Ellis positively disclaimed any such idea.
‘What am I to infer?’ cried Elinor, with returning and frightful agitation; ‘Will you be firm to your engagement? Is it truly your decision to refuse the hand of Harleigh, though he were to offer it you?’
Ellis shuddered, and looked down; but answered, ‘I will surely, Madam, never forget my engagement!’
The most perfect calm now succeeded to the many storms which had both impelled and shattered Elinor; and, after swallowing a copious draught of cold water, she laid her head upon her pillow, and fell into a profound and heavy, though not tranquil sleep.
Ellis, unable to conjecture in what frame of mind she might wake, did not dare leave her. She sat watchfully by her side, amazed to see, that, with such energy of character, such quickness of parts, such strength of comprehension, she not only gave way to all her impulses like a child, but, like a child, also, when over-fatigued, could suddenly lose her sufferings and her remembrance in a sort of spontaneous slumber.
But the balmy rest of even spirits, and a composed mind, was far from Elinor; exhausted nature claimed some respite from frantic exertion, and obtained it; but no more. She awoke then; yet, though it was with a frightful start, even this short repose proved salutary, not only to her nerves, but to her intellects. Her passions became less inflamed, and her imagination less heated; and, though she remained unchanged in her plans, and impenitent in her opinions, she acknowledged herself sensible to the strangeness of her conduct; and not without shame for its violence. These, however, were transitory sensations: one regret alone hung upon her with any serious weight: this was, having suffered her dagger to be seen and seized. She feared being suspected of a mere puerile effort, to frighten from Harleigh an offer of his hand, in menacing what she had not courage, nor, perhaps, even intention to perform.
This suggestion was intolerable: she blushed with shame as it crossed her mind. She shook with passion, as she considered, that such might be the disgraceful opinion, that might tarnish the glory that she meant to acquire, by dying at the feet of the object of her adoration, at the very moment of yielding to the happier star of an acknowledged rival; a willing martyr to successless, but heroick love.
She was now tempted to prove her sincerity by her own immediate destruction. ‘And yet,’ she cried, ‘shall I not bear what Harleigh bears? Shall I not know the destiny of Harleigh?’
This idea again reconciled her to present life, though not to her actual situation; and she ruminated laboriously, for some time, in gloomy silence; from which, however, breaking with sudden vivacity, ‘No, no!’ she cried: ‘I will not risk any aspersing doubt; I will shew him I have a soul that strenuously emulates the nobleness of his own. He shall see, he shall confess, that no meanness is mixt with the love of Elinor. He shall not suppose, because she glories in its undisguised avowal, that she waits in humble hope for a turn in her favour; that she is a candidate for his regard; a supplicant for his compassion! No! he shall see that she is frank without weakness, and free from every species of dissimulation or stratagem.’
She then rushed out of the room, shutting the door after her, and commanding Ellis not to follow: but Ellis fearing every moment some dreadful catastrophe, softly pursued her, till she saw her enter the servants’ hall; whence, after giving some orders, in a low voice and hurried manner, to her own footman, she re-mounted to her chamber; into which, without opposition, or even notice, Ellis also glided.
Here, eagerly seizing a pen, with the utmost rapidity, though with many blots, and frequent erazures, she wrote a long letter, which she read and altered repeatedly before she folded; she then wrote a shorter one; then rang for her maid, to whom she gave some secret directions, which she finished by commanding that she would find out Mr Harleigh, and desire that he would go immediately to the summer-house.
In about a quarter of an hour, which she spent in reading, revising, sealing, and directing her letters, the maid returned; and, after a long whisper, said, that she had given the message to Mr Harleigh.
Turning now to Ellis, with a voice and air of decision, that seemed imperiously to forbid resistance, she put into her hand the long letter which she had just written, and said, ‘Take this to him immediately; and, while he reads it, mark every change of his countenance, so as to be able to deduce, and clearly to understand, the sensations which pass in his mind.’
When Ellis expostulated upon the utter impropriety of her following Mr Harleigh, she sternly said, ‘Give the letter, then, to whatever other person you judge most proper to become a third in my confidence!’
She then nearly forced her out of the room.
Ellis did not dare venture to keep the letter, as she wished, till some opportunity should offer for presenting it quietly, lest some high importance should be annexed to its quick delivery; yet she felt that it would be cruel and indelicate to make over such a commission to another; in opposition, therefore, to the extremest personal repugnance, she compelled herself, with fearful and unwilling, yet hasty steps, to proceed again to the summer-house.
She found Harleigh, with an air at once pensive and alarmed, waiting for Elinor; but at the unexpected sight of Ellis, and of Ellis alone, every feature brightened; though his countenance, his manner, his whole frame, evinced increased agitation.
Anxious to produce her excuse, for an intrusion of which she felt utterly ashamed, she instantly presented him the letter, saying, ‘Miss Joddrel would take no denial to my being its bearer. She has even charged me to remain with you while you read it.’
‘Were that,’ said he, expressively, ‘the severest pain she inflicts upon me, I should soon become her debtor for feelings that leave pain apart!—Urgent, indeed, was my desire to see you again, and without delay; for after what has passed this morning, silence and forbearance are no longer practicable.’
‘Yet, at this moment,’ said Ellis, striving but ineffectually to speak without disturbance; ‘it will be impossible for me to defer returning to the house.’
‘Yet if not now, when?’
‘I know not—but she will be very impatient for some account of her letter.’
‘She will, at least, not be desperate, since she expects, and therefore will wait for you; how, then, can I hope to find a more favourable opportunity, for obtaining a few instants of your time?’
‘But, though she may not be desperate just now, is it not possible, Sir, that my staying may irritate, and make her so?’
‘That unhappily, is but too true! There is no relying upon the patience, or the fortitude, of one so completely governed by impulse; and who considers her passions as her guides to glory,—not as the subtlest enemies of every virtue! Nevertheless, what I feel for her is far beyond what, situated as I now am with her, I dare express—Yet, at this moment—’
‘Will you not read her letter?’
‘That you may run away?’ cried he, half smiling; ‘no, at this moment I will not read her letter, that you may be forced to stay!’
‘You cannot wish me to make her angry?’
‘Far, far from it! but what chance have I to meet you again, if I lose you now? Be not alarmed, I beg: she will naturally conclude that I am studying her letter; and, but for an insuperable necessity of—of some explanation, I could, indeed think of no other subject: for dreadful is the impression which the scene that I have just had with her has made upon my nerves.—Ah! how could she imagine such a one calculated to engage my heart? How wide is it from all that, to me, appears attractive! Her spirit I admire; but where is the sweetness I could love? I respect her understanding; but where is the softness that should make it charm while it enlightens? I am grateful for her partiality; but where is the dignity that might ennoble it, or the delicacy that might make it as refined as it is flattering? Where—where the soul’s fascination, that grows out of the mingled excellencies, the blended harmonies, of the understanding with the heart and the manners?’
Vainly Ellis strove to appear unconscious of the comparison, and the application, which the eyes of Harleigh, yet more pointedly than his words, marked for herself in this speech: her quickly rising blushes divulged all that her stillness, her unmoved features tried to disguise; and, to get rid of her confusion, she again desired that he would open the letter, and with an urgency which he could not resist. He merely stipulated that she would wait to hear his answer; and then read what follows.
‘For Albert Harleigh.
‘I am sick of the world, yet still I crawl upon its surface. I scorn and defy the whole human race, yet doom myself to be numbered in its community. While you, Albert Harleigh, you whom alone, of all that live and breath, I prize,—you, even your sight, I, from this moment, eternally renounce! Such the mighty ascendance of the passion which you have inspired, that I will sooner forego that only blessing—though the universe without it is a hateful blank to my eyes—than risk opposing the sway of your opinion, or suffer you to think me ignoble, though you know me to be enslaved. O Harleigh! how far from all that is vile and debasing is the flame, the pure, though ardent flame that you have kindled! To its animating influence I am indebted for one precious moment of heavenly truth; and for having snatched from the grave, which in its own nothingness will soon moulder away my frame, the history of my feelings.
‘I have conquered the tyrant false pride; I have mocked the puerilities of education; I have set at nought and defeated even the monster custom; but you, O Harleigh! you I obey, without waiting for a command; you, I seek to humour, without aspiring to please! To you, my free soul, my liberated mind, my new-born ideas, all yield, slaves, willing slaves, to what I only conceive to be your counsel, only conjecture to be your judgment; that since I have failed to touch your heart, after having opened to you my own, a total separation will be due to my fame for the world, due to delicacy for myself....
‘Be it so, Albert ... we will part!—Though my fame, in my own estimation, would be elevated to glory; by the publication of a choice that does me honour; though my delicacy would be gratified, would be sanctified, by shewing the purity of a passion as spotless as it is hopeless—yet will I hide myself in the remotest corner of the universe, rather than resist you even in thought. O Albert! how sovereign is your power!—more absolute than the tyranny of the controlling world; more arbitrary than prescription; more invincible than the prejudices of ages!—You, I cannot resist! you, I shall only breathe to adore!—to bear all you bear,—the tortures of disappointment, the abominations of incertitude; to say, Harleigh himself endures this! we suffer in unison! our woes are sympathetic!—O word to charm all the rigour of calamity!.... Harleigh, I exist but to know how your destiny will be fulfilled, and then to come from my concealment, and bid you a last farewell! to leave upon the record of your memory the woes of my passion; and then consign myself for ever to my native oblivion. Till then, adieu, Albert Harleigh, adieu!
‘Elinor Joddrel.’
Harleigh read this letter with a disturbance that, for a while, wholly absorbed his mind in its contents. ‘Misguided, most unfortunate, yet admirable Elinor!’ he cried, ‘what a terrible perversion is here of intellect! what a confusion of ideas! what an inextricable chaos of false principles, exaggerated feelings, and imaginary advancement in new doctrines of life!’
He paused, thoughtfully and sadly, till Ellis, though sorry to interrupt his meditations, begged his directions what to say upon returning to the house.
‘What her present plan may be,’ he answered, ‘is by no means clear; but so boundless is the licence which the followers of the new systems allow themselves, that nothing is too dreadful to apprehend. Religion is, if possible, still less respected than law, prescriptive rights, or any of the hitherto acknowledged ties of society. There runs through her letter, as there ran through her discourse this morning, a continual intimation of her disbelief in a future state; of her defiance of all revealed religion; of her high approbation of suicide.—The fatal deed from which you rescued her, had no excuse to plead from sudden desperation; she came prepared, decided, either to disprove her suspicions, or to end her existence!—poor infatuated, yet highly gifted Elinor!—what can be done to save her; to recall her to the use of her reason, and the exercise of her duties?’
‘Will you not, Sir, see her? Will you not converse with her upon these points, in which her mind and understanding are so direfully warped?’
‘Certainly I will; and I beg you to entreat for my admission. I must seek to dissuade her from the wild and useless scheme of seclusion and concealment. But as time now presses, permit me to speak, first, upon subjects which press also,—press irresistibly, unconquerably!—Your plan of becoming a governess—’
‘I dare not stay, now, to discuss any thing personal; yet I cannot refrain from seizing a moment that may not again offer, for making my sincerest apologies upon a subject—and a declaration—I shall never think of without confusion. I feel all its impertinence, its inutility, its presumption; but you will make, I hope, allowance for the excess of my alarm. I could devise no other expedient.’
‘Tell me,’ cried he, ‘I beg, was it for her ... or for me that it was uttered? Tell me the extent of its purpose!’
‘You cannot, surely, Sir, imagine—cannot for a moment suppose, that I was guided by such egregious vanity as to believe—’ She stopt, extremely embarrassed.
‘Vanity,’ said he, ‘is out of the question, after what has just passed; spare then, I beseech, your own candour, as well as my suspense, all unnecessary pain.’
‘I entreat, I conjure you, Sir,’ cried Ellis, now greatly agitated, ‘speak only of my commission!’
‘Certainly,’ he answered, ‘this is not the period I should have chosen, for venturing upon so delicate—I had nearly said so perilous a subject; but, so imperiously called upon, I could neither be insincere, nor pusillanimous enough, to disavow a charge which every feeling rose to confess!—Otherwise—just now,—my judgment, my sense of propriety,—all in the dark as I am—would sedulously, scrupulously, have constrained my forbearance, till I knew—’ He stopt, paused, and then expressively, yet gently added, ‘to whom I addressed myself!’
Ellis coloured highly as she answered, ‘I beg you, Sir, to consider all that was drawn from you this morning, or all that might be inferred, as perfectly null—unpronounced and unthought.’
‘No!’ cried he with energy, ‘no! To have postponed an explanation would have been prudent,—nay right:—but every sentiment of my mind, filled with trust in your worth, and reverence for your virtues, forbids now, a recantation! Imperious circumstances precipitated me to your feet—but my heart was there already!’
So extreme was the emotion with which Harleigh uttered these words, that he perceived not their effect upon Ellis, till gasping for breath, and nearly fainting, she sunk upon a chair; when so livid a paleness overspread her face, and so deadly a cold seemed to chill her blood, that, but for a friendly burst of tears, which ensued, her vital powers appeared to be threatened with immediate suspension.
Harleigh was instantly at her feet; grieved at her distress, yet charmed with a thousand nameless, but potent sensations, that whispered to every pulse of his frame, that a sensibility so powerful could spring only from too sudden a concussion of pleasure with surprise.
He had hardly time to breathe forth a protestation, when the sight of his posture brought back the blood to her cheeks, and force to her limbs; and, hastily rising, with looks of blushing confusion, yet with a sigh that spoke internal anguish, ‘I cannot attempt,’ she cried, ‘Mr Harleigh,—I could not, indeed, attempt—to express my sense of your generous good opinion!—yet—if you would not destine me to eternal misery, you must fly me—till you can forget this scene—as you would wish me to fly perdition!’
She rose to be gone; but Harleigh stopt her, crying, in a tone of amazement, ‘Is it possible,—can it be possible, that with intellects such as yours, clear, penetrating, admirable, you can conceive eternal misery will be your portion, if you break a forced engagement made with a mad woman?—and made but to prevent her immediate self-destruction?’
Shaking her head, but averting her eyes, Ellis would neither speak not be detained; and Harleigh, who durst not follow her, remained confounded.
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