Her troubled spirits thus appeased, she descended to inform Elinor of the result of her commission. She had received, indeed, no direct message; but Harleigh meant to desire a conference, and that desire would quiet, she hoped, and occupy the ideas of Elinor, so as to divert her from any minute investigation into the circumstances by which it had been preceded.
The door of the dressing room was locked, and she tapped at it for admission in vain; she concluded that Elinor was in her bed-chamber, to which there was no separate entrance, and tapped louder, that she might be heard; but without any better success. She remained, most uneasily, in the landing-place, till the approaching footstep of Harleigh forced her away.
Upon re-entering her own chamber, and taking up her needle-work, she found a letter in its folds.
The direction was merely To Ellis. This assured her that it was from Elinor, and she broke the seal, and read the following lines.
‘All that now remains for the ill-starred Elinor, is to fly the whole odious human race. What can it offer to me but disgust and aversion? Despoiled of the only scheme in which I ever gloried, that of sacrificing in death, to the man whom I adore, the existence I vainly wished to devote to him in life;—despoiled of this—By whom despoiled?—by you! Ellis,—by you!—Yet—Oh incomprehensible!—You, refuse Albert Harleigh!—Never, never could I have believed in so senseless an apathy, but for the changed countenance which shewed the belief in it of Harleigh.
‘If your rejection, Ellis, is that you may marry Lord Melbury, which alone makes its truth probable—you have done what is natural and pardonable, though heartless and mercenary; and you will offer me an opportunity to see how Harleigh—Albert Harleigh, will conduct himself when—like me!—he lives without hope.
‘If, on the contrary, you have uttered that rejection, from the weak folly of dreading to witness a sudden and a noble end, to a fragile being, sighing for extinction,—on your own head fall your perjury and its consequences!
‘I go hence immediately. No matter whither.
‘Should I be pursued, I am aware I may soon be traced: but to what purpose? I am independent alike in person, fortune, and mind; I cannot be brought back by force, and I will not be moved by idle persuasion, or hacknied remonstrance. No! blasted in all my worldly views, I will submit to worldly slavery no longer. My aunt, therefore, will do well not to demand one whom she cannot claim.
‘Tell her this.
‘Harleigh—
‘But no,—Harleigh will not follow me! He would deem himself bound to me ever after, by all that men hold honourable amongst one another, if, through any voluntary measure of his own, the shadow of a censure could be cast upon Elinor.
‘Oh, perfect Harleigh! I will not involve your generous delicacy—for not yours, not even yours would I be, by the foul constraint of worldly etiquette! I should disdain to owe your smallest care for me to any menace, or to any meanness.
‘Let him, not, therefore, Ellis, follow me; and I here pledge myself to preserve my miserable existence, till I see him again, in defiance of every temptation to disburthen myself of its loathsome weight. By the love I bear to him, I pledge myself!
‘Tell him this.
‘Elinor Joddrel.‘
Ellis read this letter in speechless consternation. To be the confident of so extraordinary a flight, seemed danger to her safety, while it was horrour to her mind.
The two commissions with which, so inconsiderately, she was charged, how could she execute? To seek Harleigh again, she thought utterly wrong: and how deliver any message to Mrs Maple, without appearing to be an accomplice in the elopement? She could only prove her innocence by shewing the letter itself, which, in clearing her from that charge, left one equally heavy to fall upon her, of an apparently premeditated design to engage, or, as the world might deem it, inveigle, the young Lord Melbury into marriage. It was evident that upon that idea alone, rested the belief of Elinor in a faithful adherence to the promised rejection; and that the letter which she had addressed to Ellis, was but meant as a memorandum of terrour for its observance.
Not long afterwards, Selina came eagerly to relate, that the dinner-bell having been rung, and the family being assembled, and the butler having repeatedly tapt at the door of sister Elinor, to hurry her; Mrs Maple, not alarmed, because accustomed to her inexactitude, had made every body dine: after which, Tomlinson was sent to ask whether sister Elinor chose to come down to the dessert; but he brought word that he could not make either her or Mrs Golding speak. Selina was then desired to enquire the reason of such strange taciturnity; but could not obtain any answer.
Mrs Maple, saying that there was no end to her vagaries, then returned to the drawing-room; concluding, from former similar instances, that, dark, late, and cold as it was, Elinor had walked out with her maid, at the very hour of dinner. But Mr Harleigh, who looked extremely uneasy, requested Selina to see if her sister were not with Miss Ellis.
To this Ellis, by being found alone, was spared any reply; and Selina skipt down stairs to coffee.
How to avoid, or how to sustain the examination which she expected to ensue, occupied the disturbed mind of Ellis, till Selina, in about two hours, returned, exclaiming, ‘Sister Elinor grows odder and odder! do you know she is gone out in the chariot? She ordered it herself, without saying a word to aunt, and got in, with Golding, close to the stables! Tomlinson has just owned it to Mr Harleigh, who was grown quite frightened at her not coming home, now it’s so pitch dark. Tomlinson says she went into the hall herself, and made him contrive it all. But we are no wiser still as to where she is gone.’
The distress of Ellis what course to take, increased every moment as it grew later, and as the family became more seriously alarmed. Her consciousness that there was no chance of the return of Elinor, made her feel as if culpable in not putting an end to fruitless expectation; yet how produce a letter of which every word demanded secresy, when all avowal would be useless, since Elinor could not be forced back?
No one ascended again to her chamber till ten o’clock at night: the confusion in the house was then redoubled, and a footman came hastily up stairs to summon her to Mrs Maple.
She descended with terrour, and found Mrs Maple in the parlour, with Harleigh, Ireton, and Mrs Fenn.
In a voice of the sharpest reprimand, Mrs Maple began to interrogate her: while Harleigh, who could not endure to witness a haughty rudeness which he did not dare combat, taking the arm of Ireton, whom he could still less bear to leave a spectator to a scene of humiliation to Ellis, quitted the room.
Vain, however, was either enquiry or menace; and Mrs Maple, when she found that she could not obtain any information, though she had heard, from Mrs Fenn, that Ellis had passed the morning with her niece, declared that she would no longer keep so dangerous a pauper in the house; and ordered her to be gone with the first appearance of light.
Ellis, courtseying in silence, retired.
In re-passing through the hall, she met Harleigh and Ireton; the former only bowed to her, impeded by his companion from speaking; but Ireton, stopping her, said, ‘O! I have caught you at last! I thought, on my faith, I was always to seek you where you were never to be found. If I had not wanted to do what was right, and proper, and all that, I should have met with you a hundred times; for I never desired to do something that I might just as well let alone, but opportunity offered itself directly.’
Ellis tried to pass him, and he became more serious. ‘It’s an age that I have wanted to see you, and to tell you how prodigiously ashamed I am of all that business. I don’t know how the devil it was, but I went on, tumbling from blunder to blunder, till I got into such a bog, that I could neither stand still, nor make my way out:—’
Ellis, gratified that he would offer any sort of apology, and by no means wishing that he would make it more explicit, readily assured him, that she would think no more upon the subject; and hurried to her chamber: while Harleigh, who stood aloof, thought he observed as much of dignity as of good humour, in her flying any further explanation.
But Mrs Maple, who only meant, by her threat, to intimidate Ellis into a confession of what she knew of the absence, and of the purposes, of Elinor, was so much enraged by her calmness, that she told Mrs Fenn to follow her, with positive orders, that, unless she would own the truth, she should quit the house immediately, though it were in the dead of the night.
Violence so inhuman rather inspired than destroyed fortitude in Ellis, who quietly answered, that she would seek an asylum, till day-light, at the neighbouring farmer’s.
Selina followed, and, embracing her, with many tears, vowed eternal friendship to her; and asked whether she did not think that Lady Aurora would be equally constant.
‘I must hope so!’ she answered, sighing, ‘for what else have I to hope?’
She now made her preparations; yet decided not to depart, unless again commanded; hoping that this gust of passion would pass away, and that she might remain till the morning.
While awaiting, with much inquietude, some new order, Selina, to her great surprise, came jumping into the room, to assure her that all was well, and more than well; for that her aunt not only ceased to desire to send her away directly, but had changed her whole plan, and was foremost now in wishing her to stay.
Ellis, begging for an explanation, then heard, that Ireton had told Mrs Maple, that there was just arrived at Brighton M. Vinstreigle, a celebrated professor, who taught the harp; and of whom he should be charmed that Selina should take some lessons.
Mrs Maple answered, that it would be the height of extravagance, to send for a man of whom they knew nothing, when they had so fine a performer under their own roof. Ireton replied, that he should have mentioned that from the first, but for the objections which then seemed to be in the way of trusting Miss Ellis with such a charge: but when he again named the professor, Mrs Maple hastily commissioned Selina to acquaint Ellis, that, to-morrow morning they were to begin a regular course of lessons together upon the harp.
Though relieved, by being spared the danger and disgrace of a nocturnal expulsion, Ellis shrunk from the project of remaining longer in a house in which Harleigh was admitted at pleasure; and over which Elinor might keep a constant watch. It was consolatory, nevertheless, to her feelings, that Ireton, hitherto her defamer, should acquiesce in this offer, which, at least, not to disoblige Mrs Maple, she would accept for the moment. To give lessons, also, to a young lady of fashion, might make her own chosen scheme, of becoming a governess in some respectable family, more practicable.
About midnight, a horseman, whom Mrs Maple had sent with enquiries to Brighthelmstone, returned, and informed her, that he could there gather no tidings; but that he had met with a friend of his own, who had told him that he had seen Miss Joddrel, in Mrs Maple’s carriage, upon the Portsmouth road.
Mrs Maple, now, seeing all chance of her return, for the night, at an end, said, that if her niece had freaks of this inconsiderate and indecorous sort, she would not have the family disordered, by waiting for her any longer; and, wishing the two gentlemen good night, gave directions that all the servants should go to bed.
The next morning, during breakfast, the groom returned with the empty carriage. Miss Joddrel, he said, had made him drive her and Mrs Golding to an inn, about ten miles from Lewes, where she suddenly told him that she should pass the night; and bid him be ready for returning at eight o’clock the next morning. He obeyed her orders; but, the next morning, heard, that she had gone on, over night, in a hired chaise, towards Portsmouth; charging no one to let him know it. This was all the account that he was able to give; except that, when he had asked whether his mistress would not be angry at his staying out all night, Miss Joddrel had answered, ‘O, Ellis will let her know that she must not expect me back.’
Selina, who related this, was told to fetch Ellis instantly.
Ellis descended with the severest pain, from the cruel want of reflection in Elinor, which exposed her to an examination that, though she felt herself bound to evade, it must seem inexcuseable not to satisfy.
Mrs Maple and the two gentlemen were at the breakfast-table. Harleigh would not even try to command himself to sit still, when he found that Ellis was forced to stand: and even Ireton, though he did not move, kept not his place from any intentional disrespect; for he would have thought himself completely old-fashioned, had he put himself out of his way, though for a person of the highest distinction.
‘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.
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