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

Nothing could more aptly harmonize, not only with his enthusiastic eulogiums, but with his quaint fancy, than that exquisite effusion of the painter's imagination, 'where, surely,' said the rapturous Baronet, 'his pencil has been guided, if not impelled, in every stroke, by my dear little cronies the fairies! And that variety of vivifying objects; that rich, yet so elegant scenery, of airy gaiety, and ideal felicity, is palpably a representation of fairy land itself! Is it thither my dear little friends will, some day, convey me? And shall I be metamorphosed into one of those youthful swains, that are twining their garlands with such bewitching grace? And shall I myself elect the fair one, around whom I shall entwine mine?'

This harangue was interrupted, by the appearance of a newly arrived party; but vainly Sir Jaspar kept his word, in reclining upon his crutches, till he was nearly prostrate upon the ground; he was immediately challenged by a lady; and that lady was Mrs Ireton.

Juliet, inexpressibly shocked, hastily glided from the room, striving to cover her face with her luxuriously curling hair. She rambled about the mansion, till she met with a chambermaid, from whom she entreated permission to wait in some private apartment, till the carriage to which she belonged should be ready.

The maid, obligingly, took her to a small room; and Juliet, taught by her cruel confusion at the sight of Mrs Ireton, the censure, if not slander, to which travelling alone with a man, however old, might make her liable; determined, at whatever hazard, to hang, henceforth, solely upon herself. She resolved, therefore, to beg the assistance of this maid-servant, to direct her to some safe rural lodging.

But how great was her consternation, when, requiring, now, her purse, she suddenly missed, – what, in her late misery, she had neither guarded nor thought of, her packet and her work-bag!

Every pecuniary resource was now sunk at a blow! even the deposit, which she had held as sacred, of Harleigh, was lost!

At what period of her disturbances this misfortune had happened, she had no knowledge; nor whether her property had been dropt in her distress, or purloined; or simply left at the inn; the consequence, every way, was equally dreadful: and but for Sir Jaspar, whom all sense of propriety had told her, the moment before, to shun, yet to whom, now, she became tied, by absolute necessity, her Difficulties, at this conjuncture, would have been nearly distracting.

When the carriage was returned, with fresh horses, Sir Jaspar found her in a situation of augmented dismay, that filled him with concern; though he also saw, that it was tempered by a grateful softness to himself, that he thought more than ever bewitching.

He assured her that Mrs Ireton, whom he had adroitly shaken off, had not perceived her; but the moment that they were re-seated in the chaise, she communicated to him, with the most painful suffering, the new, and terrible stroke, by which she was oppressed.

Viewing this as a mere pecuniary embarrassment, the joy of becoming again useful, if not necessary, to her, sparkled in his eyes with almost youthful vivacity; though he engaged to send his valet immediately to the inn, to make enquiries, and offer rewards, for recovering the strayed goods.

This second loss of her purse, she suffered Sir Jaspar, without any attempt at justification, to call an active epigram upon modern female drapery; which prefers continual inconvenience, innumerable privations, and the most distressing untidiness, to the antique habit of modesty and good housewifery, which, erst, left the public display of the human figure to the statuary; deeming that to support the female character was more essential than to exhibit the female form.

This second loss, also, by carrying back her reflections to the first, brought to her mind several circumstances, which cast a new light upon that origin of the various misfortunes and adventures which had followed her arrival; and all her recollections, now she knew the rapacity and worthlessness of the pilot, pointed out to her that she had probably been robbed, at the moment when, impulsively, she was pouring forth, upon her knees, her thanks for her deliverance. Her work-bag, which, upon that occasion, she had deposited upon her seat, she remembered, though she had then attributed it to his vigilance and care, seeing in his hands, when she arose.

Arrived at the farm-house, they found themselves expected by the farmer and his wife, who paid the utmost respect to Sir Jaspar; but who saw, with an air of evidently suspicious surprize, the respect which he himself paid to Mrs Betty, the nurse-maid; whose beauty, with her rustic attire, and disordered hair, would have made them instantly conclude her to be a lost young creature, had not the decency of her look, the dignity of her manner, and the grief visible in her countenance, spoken irresistibly in favour of her innocence. They spoke not, however, in favour of that of Sir Jaspar, whose old character of gallantry was well known to them; and induced their belief, that he was inveigling this young woman from her friends, for her moral destruction. They accommodated her, nevertheless, for the night; but, whatever might be their pity, determined, should the Baronet visit her the next day, to invent some other occupation for their spare bedroom.

Unenviable was that night, as passed by their lodger, however acceptable to her was any asylum. She spent it in continual alarm; now shaking with the terrour of pursuit; now affrighted with the prospect of being pennyless; now shocked to find herself cast completely into the power of a man, who, however aged, was her professed admirer; and now distracted by varying resolutions upon the measures which she ought immediately to take. And when, for a few minutes, her eyes, from extreme fatigue, insensibly closed, her dreams, short and horrible, renewed the dreadful event of the preceding day; again she saw herself pursued; again felt herself seized; and she blessed the piercing shrieks with which she awoke, though they brought to her but the transient relief that she was safe for the passing moment.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

Sir Jaspar arrived late the next morning, in wrath, he said, with his valet, who was not yet returned with the result of his enquiries from the inn; but before Juliet could express any uneasiness at the delay, the farmer and his wife, in evident confusion, though with professions of great respect, humbly besought that his honour would excuse their mentioning, that they expected a relation, to pass some days with them, who would want the spare apartment.

The Baronet, however displeased, humourously answered that their relation was mightily welcome to pass his days with them, provided he would be so kind as to go to the neighbouring public-house to take his dreams: but Juliet, much hurt, though with an air of dignity that made her hosts look more abashed than herself, desired that she might not incommode the family; and entreated Sir Jaspar to convey her to the nearest town.

Sir Jaspar, rather to confound than to gratify the farmer, flung down a guinea, which the man vainly sought to decline; and then led the way to the carriage; at the door of which, stopping, he said, with an arch smile, that he was not yet superannuated enough to take place of a fair female; and desired that Mrs Betty would get in first.

Shocked as Juliet felt to find herself thus suspiciously situated, the affront was soon absorbed in the dread of greater evil; in the affright of pursuit, and the dismay of being exposed to improper pecuniary obligations.

Not knowing the country, and not heeding the way that she went, she concluded that they were driving to some neighbouring village, in search of a new lodging; till she perceived that the carriage, which was drawn by four horses, was laboriously mounting a steep acclivity.

Looking then around her, she found herself upon a vast plain; nor house, nor human being, nor tree, nor cattle within view.

Surprised, 'Where are we?' she cried, 'Sir Jaspar? and whither are we going?'

To a quick meeting with his valet, he answered, by a difficult road, rarely passed, because out of the common track.

They then quietly proceeded; Juliet, wrapt up in her own fears and affairs, making no comment upon the looks of enjoyment, and contented taciturnity of her companion; till the groom, riding up to the window, said that the horses could go no further.

Sir Jaspar ordered them a feed; and enquired of Juliet whether she would chuse, while they took a little rest, to mount on foot to the summit of the ascent, and examine whether any horsemen were yet within sight.

Glad to breathe a few minutes alone, she alighted and walked forward; though slowly, and with eyes bent upon the turf; till she was struck by the appearance of a wide ditch between a circular double bank; and perceived that she was approaching the scattered remains of some ancient building, vast, irregular, strange, and in ruins.

Excited by sympathy in what seemed lonely and undone, rather than by curiosity, she now went on more willingly, though not less sadly; till she arrived at a stupendous assemblage of enormous stones, of which the magnitude demanded ocular demonstration to be entitled to credibility. Yet, though each of them, taken separately, might seem, from its astonishing height and breadth, there, like some rock, to have been placed from 'the beginning of things,' and though not even the rudest sculpture denoted any vestige of human art, still the whole was clearly no phenomenon of nature. The form, that might still be traced, of an antique structure, was evidently circular and artificial; and here and there, supported by gigantic posts, or pillars, immense slabs of flat stone were raised horizontally, that could only by manual art and labour have been elevated to such a height. Many were fallen; many, with grim menace, looked nodding; but many, still sustaining their upright direction, were so ponderous that they appeared to have resisted all the wars of the elements, in this high and bleak situation, for ages.

Struck with solemn wonder, Juliet for some time wandered amidst these massy ruins, grand and awful, though terrific rather than attractive. Mounting, then, upon a fragment of the pile, she saw that the view all around was in perfect local harmony with the wild edifice, or rather remains of an edifice, into which she had pierced. She discerned, to a vast extent, a boundless plain, that, like the ocean, seemed to have no term but the horizon; but which, also like the ocean, looked as desert as it was unlimited. Here and there flew a bustard, or a wheat-ear; all else seemed unpeopled air, and uncultivated waste.

In a state of mind so utterly deplorable as that of Juliet, this grand, uncouth monument of ancient days had a certain sad, indefinable attraction, more congenial to her distress, than all the polish, taste, and delicacy of modern skill. The beauties of Wilton seemed appendages of luxury, as well as of refinement; and appeared to require not only sentiment, but happiness for their complete enjoyment: while the nearly savage, however wonderful work of antiquity, in which she was now rambling; placed in this abandoned spot, far from the intercourse, or even view of mankind, with no prospect but of heath and sky; blunted, for the moment, her sensibility, by removing her wide from all the objects with which it was in contact; and insensibly calmed her spirits; though not by dissipating her reverie. Here, on the contrary, was room for 'meditation even to madness;' nothing distracted the sight, nothing broke in upon attention, nor varied the ideas. Thought, uninterrupted and uncontrouled, was master of the mind.

Here, in deep and melancholy rumination, she remained, till she was joined by the Baronet; who toiled after his fair charge with an eager will, though with slack and discourteous feet.

'Do you divine, my beauteous Wanderer,' he cried, 'what part of the globe you now brighten? Have you developed my stratagem to surprize you by a view of what, perhaps, you thought impossible, something curious, and worthy of attention, though more antique than myself?'

Juliet tried, but vainly, to make a civil speech; and Sir Jaspar, after having vainly awaited it, went on.

'You picture yourself, perhaps, in the original temple of Gog and Magog? for what less than giants could have heaved stones such as these? but 'tis not so; and you, who are pious, must view this spot, with bended knees and new ideas. Dart, then, around, the "liquid lustre of those eyes, – so brightly mutable, so sweetly wild!"[12 - Mason's Lady Coventry.] – and behold in each stony spectre, now staring you in the face, a petrified old Druid! for learn, fair fugitive, you ramble now within the holy precincts of that rude wonder of other days, and disgrace of modern geometry, Stonehenge.'

In almost any other frame of mind, Juliet, from various descriptions, joined to the vicinity of Salisbury, would not have required any nomenclator to have told her where she was: but she could now make no reflections, save upon her own misery; and no combinations, that were not relative to her own dangers.

Sir Jaspar apologized that he had not more roughly handled the farmer and his wife, for their inhospitality; and frankly owned that it was not from the milkiness of his nature that he had been so docile, but from an ardent eagerness to visit Stonehenge with so fair a companion.

Juliet, alarmed, demanded whether he had not taken the route by which they were to meet his valet?

'I have all my life,' continued he, 'fostered, as the wish next my heart, the idea of being the object of some marvellous adventure: but fortune, more deaf, if possible, than blind! has hitherto famished all my elevated desires, by keeping me to the strict regimen of mere common life. Nevertheless, to die like a brute, without leaving behind me one staring anecdote, to be recounted by my successors to my little nephews and nieces; – no! I cannot resolve upon so hum-drum an exit. Late, therefore, last night, I counselled with my tiny friends; and the rogues told me that those whom adventures would not seek, must seek adventures. They then suggested to me, that to visit some romantic spot, far removed from all living ken, or a vast unfrequented plain; where no leering eye, with deriding scrutiny, no envious ear, with prepared impertinence, could peep, or overhear; – where not even a bird could find a twig for the sole of his paw; – there to encounter a lovely nymph; to dally with her in dulcet discourse; to feast upon the sweet notes of her melodious voice; – while obedient fays, and sprightly elves, should accoutre some chosen fragment with offerings appropriate to the place and the occasion – '

One of his grooms, here, demanded of him a private audience.

He retired to some distance, and the heart-oppressed Juliet relieved her struggling feelings by weeping without controul.

While pondering upon her precarious destiny, she perceived, through an opening between two large stones, that Sir Jaspar had placed himself upon an eminence, where, apparently, by his gestures, he was engaged in an animated discourse.

She concluded that the valet de chambre was arrived from the inn; but, soon afterwards, she was struck with motions so extraordinary, and by an appearance of a vivacity so extravagant, that she almost feared the imagination of the Baronet had played him false, and was superseding his reason. She arose, and softly approaching, endeavoured to discover with whom he was conversing; but could discern no one, and was the more alarmed; though the nearer she advanced, the less he seemed to be an object of pity; his countenance being as bright with glee, as his hands and arms were busy with action.

After some time, she caught his eye; when, ceasing all gesticulation, he kissed his hand, with a motion that invited her approach; and, gallantly resigning his seat, begged her permission to take one by her side.

He was all smiling good humour; and his features, in defiance of his age, expressed the most playful archness. 'It is not,' he cried, 'for nothing, permit me to assure you, that I have prowled over this druidical spot; for though the Druids have not been so debonnaire as to re-animate themselves to address me, they have suffered a flat surface of their petrifaction to be covered over with a whole army of my little frequenters; who have dragged thither a parcel, and the Lord knows what besides, that they have displayed, as you see, full before me; after which, with their usual familiarity, up they have been mounting to my shoulders, my throat, my ears, and my wig; and lolling all about me, in mockery of my remonstrances; saying, Harkee, old Sir! – for they use very little ceremony with me; – didst thou really fancy we would suffer the loveliest lily of the valley to droop without any gentle shade, under the blazing glare of this full light, while thy aukward clown of a valet trots to the inn for her bonnet? or let her wait his plodding return, for what other drapery her fair form may require? or permit her to be famished in the open air, whilst thou art hopping and hobbling, and hobbling and hopping, about these ruins, which thou art so fast ossifying to resemble? No, old Sir! look what our wands have brought hither for her! look! – but touch nothing for thy life! her own lily hands alone must develop our fairy gifts.'

Juliet, who, already, had observed, upon the nearest flat stone, a large band-box, and a square new trunk, placed as supporters to an elegant Japan basket, in which were arranged various refreshments; could not, however disconcerted by attentions that she knew not how to acknowledge, prevail upon herself to damp the exaltation of his spirits, by resisting his entreaty that she would herself lift up the lid of the trunk and open the band-box.

The first of these machines presented to her sight a complete small assortment of the finest linen; the second contained a white chip bonnet of the most beautiful texture.

This last excited a transient feeling of pleasure, in offering some shade for her face, now exposed to every eye. She looked at it, wistfully, a few minutes, anticipating its umbrageous succour; yet irresolute, and fearing to give encouragement to the too evident admiration of the Baronet. Her deliberation, nevertheless, seconded by her wishes, was in his favour. She passed over, in her mind, that he knew her origin, and high natural, however disputed expectations; and that, with all his gallantry, he was not only aged and sickly, but a gentleman in manners and sentiments, as much as in birth and rank of life. He could not mean her dishonour; and to shew, since thus cast into his hands, and loaded with obligations of long standing, as well as recent, a voluntary confidence in his character and intentions, might, happily, from mingling a sense of honour with a sense of shame, turn aside what was wrong in his regard, and give pride and pleasure to a nobler attachment, that might fix him her solid and disinterested friend for life.

Decided by this view of things, she thankfully consented to receive his offerings, upon condition that he would permit her to consider him as the banker of Lord Melbury and of Lady Aurora Granville.

Enchanted by her acceptance, and enraptured by its manner, the first sensation of the melted Baronet was to cast himself at her feet: but the movement was checked by certain aches and pains; while the necessity of picking up one of his crutches, which, in his transport, had fallen from his hands, mournfully called him back from his gallantry to his infirmities.

At this moment, an 'Ah ha! here's the Demoiselle! – Here she is, faith!' suddenly presented before them Riley, mounted upon a fragment of the pile, to take a view around him.

Starting, and in dread of some new horrour, Juliet looked at him aghast; while, clapping his hands, and turbently approaching her, he exclaimed, 'Yes! here she is, in propria persona! I was afraid that she had slipped through our fingers again! Monsieur le cher Epoux will have a pretty tight job of it to get her into conjugal trammels! he will, faith!'