The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 4 of 5)

To avoid the aspersion of making a clandestine retreat, Juliet had decided, however painful to her might be such an exertion, openly to relinquish her situation with Mrs Ireton; but she by no means felt equal to risking the irascibility of that lady before so many witnesses. Nevertheless, when she would have glided from the party, Miss Bydel, again seizing her arm, called out, 'Come, don't be afraid, Mrs Ellis: I've promised to take your part, and I am always as good as my word;' and then dragged, rather than drew her into the drawing-room; closely attended by Lord Melbury, Harleigh, Mr Giles Arbe, and Ireton.

CHAPTER LXV

Unweariedly concerting means of detection relative to the stranger, which no failure of success could discourage, Mrs Ireton and Mrs Maple sate whispering upon the same sofa in the drawing-room; while Selina and Miss Arramede were tittering at a window.

'How do you do, ladies?' cried Miss Bydel. 'In close chat, I see. However, I don't want to know what it's about. I'm only come to speak a word about this poor thing here, for fear you should think she has been all this time gossipping about her own affairs; which, I assure you, Mrs Ireton, I can bear witness for her i'n't the case.'

The supercilious silence of Mrs Ireton to this address, would have authorised the immediate retreat of Juliet, but that Ireton maliciously placed himself against the door, and impeded its being opened; while Lord Melbury and Harleigh were obliged to approach the sofa, to pay their compliments to the lady of the mansion; who, giving them her whole attention, left Miss Bydel to finish her harangue to Mrs Maple.

'Right! True!' cried Mr Giles, eager to abet what he thought the good nature of Miss Bydel. 'What you say is just and fair, Mrs Bydel; for this pretty young lady here wanted to go from these two gentlemen the minute we came up to her; only Mrs Bydel's arm being rather, I conceive, heavy, she could not so soon break away. But I did not catch one of her pretty dimples all the time. So pray, Mrs Ireton, don't be angry with her; and the less because she's so sweet tempered, that, if you are, she won't complain; for she never did of Mrs Maple.'

'I hope this is curious enough!' cried Mrs Maple. 'A body to come and live upon me, for months together, upon charity, and then not to complain of me! I think if this is not enough to cure people of charity, I wonder what is! For my part, I am heartily sick of it, for the rest of my life.'

Juliet having again, but vainly, tried to pass by Ireton, retired to an unoccupied window. Harleigh, though engaged in discourse with Mrs Ireton, reddened indignantly; and Lord Melbury nearly mashed the nails of his fingers between his teeth; while Mr Giles, staring, demanded, 'Why what can there be, Ma'am, in charity, to turn you so sick? A poor helpless young creature, like that, can't make you her toad-eater.'

Alarmed at an address which she looked upon as a prognostic to an exhortation, of which she dreaded, from experience, the plainness and severity, Mrs Maple hastily changed her place: while Mrs Ireton, startled, also, by the word toad-eater, unremittingly continued speaking to the two gentlemen; whose attention, nevertheless, she could not for a moment engage, though their looks and persons were her prisoners.

'I don't know why you ladies who are so rich and gay,' continued Mr Giles, composedly, and, to the great annoyance of Mrs Ireton, taking possession of the seat which Mrs Maple had abdicated; 'should not try to make yourselves pleasant to those who are poor and sad. You, that have got every thing you can wish for, should take as much pains not to be distasteful, as a poor young thing like that, who has got nothing but what she works for, should take pains not to be starved.'

Mrs Ireton, extremely incensed, though affecting to be unconcerned, haughtily summoned Ellis.

Ellis, forced to obey, went to the back of the sofa, to avoid standing by the side of the two gentlemen; and determined to make use of this opportunity for announcing her project of retreat.

'Pray, Ma'am,' Mrs Ireton cried, 'permit me to enquire – ' her eye angrily, yet cautiously, glancing at Mr Giles, 'to what extraordinary circumstance I am indebted, for having the honour of receiving your visitors? Not that I am insensible to such a distinction; you won't imagine me such an Hottentot, I hope, as to be insensible to so honourable a distinction! Nevertheless, you'll pardon me, I trust, if I take the liberty to intimate, that, for the future, when any of your friends are to be indulged in waiting upon you, you will have the goodness to receive them in your own apartments. You'll excuse the hint, I flatter myself!'

'I shall intrude no apologies upon your time, Madam,' said Ellis, calmly, 'for relinquishing a situation in which I have acquitted myself so little to your satisfaction: to-morrow, therefore – '

Anticipating, and eager to convert a resignation which she regarded as a disgrace, into a dismission which she considered as a triumph, Mrs Ireton impatiently interrupted her, crying, 'To-morrow? And why are we to wait for to-morrow? What has to-day done? Permit me to ask that. And pray don't take it ill. Pray don't let me offend you: only – what has poor to-day done, that to-morrow must have such a preference?'

Juliet, frightened at the idea of being reduced to pass a night alone at an inn, now hesitated; and Mrs Ireton, smiling complacently around her, went on.

'Suffer me, I beg, to speak a little word for poor, neglected to-day! Have we not long enough been slaves to to-morrow? Let the pleasures of dear expectation be superseded, this once, for those of actual enjoyment. Not but 'twill be very severe upon me to lose you. I don't dissemble that. So gay a companion! I shall certainly expire an hypochondriac upon first missing your amusing sallies. I can never survive such a deprivation. No! It's all over with me! You pity me, I am sure, my good friends?'

She now looked around, with an expression of ineffable satisfaction at her own wit: but it met no applause, save in the ever ready giggles of Selina, and the broad admiration of the round-eyed Miss Bydel.

Juliet silently courtsied, with a gravity that implied a leave-taking, and, approaching the door, desired that Ireton would let her pass.

Ireton, laughing, declared that he should not suffer her to decamp, till she gave him a direction where he could find her the next day.

Offended, she returned again to her window.

'O, now, pray, Mrs Ireton,' cried Miss Bydel, 'don't turn her away, poor thing! don't turn her away, Ma'am, for such a mere little fault. I dare say she'll do her best to please you, if you'll only try her again. Besides, if she's turned off in this manner, just as young Lord Melbury is here, he may try to make her his kept mistress again. At least naughty people will say so.'

'Who will say so, Ma'am?' cried Lord Melbury, starting up, in a rage to which he was happy to find so laudable a vent: 'Who will dare say so? Name me a single human being!'

'Lord, my lord,' answered Miss Bydel, a little frightened; 'nobody, very likely! only it's best to be upon one's guard against evil speakers; for young lords at your time of life, a'n't apt to be quite so good as they are when they are more stricken in years. That's all I mean, my lord; for I don't mean to affront your lordship, I'm sure.'

Mrs Ireton, again beckoning to Ellis, said, 'Pray, Mrs Thing-a-mi, have you done me so much honour as to make out your bill?' And, ostentatiously, she produced her purse. 'What is the amount, Ma'am, of my debt?'

Juliet paused a moment, and then answered, ''Tis an amount, Madam, much too difficult and complicate for me, just now, to calculate!'

Mr Giles, alertly rising, cried, 'Let me help you, then, my pretty lady, to cast it up. What have you given her upon account, Mrs Ireton?'

'I am not her book-keeper, Sir!' returned Mrs Ireton, extremely nettled. 'I don't pretend to the honour of acting as her steward! But I trust she will be good enough to take what is her due. 'Tis very much beneath her, I own; extremely beneath her, I confess; yet I hope, this once, she will let herself down so far.' And, ten guineas, which she had held in her hand, were augmented to twenty, which she paradingly flung upon the table.

Mrs Maple and Miss Bydel poured forth the warmest exclamations of admiration at this magnificence; but Juliet, quietly saying, 'Let me hope, Madam, that my successor may merit your generosity,' again courtsied, and was going: when Mr Giles, eagerly picking up the money, and following her with it, spread upon his open hand, said, 'What do you go without your cash for, my pretty lady? Why don't you take your guineas?'

'Excuse, excuse me, Sir!' cried Juliet, hastily, and trying to be gone.

'And why?' cried he, a little angrily. 'Are they not your own? What have you been singing for, and playing, and reading, and walking? and humouring the little naughty boy? and coddling the cross little dog? Take your guineas, I say. Would you be so proud as to leave the obligation all on the side of Mrs Ireton?'

A smile at this statement, in defiance of her distress, irresistibly stole its way upon the features of Juliet; while Mrs Ireton, stung to the quick, though forcing a contemptuous laugh, exclaimed, 'This is really the height of the marvellous! It transcends all my poor ideas! I own that! I can't deny that! However, I must drop my acquaintance entirely with Miss Arbe, if it is to subject me to intrusions of every sort, on pretence of visiting that Miss what's her name! I have had quite enough of all this! I really desire no more.'

Harleigh, to hide his acute interest in the situation of Juliet, pretended to be examining a portrait that was hung over the chimney-piece; but Lord Melbury, less capable of self-restraint, applaudingly seized the hand of Mr Giles, and grasping it warmly, cried, 'Where may I have the pleasure of waiting upon you, Sir? I desire infinitely to cultivate your acquaintance.'

'And I shall like it too, my good young nobleman,' said Mr Giles, with a look of great satisfaction; and was beginning, at very full length, to give his direction, when Selina called out from the window, as a carriage drove up to the door, 'Mrs Ireton, it's Lord Denmeath's livery.'

Lord Melbury, abruptly breaking from Mr Giles, hurried out of the room; which alone prevented the same action from Juliet, whose face suddenly exhibited horrour rather than affright. But she felt that to fly the uncle, at a moment when she might seem to pursue the nephew, might be big with suspicious mischief; and, though shaking with terrour, she placed herself as if she were examining a small landscape, behind an immense screen, which in summer, as well as in winter, nearly surrounded the sofa of Mrs Ireton. And hence she hoped, when his lordship should be entered, to steal unnoticed from the room.

'This is a stroke that surpasses all the rest!' faintly cried Mrs Ireton; 'that Lord Denmeath, whom I have not seen these seven ages, should renew his acquaintence at an epoch of such strange disorder in my house! He will never believe this apartment to be mine! it will not be possible for him to believe it. He'll conclude me in some lodging. He'll imagine me the victim of some dreadful reverse of fortune. He is so little accustomed to see me in any motley group! He can so little figure me to himself as a person in a general herd!'

'Well, I, for one, am here by mere accident, to be sure,' said Miss Bydel; 'but, however, I did not come in from mere curiosity, I assure you, Mrs Ireton; for I knew nothing of Lord Denmeath's being to come. However, as I happen to be here, I sha'n't be sorry to see his lordship, if I sha'n't be in anybody's way, for I never happened to be where he was before. Only I can't think what Lord Melbury went off so quick for; unless it was to shew his uncle the way up stairs. And if it was for that, it was pretty enough of him.'

'No, no, you'll be in nobody's way, Mrs Bydel,' said Mr Giles; 'don't be afraid of that. Here's abundance of room for us all. The apartment's a very good apartment for that.'

Mrs Ireton now, impatiently ringing the bell, demanded, of a servant, what he had done with Lord Denmeath; adding, 'I should be glad, Sir, to be informed! very glad, I must confess; for, perhaps, as you have been so good as to shew a visitor of one of my people into the drawing-room, you may have thought proper to usher a visitor of mine into the kitchen?'

His lordship, the servant answered, had been met by Lord Melbury, upon alighting from the coach, and had stept with him into the dining-parlour.

Mrs Maple exulted that she could now, at last, have an opportunity to clear herself of his lordship, about the many odd appearances which had so long stood against her: while Ireton, who had espied the effort of Juliet to escape notice, called out, 'I don't know where the devil I have put my hat;' and suddenly pushing towards her, with a blustrous appearance of search, gave her a mischievous nod, as she started back from his bold approach, and encircled her completely within the broad leaves of the screen.

She suffered this malicious sport in preference to attempting any resistance; though vexed at the noise which she must now unavoidably make in removing.

She was scarcely thus enclosed, when Lord Denmeath was announced.

Her heart now beat so violently with terrour, that her shaking hand could scarcely grasp a leaf of the screen, as she tried to make an opening for letting herself out, while his lordship was returning a reception of fawning courtesy, by some embarrassed and ambiguous apologies, relative to the motives of his visit. And when, at length, she succeeded, she was deterred from endeavouring to abscond, by seeing Harleigh, with his hand upon the door, making his bow.

Mrs Maple, interfering, would not permit him to depart; clamorously declaring, that he was the properest person to give an account to his lordship of this adventurer, as he must best know why he had forced them to take such a body into their boat.

With deep agitation, and blushing anxiety, Juliet now unavoidably heard Harleigh answer, 'I can but repeat to his lordship what I have a thousand times assured these ladies, that I have not the smallest knowledge whence this young lady comes, nor whom she may be. I can only, therefore, reply to these enquiries from my mental perceptions. These convince me, through progressive observations, that she is a person of honour, well educated, accustomed to good society, highly principled, and noble minded. You smile, my lord! But those only who judge without conversing with her, or converse without drawing forth her sentiments, can annex any disparaging doubt to the mystery of her situation. Her conduct has rather been exemplary than irreproachable from the moment that she has been cast upon our knowledge; though she has suffered, during that short interval, distress of almost every description. Her language is always that of polished life; her manners, even when her occupations are nearly servile, are invariably of distinguished elegance; yet, with all their softness, all their gentleness, she has a courage that, upon the most trying occasions, is superiour to difficulty; and a soul that, even in the midst of injury and misfortune, depends upon itself, and is above complaint. Such, my lord, I think her! not, indeed, from any certain documents; but from a self-conviction, founded, I repeat, upon progressive observations; which have the weight with me, now, of mathematical demonstration.'

Tears resistless, yet benign, flowed down the cheeks of Juliet in listening to this defence; and, while she endeavoured to disperse them, before she ventured from her retreat, Lord Denmeath began an enquiry, whether this young person had regularly refused to say who she was; or whether she had occasionally made any partial communication; or given any hints relative to her family or connexions.

Juliet was now in an agony of mind indescribable. She had hoped to glide away with the general party unobserved; but Harleigh had kept constantly at the door till he made his exit; which, now, was so crowdingly followed by that of every one, except Mrs Ireton and his lordship, that the delay ended in making her, individually, more conspicuous. Yet, to overhear, unsuspectedly, a conversation believed to be private, even though she knew herself to be its subject, was dishonour: hastily, therefore, though shaking in every limb, she forced herself from without the screen.

Mrs Ireton shrieked and sunk back upon the sofa, crying out, 'Oh, my lord, she's here! – Concealed to listen to us! – What a shock! – I shall feel it these three years!'

Juliet fleetly crossed the drawing-room, without daring to raise her head; but Lord Denmeath, passing quickly before her, as if intending to open the door, held the handle of the lock, while, steadily examining her as he spoke, he said, 'Will you give me leave, Ma'am, to see you for a few minutes to-morrow?'