She observed that he stopt, every two or three minutes, himself, to take an inquisitive view all around him; frequently bending upon the ground, and appearing to be upon some eager search.
As he approached, she thought that his air was familiar to her; she regarded him more earnestly as he drew nearer; what, then, was her horrour to recognize the pilot!
She glided back, instantaneously, to the house, beckoning to the children to follow; and, rushing upon Dame Fairfield, and, taking both her hands, she faintly ejaculated, ‘Oh my good dame!—hide, conceal me, I entreat!—I am pursued by a cruel enemy, and lost if you are not my friend!—Serve, save me, now, and I will be yours to the end of my life!’
‘That I wull!’ answered the dame, delighted; ‘if you wull but be so koind as to save my poor husband the sheame of being honged or transported, I wull go through fire and water to serve you, to the longest day I have to live upon the feace of God’s yearth!’
Then, making the children play without doors, that they might not observe what passed, she told Juliet to bolt herself into the upper chamber.
In a few minutes, the children, running into the house, called out, ‘Mam, mam, yonder be dad!’
The dame went forth to meet him; and Juliet spent nearly half an hour in the most cruel suspense.
Dame Fairfield then came to her; and, by the discourse that ensued, she found that the pilot was one of the smugglers who brought merchandize to Mixon; and heard that he and Fairfield had thus unexpectedly returned, in search of a piece of fine broad French lace, of great value, which was missing; and which Fairfield suspected to have dropt from one of his parcels, while he was making his assortments, by the light of the lanthorn. She had been, she said, helping them to look for it, high and low; but had stolen away, for an instant, to bring this account; and to beg Juliet not to be frightened, because though, if Fairfield would go up stairs, she could not hinder him, she would take care that the smuggler should not follow.
Juliet was now seized with a panic that nearly bereft her of all hope; and Dame Fairfield was so much touched by the sight of her sufferings, that she descended, unbidden, to endeavour to discover some means to facilitate an escape.
That the pilot should prove to be a smuggler, caused no surprize to Juliet; but that accident should so cruelly be her foe, as to lead her to the spot where he deposited and negociated his merchandize, at the very period when his affairs brought him thither himself; that she should find her chosen retreat her bane; and that, even where she was unpursued, she should be overtaken; was a stroke of misfortune as severe as it was unexpected.
And, soon after, she found her situation still more terrible than she had imagined it. Fairfield, presently entering the kitchen, to take some food, accused his wife, in a loud and angry tone, of having abetted an imposter. Mounseer, the smuggler, he said, had not come to these parts, this time, merely for his own private business. He had been offered a great reward for discovering a young gentlewoman who had run away; and who turned out to be no other than the very same that she had been such a ninny as to impose upon Dame Goss, at Salisbury; and who had made off without paying for her board and lodging.
The dame warmly declared, that this could not be possible; that it must be some other gentlewoman; for that a person who could be so kind to her children could not have so black a heart.
Fairfield, with bitter reproaches against her folly, persisted in the accusation: stating, that, upon Dame Goss’s going to the post-office for a letter, it had been refused to her, because of its being directed to a person advertised in the public news-papers; and Dame Goss had been sent back, with an excuse, to while away the time, till somebody should follow, to confront the gentlewoman with the advertisement. But Dame Goss, instead of keeping a sharp watch, had been over-persuaded to go of an errand; and she had no sooner turned her back, than the gentlewoman made off. However, they had written to the news-papers that she was somewhere in those parts; and they could do no more; for there was no right to seize her; for the advertisement only desired to know where she might be heard of, and found. It had made a rare hue and cry in the town; and Mounseer, the smuggler, who had come down to Salisbury along with another outlandish man, had traced the gentlewoman as far as to Romsey; but could not find out what had become of her afterwards. The other outlandish man, who was as rich as a Duke, and was to pay the reward, had stopt at Salisbury, for tidings: upon which Mounseer, the smuggler, thought he might as well come on, and see a bit after his own business by the way; for it would not lose much time; and he might not get to these parts again for months.
The silence that ensued, gave Juliet an afflicting presentiment that she had lost, by this history, her friend and advocate: and accordingly, when, upon her husband’s returning to his search, the dame re-mounted the stairs, her air was so changed, that Juliet, again clasping her hands, cried, ‘Oh! Dame Fairfield!—Kind, good Dame Fairfield! judge me not till you know me better! Aid me still, my good dame, in pity, in charity aid me!—for, believe me, I am innocent!’
‘Why then so I wull!’ cried the dame, resuming her looks of mild good will; ‘I wull believe you! And I’ll holp you too, for sure: for now you be under my own poor roof, ’twould be like unto a false heart to give you up to your enemies. Besoides, I do think in my conscience you wull pay every one his own, when you’ve got wherewithal. And it be but hard to expect it before. And I do say, that a person that could be so koind to my little Jacky and Jenny, in their need, must have a good heart of her own; and would no’ wrong no yearthly creature, unless a could no’ holp it.’
She then promised to watch the moment of the smuggler’s turning round to the garden-side of the house, to assist her flight; and, once a few yards distant, all would be safe; for her change of clothes from what she had worn at Salisbury, would secure her from any body’s recollection.
This, in a few minutes, was performed; and, without daring to see the children, who would have cried at her departure, Juliet took a hasty leave, silent but full of gratitude, of the good dame; into whose bosom, as her hand refused it, she slipt a guinea for the little ones; and, having received full directions, set forward, by the shortest cut, to the nearest high road.
She reached it unannoyed, but breathless; and seated herself upon a bank by its side; not to hesitate which way to turn; the right and the left were alike unknown to her, and alike liable to danger; but to recover respiration, and force to proceed.
She could now form no plan, save to hasten to some other part of the country; certain that here she was sought all around; and conscious that the disguise of her habiliment, if not already betrayed, must shortly, from a thousand accidents, prove nugatory.
In her ignorance what course the pilot might take, upon quitting the cottage of Fairfield, she determined upon seeking, immediately, some decent lodging for the rest of the day; hoping thus, should he pursue the same route, to escape being overtaken.
She had soon the satisfaction to come to a small habitation, a little out of the high road, where she was accommodated, by a man and his wife, with a room that precisely answered her purpose: and here she spent the night.
Thankful in obtaining any sort of tranquillity, she would fain have remained longer; but she durst not continue in the neighbourhood of Fairfield; and, the following morning, she re-commenced her wanderings.
She asked the way to Salisbury, though merely that she might take an opposite direction. She ventured not to raise her eyes from the earth, nor to cast even a glance at any one whom she passed. She held her handkerchief to her face at the sound of every carriage; and trembled at the approach of every horseman. Her steps were quick and eager; though not more precipitate to fly from those by whom she was followed, than fearful of being observed by those whom she met.
In a short time, the sight of several hostlers, helpers, and postilions, before a large house, which appeared to be a capital inn, made her cross the way. She wished to turn wholly from the high road; but low brick-walls had now, on either side, taken place of hedges, and she searched in vain for an opening. Her earnestness to press onward, joined to her fear of looking up, made her soon follow, unconsciously, an ordinary man, till she was so close behind him, as suddenly to perceive, by his now well known coat, that he was the pilot! A scream struggled to escape her, in the surprize of her affright; but she stifled it, and, turning short back, speeded her retrograde way with all her force.
She had reason, however, to fear that her uncontrollable first emotion had caught his notice, for she heard footsteps following. Hopeless of saving herself, if watched or suspected, by flight; as she knew that there was no turning for at least half a mile; she darted precipitately into the inn; which seemed alone to offer her even a shadow of any chance of concealment. She rushed past ostlers, helpers, postilions, and waiters; seized the hand of the first female that she met; and hastily begged to be shewn to a room.
The chambermaid, astonished at such a request from a person no better equipped, pertly asked what she meant.
Juliet, whose apprehensive eyes roved everywhere, now saw the pilot at the door.
She held the maid by the arm, and, in a voice scarcely audible, entreated to be taken any where that she might be alone; and had the presence of mind to hint at a recompence.
This instantly prevailed. The maid said, ‘Well, come along!’ and led her to a small apartment up stairs.
Juliet put a shilling into her hand, and was then left to herself.
In an agony of suffering that disordered her whole frame, What a life, she cried, is this that I lead! How tremendous, and how degrading! Is it possible that even what I fly can be more dreadful?
This question restored her fortitude. Ah yes! ah yes! she cried, all passing evil is preferable to such a termination!
She now composed her spirits, and, while deliberating how she might make a friend of the maid, to aid her escape, perceived, from the window, the pilot, in a stable-yard, examining a horse, for which he seemed to be bartering.
This determined her to attempt to regain the cottage which she had last quitted, and thence to try some opposite route.
Swiftly she descended the stairs; a general bustle from some new arrival enabled her to pass unnoticed; but a chaise was at the door, and she was forced to make way for a gentleman, who had just quitted it, to enter the house. Unavoidably, by this movement, she saw the gentleman also; the colour instantly forsook her cheeks and lips; her feet tottered, and she fell.
She was immediately surrounded by waiters; but the gentleman, who, observing only her dress, concluded her to belong to the house, walked on into the kitchen, and asked, in broken English, for the landlord or landlady.
Juliet, whose fall had been the effect of a sudden deprivation of strength, from an abrupt sensation of horrour, had not fainted. She heard, therefore, what passed, and was easily helped to rise; and, shaded by her packet, which, even in her first terrour, she had instinctively held to her face, she made a motion to walk into the air. One of the men, good naturedly, placed her a chair without doors; she sat upon it thankfully, and almost as quickly recovered as she had lost her force, by a reviving idea, that, even yet, thus situated, she might make her escape.
She had just risen with this view, when the voice of the pilot, who was coming round the house, from the stable-yard, forced her hastily to re-enter the passage; but not before she heard him enquire, whether a French gentleman were arrived in that chaise?
Again, now, she glided on towards the stairs; hearing, as she passed, the answer made by the French gentleman himself: ’Oui, oui, me voici. Quelles sont les nouvelles?‘1
The voices of both proved each to be advancing to the passage, to meet the other. Juliet was no longer sensible of bodily weakness; nor scarcely of bodily existence. She seemed to herself a mere composition of terrour. She flew up the stairs, meaning to regain her little chamber; but, mistaking her way, found herself in a gallery, leading to the best apartments. Glad, however, rather than sorry, in the hope she might here be less liable to be sought, she opened the first door; and, entering a large room, locked and bolted herself in, with such extreme precipitance, that already she had sunk upon her knees, in fervent prayer, before a shadow, which caught her eyes, made her look round; when she perceived, at a distant window, a gentleman who was writing.
In the deepest consternation, she arose, hurrying to find the key; which, in her perturbation, she had taken out, and let drop she knew not where.
While earnestly searching it, the gentleman, mildly, yet in a tone of some surprize, enquired what she wanted.
Startled at the sound of his voice, she looked up, and saw Harleigh.
Her conflicting emotions now exceeded all that she had hitherto experienced. To seem to follow, even to his room, the man whom she had adjured, as he valued her preservation, to quit and avoid her; joined sensations of shame so poignant, to those of horrour and anguish, with which she was already overwhelmed, that, almost, she wished her last hour to arrive; that, while finishing her wretchedness, she might clear her integrity and honour.
Harleigh, to whom her dress, as he had not caught a view of her face, proved a complete disguise of her person, concluded her to be some light nymph of the inn, and suffered her to search for the key, without even repeating his question: but when, upon her finding it, he observed that her shaking hand could not, for some time, fix it in the lock, he was struck with something in her general form that urged him to rise, and offer his assistance.
Still more her hand shook, but she opened the door, and, without answering, and with a head carefully averted, eagerly quitted the room; shutting herself out, with trembling precipitation.
Harleigh hesitated whether to follow; but it was only for a moment: the next, a shriek of agony reached his ears, and, hastily rushing forth, he saw the female who had just quitted him, standing in an attitude of despair; her face bowed down upon her hands; while an ill-looking man, whom he presently recollected for the pilot, grinning in triumph, and with arms wide extended, to prevent her passing, loudly called out, ’Citoyen! Citoyen! venez voir! c’est Elle! Je la tien!‘2
Harleigh would have remonstrated against this rude detention; but he had no sooner begun speaking, than Juliet, finding that she could not advance, retreated; and had just put her hand upon the lock of a door, higher up in the gallery; when another man, dressed with disgusting negligence, and of a hideous countenance, yet wearing an air of ferocious authority; advancing by large strides, roughly seized her arm, with one hand, while, with the other, he rudely lifted up her bonnet, to examine her face.
‘C’est bien!‘ he cried, with a look of exultation, that gave to his horrible features an air of infernal joy; ’viens, citoyenne, viens; suis moi.’3
Harleigh, who, when the bonnet was raised, saw, what as yet he had feared to surmize,—that it was Juliet; sprang forward, exclaiming, ‘Daring ruffian! quit your hold!’
‘Ose tu nier mes droits?‘ cried the man, addressing Juliet; whose arm he still griped;—‘Dis!—parles!—l’ose tu?‘4
Juliet was mute; but Harleigh saw that she was sinking, and bent towards her to save her fall; what, then, was his astonishment, to perceive that it was voluntary! and that she cast herself at the feet of her assailant!
Thunderstruck, he held back.
The man, with an expression of diabolical delight at this posture, cast his eyes now upon her, now upon her appalled defendant; and then, in French, gave orders to the pilot, to see four fresh horses put to the chaise: and, in a tone of somewhat abated rage, bid Juliet arise, and accompany him down stairs.
‘Ah, no!—ah, spare—ah, leave me yet!—’ in broken accents, and in French, cried the still prostrate Juliet.
The man, who was large made, tall, and strong, seized, then, both her arms, with a motion that indicated his intention to drag her along.
A piercing shriek forced its way from her at his touch: but she arose, and made no appeal, no remonstrance.
‘Si tu peus le conduire toute seule,‘ said the man, sneeringly, ’soit! Mais vas en avant! Je ne le perdrai plus de vu.‘5
Juliet again hid her face, but stood still.
The man roughly gave her a push; seeming to enjoy, with a coarse laugh, the pleasure of driving her on before him.
Harleigh, who saw that her face was convulsed with horrour, fiercely planted himself in the midst of the passage, vehemently exclaiming, ‘Infernal monster! by what right do you act?’
‘De quel droit me le demandez vous?‘6 cried the man; who appeared perfectly to understand English.
‘By the rights of humanity!’ replied Harleigh; ‘and you shall answer me by the rights of justice! One claim alone can annul my interference. Are you her father?’
‘Non!‘ he answered, with a laugh of scorn; ’mais il y a d’autres droits!‘7
‘There are none!’ cried Harleigh, ‘to which you can pretend; none!’
‘Comment cela? n’est-ce pas ma femme? Ne suis-je pas son mari?‘8
‘No!’ cried Harleigh, ‘no!’ with the fury of a man seized with sudden delirium; ‘I deny it!—’tis false! and neither you nor all the fiends of hell shall make me believe it!’
Juliet again fell prostrate; but, though her form turned towards her assailant, her eyes, and supplicating hands, that begged forbearance, were lifted up, in speechless agony, to Harleigh.
Repressed by this look and action, though only to be overpowered by the blackest surmizes, Harleigh again stood suspended.
Finding the people of the inn were now filling the staircase, to see what was the matter, the foreigner, in tolerable English, told them all to be gone, for he was only recovering an eloped wife. Then, addressing Juliet, ‘If you dare assert,’ he said, ‘that you are not my wife, your perjury may cost you dear! If you have not that hardiness, hold your tongue and welcome. Who else will dare dispute my claims?’
‘I will!’ cried Harleigh, furiously. ‘Walk this way, Sir, and give me an account of yourself! I will defend that lady from your inhuman grasp, to the last drop of my blood!’
‘Ah, no! ah, no!’ Juliet now faintly uttered; but the man, interrupting her, said, ‘Dare you assert, I demand, that you are not my wife? Speak! Dare you?’
Again she bowed down her face upon her hands,—her face that seemed bloodless with despair; but she was mute.
‘I put you to the test;’ continued the man, striding to the end of the gallery, and opening the last door: ‘Go into that chamber!’
She shrieked aloud with agony uncontrollable; and Harleigh, with an emotion irrepressible, cast his arms around her, exclaiming, ‘Place yourself under my protection! and no violence, no power upon earth shall tear you away!’
At these words, all the force of her character came again to her aid; and she disengaged herself from him, with a reviving dignity in her air, that shewed a decided resolution to resist his services: but she was still utterly silent; and he saw that she was obliged to sustain her tottering frame against the wall, to save herself from again sinking upon the floor.
The foreigner seemed with difficulty to restrain his rage from some act of brutality; but, after a moment’s pause, fixing his hands fiercely in his sides, he ferociously confronted the shaking Juliet, and said, ‘I have informed your family of my rights. Lord Denmeath has promised me his assistance and your portion.’
‘Lord Denmeath!’ repeated the astonished Harleigh.
‘He has promised me, also,’ the foreigner, without heeding him, continued, ‘the support of your half-brother, Lord Melbury,—’
‘Lord Melbury!’ again exclaimed Harleigh; with an expression that spoke a sudden delight, thrilling, in defiance of agony, through his burning veins.
‘Who, he assures me, is a young man of honour, who will never abet a wife in eloping from her husband. I shall take you, therefore, at first, and at once, to Lord Denmeath, who will only pay your portion to your own signature. Go, therefore, quietly into that room, till the chaise is ready, and I promise that I won’t follow you: though, if you resist, I shall assert my rights by force.’
He held the door open. She wrung her hands with agonizing horrour. He took hold of her shoulder; she shrunk from his touch; but, in shrinking, involuntarily entered the room. He would have pushed her on; but Harleigh, who now looked wild with the violence of contending emotions; with rage, astonishment, grief, and despair; furiously caught him by the arm, calling out, ‘Hold, villain, hold!—Speak, Madam, speak! Utter but a syllable!—Deign only to turn towards me!—Pronounce but with your eyes that he has no legal claim, and I will instantly secure your liberty,—even from myself!—even from all mankind!—Speak!—turn!—look but a moment this way!—One word! one single word!—’
She clapped her hands upon her forehead, in an action of despair; but the word was not spoken,—not a syllable was uttered! A look, however, escaped her, expressive of a soul in torture, yet supplicating his retreat. She then stepped further into the room, and the foreigner shut and double-locked the door.
Triumphantly brandishing the key, as he eyed, sidelong, the now passive Harleigh, he went into the adjoining apartment; where, seating himself in the middle of the room, he left the door wide open, to watch all egress and regress in the passage.
Harleigh now appeared to be lost! The violence of his agitation, while he concluded her to be wrongfully claimed, was transformed into the blackest and most indignant despondence, at her unresisting, however wretched acquiescence, to commands thus brutal; emanating from an authority of which, however evidently it was deplored, she attempted not to controvert the legality. The dreadful mystery, more direful than it had been depicted, even by the most cruel of his apprehensions, was now revealed: she is married! he internally cried; married to the vilest of wretches, whom she flies and abhors,—yet she is married! indisputably married! and can never, never,—even in my wishes, now, be mine!
A sudden sensation, kindred even to hatred, took possession of his feelings. Altered she appeared to him, and delusive. She had always, indeed, discouraged his hopes, always forbidden his expectations; yet she must have seen that they subsisted, and were cherished; and could not but have been conscious, that a single word, bitter, but essentially just, might have demolished, have annihilated them in a moment.
He dragged himself back to his apartment, and resolutely shut his door; gloomily bent to nourish every unfavourable impression, that might sicken regret by resentment. But no indignation could curb his grief at her loss; nor his horrour at her situation: and the look that had compelled his retreat; the look that so expressively had concentrated and conveyed her so often reiterated sentence, of ‘leave, or you destroy me!’ seemed rivetted to his very brain, so as to take despotic and exclusive hold of all his faculties.
In a few minutes, the sound of a carriage almost mechanically drew him to the window. He saw there an empty chaise and four horses. It was surely to convey her away!—and with the man whom she loathed,—and from one who, so often! had awakened in her symptoms the most impressive of the most flattering sensibility!—
The transitory calm of smothered, but not crushed emotions, was now succeeded by a storm of the most violent and tragic passions. To lose her for ever, yet irresistibly to believe himself beloved!—to see her nearly lifeless with misery, yet to feel that to demand a conference, or the smallest explanation, or even a parting word, might expose her to the jealousy of a brute, who seemed capable of enjoying, rather than deprecating, any opportunity to treat her ill; to be convinced that she must be the victim of a forced marriage; yet to feel every sentiment of honour, and if of honour of happiness! rise to oppose all violation of a rite, that, once performed, must be held sacred:—thoughts, reflections, ideas thus dreadful, and sensations thus excruciating, almost deprived him of reason, and he cast himself upon the ground in wild agony.
But he was soon roused thence by the gruff voice, well recollected, of the pilot, who, from the bottom of the stairs, called out, ’Viens, citoyen! tout est pret.‘9
With horrour, now, he heard the heavy step of the foreigner again in the passage; he listened, and the sound reached his ear of the key fixing—the door unlocking.—Excess of torture then caused a short suspension of his faculties, and he heard no more.
Soon, however, reviving, the stillness startled him. He opened his door. No one was in the passage; but he caught a plaintive sound, from the room in which Juliet was a prisoner: and soon gathered that Juliet herself was imploring for leave to travel to Lord Denmeath’s alone.
What an aggravation to the sufferings of Harleigh, to learn that she was thus allied, at the moment that he knew her to be another’s! for however the violence of his admiration had conquered every obstacle, he had always thought, with reluctance and concern, of the supposed obscurity of her family and connections.
Juliet pleaded in vain. A harsh refusal was followed by the grossest menace, if she hesitated to accompany him at once.
The pilot, repeating his call, now mounted the stairs; and Harleigh felt compelled to return to his room; but, looking back in re-entering it, he saw Juliet forced into the passage; her face not merely pale, but ghastly; her eyes nearly starting from her head.
To rescue, to protect her, Harleigh now thought was all that could render life desirable; but, while adoring her almost to madness, he respected her situation and her fame, and re-passed into his chamber, unseen by the foreigner.
Yet he could not forbear placing himself so that he might catch a glance of her as she went by; he held the door, therefore, in his hand, as if, accidentally, at that moment, opening it. She did not turn her head, but assumed an air of resignation, and walked straight on; yet though she did not meet his eye, she evidently felt it; a pale pink suffusion shot across her cheeks; taking place of the death-like hue they had exhibited as she quitted her room; but which, fading away almost in the same moment, left her again a seeming spectre.
A nervous dimness took from Harleigh even the faculty of observing the foreigner. She loves me! was his thought; she surely loves me! And the idea which, not many minutes sooner, would have chaced from his mind every feeling but of felicity, now rent his heart with torture, from painting their mutual unhappiness. It was not a sigh that he stifled, nor a sigh that escaped him; but a groan, a piercing groan, which broke from his sorrows, as he heard her tottering step reach the stairs, while internally he uttered, She is gone from me for ever!
When he thought she would no longer be in sight, he followed to the first landing-place; to catch, once more, even the most distant sound of her feet: but the passage to and fro of waiters, forced him again to mount to his chamber. There, he hastened to the window, to take a view, a last view! of her loved form; but thence, shuddering, retreated, at sight of the chaise and four; destined to whirl her everlastingly away from him, with a companion so undisguisedly dreaded!—so evidently abhorred!
Yet, at the first sound, he returned to the window; whence he perceived Juliet just arrived upon the threshold; looking like a picture of death, and leaning upon a chambermaid, to whom she clung as to a bosom friend; yet not attempting to resist the foreigner; who, on her other side, dragged her by the arm, in open triumph. But, when she came to the chaise-step, she staggered, her vital powers seemed forsaking her; she heaved a hard and painful sigh, and, but for the chambermaid, who knelt down to catch her, had fallen upon the ground.
Harleigh was already half way down the stairs, almost frantic to save her; before he had sufficient recollection to remind him, that any effort on his part might cause her yet grosser insult. He was then again at his window; where he saw a second chambermaid administering burnt feathers, which had already recovered her from the fainting fit; while the mistress of the house was presenting her with hartshorn and water.
She refused no assistance; but the foreigner, who was loudly enraged at the delay, said that he would lift her into the chaise; and bid the pilot get in first, to help the operation.
She now again looked so sick and disordered, that all the women called upon the foreigner to let her re-enter the house, and take a little rest, before her journey. Her eyes, turned up to heaven with thankfulness, even at the proposal, encouraged them to grow clamorous in their demand; but the man, with a scornful sneer, replied that her journey would be her cure; and told the pilot, who was finishing a bottle of wine, to make haste.
The wretched Juliet, resuming her resolution, though with an air of despair, faintly pronounced, that she would get into the carriage herself; and, leaning upon the woman, ascended the steps, and dropt upon the seat of the chaise.
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