The Admiral entered with the martial air of a man used to command; and whose mind was made up not to be put out of his way. He bestowed, nevertheless, three low bows, with great formality, to the sex of Mrs Howel; to the first of which she arose and courtsied, returning the two others by an inclination of the head, and bidding Hilson bring the Admiral a chair.
The Admiral, having adjusted himself, his hat, and his sword to his liking, said, ‘I wish you good morning, Ma’am. You won’t take it amiss, I hope, that I make free to wait upon you myself, for the sake of having a small matter of discourse with you, about a certain chap that I understand to be one of your domestics; a place whereof, if I may judge by what I have seen of him, he is not over and above worthy.’
‘If any of my people, Sir,’ answered Mrs Howel, ‘have forgotten what is due to an officer of your rank, I shall take care to make them sensible of my displeasure.’
The Admiral, much gratified, made her a low bow, saying, ‘A lady, Ma’am, such as I suppose you to be, can’t fail having a right way of thinking. But that sort of gentry, as I have taken frequent note, have an ugly kind of a knack, of treating people rather short that have got a favour to ask; the which I don’t uphold. And this is the main reason that I think it right to give you an item of my opinion upon this matter, respecting that lad; who just now, in my proper view, let a young gentlewoman call and squall after him, till she was black in the face, without so much as once veering round, to say, Pray, Ma’am, what do you please to want?’
Hilson, now, triumphant that he could plead his haste to obey the commands of his lady, was beginning an affronted self-defence; when the Admiral, accidentally perceiving Juliet, hastily arose; and in a fit of unrestrained choler, clinching his double fist at Hilson, cried, ‘Why what sort of a fellow are you, Sir? to bring me a chair while you see a lady standing? Which do you take to be strongest? An old weather beaten tar, such as I am; or a poor weak female, that could not lend a hand to the pump, thof the vessel were going to the bottom?’
Approaching Juliet, then with his own arm-chair, he begged her to be seated; saying, ‘The lad will take care to bring another to me, I warrant him! A person who has got a scrap of gold-lace sewed upon his jacket, is seldom overlooked by that kind of gentry; for which reason I make no great account of complaisance, when I am dizened in my full dress uniform,—which, by the way, is a greater ceremony-monger than this, by thus much (measuring with his finger) more of tinsel!’
Juliet, gratefully thanking him, but declining his offer, thought this an opportunity not to be missed, to attempt, under his courageous auspice, to escape. She courtsied to him, therefore, and was walking away: but Mrs Howel, swelling with ire, already, at such civility to a creature whom she had condemned to scorn, now flamed with passion, and openly told the landlord, to let that young woman pass at his peril.
Juliet, who saw in the anger which was mixed with the amazement of the Admiral, that she had a decided defender at hand, collected her utmost presence of mind, and, advancing to Mrs Howel, said, ‘I have offered to you, Madam, any explanation you may require alone; but in public I offer you none!’
‘If you think yourself still dealing with a novice of the inexperience of sixteen,’ answered Mrs Howel, ‘you will find yourself mistaken. I will neither trust to the arts of a private recital, nor save your pride from a public examination.’
Then, addressing the Admiral, ‘All yesterday morning, Sir,’ she continued, ‘I had sundry articles, such as rings, bank-notes, and letters of value, dispersed in my apartment, from a security that it was sacred; but the chambermaid informs me, that she caught this young woman entering it, under pretence of waiting upon a young lady, then in the inner room; and the same chambermaid, an hour after, found that she was still here; and endeavouring to conceal, in her work-bag something that she had wrapt into a sheet of paper, that was confessedly pilfered from my table.’—
The Admiral, observing, in the midst of the disturbance of Juliet at this attack, an air of offended dignity, which urged him to believe that she was innocent, unhesitatingly answered, ”Tis an old saying, Madam, and a wise one, that standers-by see the most of the game; and I have taken frequent note, that we are all of one mind, till we have heard two sides of the question: for which reason I hold it but fair, that the young gentlewoman should be asked what she has to say for herself.’
‘Can you suppose, Sir,’ said Mrs Howel, the veins of whose face and throat now looked bursting, ‘that I mean to canvass this matter upon terms of equality? that I intend to be my own pleader against a pauper and an impostor?’—
Juliet here held her hand upon her forehead, as if scarcely able to sustain the indignant pain with which she was seized; and the fierce frown of the Admiral, showed his gauntlet not merely ready to be flung on the ground, but almost in the face of her adversary; Mrs Howel, however, went on.
‘I do not pretend to affirm that any thing has been purloined; but the circumstances of the case are certainly extraordinary; and I should be sorry to run the risk of wrongfully suspecting,—should something hereafter be missing,—any of my own people. I demand, therefore, immediately, an explanation of this transaction.’
The Admiral, full of angry feelings as he looked at the panting Juliet, replied, himself; ‘To my seeming, Madam, the short cut to the truth in this business, would be for you to cast an eye upon your own affairs; which I doubt not but you will find in very good trim; and if you should like to know what passes in my mind, I must needs make bold to remark, that I think the so doing would be more good natured, by a fellow-creature, than putting a young gentlewoman out of countenance by talking so high: which, moreover, proves no fact.’
‘I am infinitely indebted to you, Sir, for the honour of your reprimand,’ Mrs Howel, affectedly bowing, answered; ‘which I should not have incurred, had it not appeared to me, that it would be far more troublesome to my people, to take an exact review of my various and numerous trinkets and affairs, than for an innocent person to display the contents of a small work-bag.’
‘Nay, that is but reasonable,’ said the Admiral; ‘I won’t say to the contrary. And I make small doubt, but that the young gentlewoman desires, in like manner with ourselves, that all should be fair and above board. The work-bag, I’ll bet you all I am worth, has not a gimcrack in it that is not her own.’
Juliet, to whom the consciousness was ever uppermost of the suspicious bank-notes, felt by no means inclined to submit to an examination. Again, therefore, and with firmness, she declined giving any communication, but in a private interview with Mrs Howel.
Mrs Howel, now, had not a doubt remaining, that something had been stolen; and, still more desirous to disgrace the culprit, than to recover her property, she declared, that she was perfectly ready to add to the number of witnesses, but resolutely fixed not to diminish it; public shame being the best antidote that could be offered, against those arts by which youth and credulity had been duped.
Juliet now looked down; embarrassed, distressed, yet colouring with resentment. The Admiral, not conceiving her situation; nor being able to comprehend the difficulty of displaying the contents of a work-bag, approached her, and strove to give her courage.
‘Come!’ he cried, ‘young gentlewoman! don’t be faint-hearted. Let the lady have her way. I always like to have my own, which makes me speak up for others. Besides which, I have no great opinion of quarrelling for straws. We are none of us the nearer the mark for falling to loggerheads: for which reason I make it a rule never to lose my temper myself; except when I am provoked; so untie your work-bag, young gentlewoman. I’ll engage that it will do you no discredit, by the very turn of your eye; for I don’t know that, to my seeming, I ever saw a modester look of a face.’
This harangue was uttered in a tone of good-humoured benevolence, that seemed seeking to raise her spirits; yet with an expression of compassion, that indicated a tender feeling for her disturbance; while the marked integrity, and honest frankness of his own character, with a high sense of honour, and a sincere love of virtue, beamed benignly, as he looked at her, in every feature of his kind, though furrowed face.
Juliet was sensibly touched by his goodness and liberality, which surprized from her all precaution; and the concession which she had refused to arrogant menace, she spontaneously granted, to secure the good will of her ancient, though unconscious friend. Raising, therefore, her eyes, in which an expression of gratitude took place of that of sadness, ‘I will not, Sir,’ she said, ‘resist your counsel; though I have in nothing forfeited my inherent right to the inviolability of my property.’
She then put her work-bag into his own hands.
He received it with a bow down to the ground; while joy almost capered in his old eyes; and, exultingly turning to Mrs Howel, ‘To my seeming, Madam,’ he said, ‘this young gentlewoman is as well-behaved a girl, as a man might wish to meet with, from one side the globe to the t’other; and I respect her accordingly. And, if I were to do so unhandsome a thing, as to poke and peer into her baggage, after seeing her comport herself so genteelly, I won’t deny but I should merit a cat-o’-nine tails, better than many an honest tar that receives them. And, therefore, I hope, now, Madam, you will give back to the young gentlewoman your good opinion, in like manner as I, here, give her back her work-bag.’
And then, with another profound bow, and a flourish of his hand, that shewed his pleasure in the part which he was taking, he was returning to Juliet her property; when he was startled by an ungovernable gust of wrath, from the utterly enraged Mrs Howel, who exclaimed, ‘If you dare take it, young woman, unexamined, ’tis to a justice of the peace, and not to a sea-officer, that you will deliver it another time!’
Juliet, certain, whatever might be her ultimate fate, that her birth and family must, inevitably, be soon discovered, revolted from this menace; and determined, rather than submit to any further indignity, to risk casting herself, at once, upon the gentleman-like humanity of the Admiral. Unintimidated, therefore, by the alarming threat, which, heretofore, had appalled her, she steadily held out her hand, and received, from the old officer, in graceful silence, the proffered work-bag.
There is nothing which so effectually oversets an accusing adversary, as self-possession; self-possession, which, if unaffected, is the highest attribute of fearless innocence; if assumed, the most consummate address of skilful art. Called, therefore, from rage to shame, by the calmness of Juliet, Mrs Howel constrained herself to resume her air of solemn importance; and, perceiving the piqued look of the Admiral, at her slighting manner of naming sea-officers, she courteously said, ‘Permit me, Sir, as you are so good as to enter into this affair, to state to you that this young woman comes from abroad; and has no ostensible method of living in this country: will it not, then, be more consonant to prudence and decorum, that she should hasten to return whence she came?’
‘Madam,’ answered the Admiral, coldly, ‘I never give advice upon the onset of a question; that is to say, never till I see that one thing had better be done than another. I have no great taste for groping in the dark; wherefore, when I don’t rightly make out what a person would be at, I think the best mode to keep clear of a dispute, is to sheer off; whereby one avoids, in like manner, either to give or take an affront: two things not much more to my mind the one than the t’other. And so, Madam, I wish you good day.’
He then, with a formal bow, left the room, Juliet gliding out by his side; while Mrs Howel, powerless to detain her, wreaked her pent-up wrath upon the bell, which she rang, till every waiter in the house came to hear, that she was now ready to set off for Chudleigh-park.
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