alarmed, checking her sensibility, she gravely cried, 'What would it avail that I should enter into any particulars of my situation, when what has so recently passed, makes all that has preceded immaterial? You have heard my promise to Miss Joddrel, – you see by this letter how direfully she meditates to watch its performance; – '

'And can you suffer the wild flights of a revolutionary enthusiast, impelled by every extravagant new system of the moment; – however you may pity her feelings, respect her purity, and make allowance for her youth, to blight every fair prospect of a rational attachment? to supersede every right? and to annihilate all consideration, all humanity, but for herself?'

'Ah no! – if you believe me ungrateful for a partiality that contends with all that appearances can offer against me, and all that circumstance can do to injure me; if you think me insensible to the honour I receive from it, you do yet less justice to yourself than to me! But here, Sir, all ends! – We must utterly separate; – you must not any where seek me; – I must avoid you every where! – '

She stopt. – The sudden shock which every feature of Harleigh exhibited at these last words, evidently and forcibly affected her; and the big tears, till now forced back, rolled unrestrained, and almost unconsciously, down her cheeks, as she suffered herself, for a moment, in silence to look at him: she was then hastily retiring; but Harleigh, surprised and revived by the sight of her emotion, exclaimed, 'O why this fatal sensibility, that captivates while it destroys? that gives fascination even to repulse?' He would have taken her hand; but, drawing back, and even shrinking from his touch, she emphatically cried, 'Remember my engagement! – my solemn promise!'

'Was it extorted?' cried he, detaining her, 'or had it your heart's approbation?'

'From whatever motive it was uttered,' answered she, looking away from him, 'it has been pronounced, and must be adhered to religiously!' She then broke from him, and escaping by a door that led to the hall, sought refuge from any further conflict by hastening to her chamber: not once, till she arrived there, recollecting that her letter was left in his hands; while the hundred pounds, which she meant to return to him, were still in her own.

CHAPTER XXI

Painfully revolving a scene which had deeply affected her, Ellis, for some time, had remained uninterrupted, when, opening her door to a gentle tap, she was startled by the sight of Harleigh. The letter of Elinor was in his hand, which he immediately presented to her, and bowing without speaking, without looking at her, instantly disappeared.

Ellis was so confounded, first by his unexpected sight, and next by his so speedily vanishing, that she lost the opportunity of returning the bank notes. For some minutes she gazed pensively down the staircase; slowly, then, she shut her door, internally uttering 'all is over: – he is gone, and will pursue me no more.' Then casting up her eyes, which filled with tears, 'may he,' she added, 'be happy!'

From this sadness she was roused, by feeling, from the thickness of the packet, that it must contain some additional paper; eagerly opening it, she found the following letter:

'I have acquainted Mrs Maple that Miss Joddrel has determined upon living, for a while, alone, and that her manner of announcing that determination, in her letter to you, is so peremptory, as to make you deem it improper to be produced. This, as a mark of personal respect, appeases her; and, upon this subject, I believe you will be tormented no more. With regard to the unfortunate secret of Elinor, I can but wish it as safe in her own discretion, as it will remain in your honour.

'For myself, I must now practise that hardest lesson to the stubborn mind of man, submission to undefined, and what appears to be unnecessary evil. I must fly from this spot, and wait, where and as I can, the restoration of Elinor to prudence and to common life. I must trust that the less she is opposed, the less tenaciously she will cling to the impracticable project, of ruling the mind and will of another, by letting loose her own. When she hears that I deny myself inhabiting the mansion which you inhabit, perhaps, relieved from the apprehension of being deceived by others, she may cease to deceive herself. She may then return to her friends, contented to exist by the general laws of established society; which, though they may be ameliorated, changed, or reformed, by experience, wisely reflecting upon the past; by observation, keenly marking the present; or by genius, creatively anticipating the future, can never be wholly reversed, without risking a re-bound that simply restores them to their original condition.

'I depart, therefore, without one more effort to see you. I yield to the strange destiny that makes me adore in the dark; yet that blazons to my view and knowledge the rarest excellencies, the most resistless attractions: but to remain in the same house, yet scarcely ever to behold you; or, in seeing you but for a moment, to awaken a sensibility that electrifies every hope, only to inflict, with the greater severity, the shock that strikes me back to mystery and despondence – no, I will be gone! Her whom I cannot soften, I will at least forbear to persecute.

'In this retreat, my only consolation for your happiness is in the friendship, so honourable for both, that you have formed with Lady Aurora Granville; my only reliance for your safety, is in the interest of Mrs Maple to detain you under her roof, for the improvement of Selina; and my only hope for myself, is, that when Elinor becomes reasonable, you will no longer let her exclusively occupy your humanity or your feeling.

    'Albert Harleigh.'

The tone of remonstrance, if not of reproach, which was blended with the serious attachment marked by Harleigh in this letter, deeply touched Ellis; who was anxiously re-perusing it, when she received information, through Selina, that Mr Harleigh had set out for London; whence he meant to proceed to Bath, or, perhaps, to make the western tour.

The earnestness of Ireton that Selina should take some lessons upon the harp, joined to the equal earnestness of Mrs Maple, to elude the expensive professor at Brighthelmstone, confirmed the new orders that Selina should begin a course of instruction with Ellis. The mistress and the scholar were mutually well disposed, and Ellis was endeavouring to give her pupil some idea of a beautiful Sonata, when Miss Arbe, entering the house upon a morning visit, and catching the sound of a harp from the dressing-room of Selina, so touched as Selina, she knew, could not touch it, nimbly ran up stairs. Happy, then, to have surprised Miss Ellis at the instrument, she would take no denial to hearing her play.

The elegance and feeling of her performance, engaged, alike, the ready envy, and the unwilling admiration of Miss Arbe; who, a self-conceived paragon in all the fine arts, thought superior merit in a diletanti a species of personal affront. She had already felt as an injury to her theatrical fame, the praise which had reached her ears of Ellis as Lady Townly; and a new rivalry seemed now to menace her supremacy as chief of lady performers: but when she gathered, through Selina, who knew not even of the existence of such an art as that of holding the tongue, that they were now practising together, her supercilious air was changed into one of rapture, and she was seized with a strong desire to profit, also, from such striking talents. A profusion of compliments and civilities, ended, therefore, in an earnest invitation to cultivate so charming an acquaintance.

Mrs Maple, while this was passing, came uneasily into the room, meaning to make a sign to Ellis to glide away unnoticed. But when she found that Ellis was become the principal object with the fastidious Miss Arbe, and heard this wish of intimacy, she was utterly confounded that another person of consequence should countenance, and through her means, this itinerant Incognita. Yet to obviate the mischief by an avowal similar to that which she had been forced to make to Mrs Howel, she thought an insupportable degradation; and Miss Arbe, with the politest declarations that she should call again the next day, purposely to entitle herself to a visit in return from Miss Ellis, was already gone, before Mrs Maple had sufficiently recovered from her confusion, to devise any impediment to the proposal.

All then that occurred to her, was her usually violent, but short measure, of sending Ellis suddenly from the house, and excusing her disappearance, by asserting that her own friends had summoned her away: for Mrs Maple, like at least half the world, though delicate with respect to her character for truth in public, had palliations always ready for any breach of it, in favour of convenience, in private.

Ellis attempted not any opposition. The sufferings annexed to an asylum thus perpetually embittered by reproach and suspicion, had long made her languish to change it for almost any other; and her whole thoughts turned once more upon a journey to London, and an interview with Lady Aurora Granville.

Selina warmly protested that this separation should only augment her attachment to her favourite; by whose side she stayed, prattling, weeping, or practising the harp, till she was called away to Mrs Maple; from whom, however, she soon returned, relating, with uplifted hands, that all below was again in the utmost confusion, through a letter, just arrived, from Mrs Howel, stating the following particulars. That upon her communicating to Lord Denmeath the strange transaction, in which she must forever blush to have been, however innocently, involved, his lordship, very properly, had forbidden Lady Aurora to keep any sort of correspondence with so palpable an adventurer. But the excess of grief produced by this prohibition, had astonished and concerned both his lordship and herself: and their joint alarm had been cruelly augmented, by a letter from Mrs Greaves, the housekeeper, with intelligence that Lord Melbury had been shut up nearly two hours with this suspicious young woman, on the day that Mrs Howel had quitted Brighthelmstone; during which time, his lordship had suffered no one to come into the room, though she, Greaves, in accidentally passing by one of the windows, saw his lordship demean himself so far as to be speaking to her upon his knees. Lord Denmeath, treating this account as an impertinent piece of scandal, requested to have it shewn to his nephew; but how unspeakable was their consternation when Lord Melbury undauntedly avowed, that the charge was true; and added, that he was glad of the opportunity thus afforded him, to declare that Miss Ellis was the most virtuous and dignified, as well as the most beautiful and amiable of her sex: she had rejected, he said, a suit which he should always take shame to himself for having made; and rejected it in a manner so impressive of real purity, that he should for ever hold it his duty to do her honour by every means in his power. The wrath expressed by Lord Denmeath, and the tears shed by Lady Aurora, during this scene, were dreadful. Lord Denmeath saw that there was no time to be lost in guarding against the most eminent danger: he desired, therefore, that the young woman might be induced, if possible, to quit the country without delay; and his lordship was willing not only to pay for her voyage back, but to give security that she should receive a very considerable sum of money, the instant that he should be assured of her safe landing upon the continent. Mrs Howel begged that Mrs Maple would endeavour to bring this plan to bear; and, at all events, not lose sight of the young person, till she should be, some how or other, secured from Lord Melbury. The rest of the letter contained injunctions, that Mrs Maple would not let this disgraceful affair transpire in the neighbourhood; with sundry scornful admonitions, that she would herself be more guarded, in future, whom she recommended to her friends.

Mrs Maple, now, peremptorily sent word to Ellis, that she must immediately make up her mind to leaving the kingdom. But Ellis, without hesitation, answered that she had no such design. Commands and menaces, though amply employed, were fruitless to obtain any change in her resolution. She was, therefore, positively ordered to seek for charity in some other house.

Ellis, no longer wishing to stay, occupied her mind almost exclusively with the thoughts of her young friends. The tender attachment shewn to her by Lady Aurora, and the honourable testimony borne her by Lord Melbury, cheered her spirits, and warmed her heart, with a trust in their regard, that, defying the inflexibility of Mrs Howel, the authority of Lord Denmeath, and the violence of Mrs Maple, filled her with soft, consolatory ideas, that sweetened her night's rest, even in her uncertainty where she should find, or where seek repose on the night that would follow.

But this brighter side of her prospects, which soothed her on its first view, lost its gay colouring upon farther examination: that Lady Aurora should be forbidden to see, forbidden to write to her, was shocking to her feelings, and blighting to her happiness: and even though the tender nature, and strong partiality, of that youthful friend, might privately yield to the pleadings of an oppressed and chosen favourite, Ellis, while glowing with the hope that the interest which she had excited would be lastingly cherished, revolted from every plan that was clandestine.

Mrs Maple, who, in common with all those whose tempers are violent in the same proportion that their judgment is feeble, had issued forth her mandates, without examining whether they could be obeyed; and had uttered her threats, without considering whether she could put them into execution; no sooner learnt, from Selina, that Ellis was tranquilly preparing to depart, than she repented the step which she had taken, and passed the night in suggesting how it might be retrieved, to spare herself the discredit, in the neighbourhood, of a breach with Mrs Howel.

The next morning, therefore, the willing Selina was instructed to hasten to Ellis, with a message from Mrs Maple, graciously permitting one more lesson upon the harp.