Lady Aurora reluctantly obeyed the call; and in thanksgiving, pious and delighted, Juliet spent the interval of her absence.
It was not long; she returned precipitately; but colourless, trembling, and altered, though making an effort to smile: but the struggle against her feelings ended in a burst of tears; and, again falling upon the neck of Juliet; ‘Oh my sweet sister!’ she cried, ‘is your persecution never to end?’
Juliet, though quickly alarmed, fondly answered, ‘It is over already! While that precious appellation comes from your lips,—sweet title of tenderness and affection!—I feel above every danger!’
Lady Aurora, bitterly weeping, was compelled, then, to acknowledge that she had been hurried away by Mrs Howel, to be told that a foreigner, ill dressed, and just arrived from the Continent, was demanding, in broken English, of every one that he met, some news of a young person called Miss Ellis.
The exaltation of Juliet was instantly at an end; and, in an accent of despair, she uttered, ‘Is it so soon, then, over!—my transient felicity!’
Whether this foreigner were her persecutor himself, escaped and disguised; or some emissary employed to claim or to entrap her, was all of doubt by which she was momentarily supported; for she felt as determined to resist an agent, as she thought herself incapable to withstand the principal.
Mrs Howel, who had heard of the search, represented to Lady Aurora, the extreme impropriety of her ladyship’s intercourse with a person thus suspiciously pursued; at least till the opinion of Lord Denmeath could be known. But Lady Aurora, fully satisfied that this helpless fugitive was her half-sister, was now as firm as she had hitherto been facile; and declared that, though her personal inclinations should still yield to her respect for her uncle, her sense of filial duty to the memory of her father, must bind her, openly and unreservedly, to sustain his undoubted daughter.
A waiter now interrupted them, to demand admission to Miss Ellis for a foreigner.
‘She is not here!—There is no Miss Ellis here! No such person!’—precipitately cried Lady Aurora; but the foreigner himself, who stood behind the waiter, glided into the room.
Lady Aurora nearly fainted; Juliet screamed and hid her face; the foreigner called out, ‘Ah Mademoiselle Juliette! c’est, donc, vous! et vous ne me reconnoissez pas?’1
‘Ah heaven!’ cried Juliet, uncovering her face; ‘Ambroise! my good, my excellent Ambroise! is it you?—and you only?’—Turning then, enraptured, to Lady Aurora, ‘Kindest,’ she cried, ‘and tenderest of human beings! condescend to receive, and to aid me to thank, the valuable person to whom I owe my first deliverance!’
Lady Aurora, revived and charmed, poured forth the warmest praises; while Juliet, eagerly demanding news of the Marchioness; and whether he could give any intelligence of the Bishop; saw his head droop, and seized with terrour, exclaimed, ‘Oh Ambroise! am I miserable for ever!’
He hastened to assure her that they were both alive, and well; and, in the ecstacy of her gratitude, upon the cessation of her first direful surmise, she promised to receive all other information with courage.
He shook his head, with an air the most sorrowful; and then related that the Bishop, after delays, dangers, fruitless journies, and disasters innumerable, which had detained him many months in the interiour, had, at last, and most unfortunately, reached a port, whence he was privately to embark for joining his niece, just as the commissary, upon returning from his abortive expedition, was re-landed. By some cruel accident, the voice of the prelate reached his ear: immediate imprisonment, accompanied by treatment the most ignominious, ensued. Ambroise, who, for the satisfaction of the Marchioness, had attended the Bishop to the coast, was seized also; and both would inevitably have been executed, had not a project occurred to the commissary, of employing Ambroise to demand and recover his prey, and her dowry.
Ambroise stopt and wept.
Bloodless now became the face of Juliet, though with forced, yet decided courage, ‘I understand you!’ she cried, ‘and Oh! if I can save him,—by any sacrifice, any devotion,—I am contented! and I ought to be happy!’
‘Ah, cruel sister!’ cried Lady Aurora; ‘would you kill me?’—
Juliet, shedding a torrent of tears, tenderly embraced her.
‘The Bishop,’ Ambroise continued, ‘no sooner comprehended than he forbade the attempt; but he was consigned, unheard, to a loathsome cell; and Ambroise was almost instantly embarked; with peremptory orders to acquaint la citoyenne Julie that unless she returned immediately to her husband, in order to sign and seal, by his side, and as his wife, their joint claim to her portion, upon the terms that Lord Denmeath had dictated; the most tremendous vengeance should fall upon the hypocritical old priest, by every means the most terrible that could be devised.’
‘I am ready! quite ready!’ cried the pale Juliet, with energy; ‘I do not sacrifice, I save myself by preserving my honoured guardian!’
This eagerness to rescue her revered benefactor, which made her feel gloriously, though transiently, the exaltation of willing martyrdom, soon subsided into the deepest grief, upon seeing Lady Aurora, shivering, speechless, and nearly lifeless, sink despondingly upon the ground.
Juliet, kneeling by her side, and pressing her nearly cold face to her bosom, bathed her cheeks, throat, and shoulders with fast falling tears; but felt incapable of changing her plan. Yet all her own anguish was almost intolerably embittered, by thus proving the fervour of an affection, in which almost all her wishes might have been concentrated, but that honour, conscience, and religion united to snatch her from its enjoyment.
The news that Lady Aurora was taken ill, spread quickly to Mrs Howel; and brought that lady to the apartment of Juliet in person. Lady Aurora was already recovered, and seated in the folding arms of Juliet, with whom her tears were bitterly, but silently mingling.
Mrs Howel, shocked and alarmed, summoned the female attendants to conduct her ladyship to her own apartment.
Lady Aurora would accept no aid save from Juliet; fondly leaning upon whose arm she reached a sofa in her bed-chamber; where she assumed, though with cruel struggles against her yielding nature, voice and courage to pronounce, ‘My dear Mrs Howel, you have always been so singularly good to me,—you have always done me so much honour, that you must not, will not refuse to be kinder to me still, and to permit me to introduce to you ... Miss Granville!... For this young lady, Mrs Howel, is my sister!... my very dear sister!’
Utterly confounded, Mrs Howel made a silent inclination of the head, with eyes superciliously cast down. The letter of Sir Jaspar Herrington had not failed to convince her that this was the real offspring of Lord Granville; whose existence had never been doubted in the world, but whose legitimacy had never been believed. Still, however, Mrs Howel, who was now, from her own hard conduct, become the young orphan’s personal enemy, flattered herself that means might be found to prevent the publication of such a story; and determined to run no risk by appearing to give it credit; at the same time that, in her uncertainty of the event, she softened the austerity of her manner; and gave orders to the servants to shew every possible respect to a person who had the honour to be admitted to Lady Aurora Granville.
Juliet was in too desperate a state for any thought, or care, relative to Mrs Howel; and, having soothed Lady Aurora by promises of a speedy return, she hastened back to Ambroise.
She earnestly besought him, since her decision would be immutable, to make immediate enquiries whence they might embark with the greatest expedition.
Sadly, yet, so circumstanced, not unwillingly he agreed; and gave to her aching heart nearly the only joy of which it was susceptible, in the news that the Marchioness was already at the sea-side, awaiting the expected arrival of her darling daughter.
Ambroise had been entrusted, he said, by the commissary, with this cruel office, from his well known fidelity to the Marchioness and to the Bishop, which, where the alternative was so dreadful, would urge him, whatever might be his repugnance, to its faithful discharge. His orders had been to proceed straight to Salisbury, whence, under the name of Miss Ellis, he was to seek Juliet in every direction. And her various adventures had made so much noise in that neighbourhood, that she had been traced, with very little difficulty to Teignmouth.
Her terrible compliance being thus solemnly fixed, she left him to prepare for their departure the next morning, and returned to the afflicted Lady Aurora; by whose side she remained till midnight; struggling to sink her own sufferings, and to hide her shuddering disgust and horrour, in administering words of comfort, and exhibiting an example of fortitude, to her weeping sister.
But when, early the next morning, with the dire idea of leave-taking, she re-visited the gentle mourner, she found her nourishing a hope that her Juliet might yet be melted to a change of plan. ‘Oh my sister!’ she cried, ‘my whole heart cannot thus have been opened to affection, to confidence, to fondest friendship, only to be broken by this dreadful separation! Our souls cannot have been knit together by ties of the sweetest trust, only to be rent for ever asunder! You will surely reflect before you destroy us both? for do you think you can now be a single victim?’
Dissolved with tenderness, yet agonized with grief, Juliet could but weep, and ejaculate half-pronounced blessings; while Lady Aurora, with renovating courage, said, ‘Ah! think, sweet Juliet, think, if our father,—was he not ours alike?—had lived to know the proud day of receiving his long lost, and so accomplished daughter, such as I see her now!—would he not have said to me, ‘Aurora! this is your sister! You are equally my children; love her, then, tenderly, and let there be but one heart between you!’—And will you, then, Juliet, deliver us both up to wretchedness? Must I see you no more? And only have seen you, now, to embitter all the rest of my life?’
‘Oh resistless Aurora!’ cried the miserable Juliet, ‘rend not thus my heart!—Think for me, my Aurora;—Think, as well as feel for me,—and then—dispose of me as you will!’—
‘I accept being the umpire, my Juliet! my tenderest sister! I accept it, and you are saved!—We are both saved!—for this would be a sacrifice beyond any call of duty!’—cried Lady Aurora, instantly reviving, not simply to serenity, but to felicity, to rapture. Her tears were dried up, her eyes shone with delight, and smiles the softest and most expressive dimpled her chin, and played about her cheeks and mouth, while, with a transport new to her serene temperament, she embraced the appalled Juliet. ”Tis now, indeed,’ she continued, ‘I feel I have a sister! ’Tis now I feel the force of kindred fondness! If you had not loved me with a sister’s affection, you would not have listened to my solicitations; and if you had not listened, such a disappointment, and your loss together,—do you think I should have been strong enough to survive them?’ But this enchantment lasted not long; she soon perceived it was without participation, and her joy vanished, ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision.’ Anguish sat upon the brow of Juliet; fits of shuddering horrour shook every limb; and her only answer to these tender endearments was by tears and embraces; while she strove to hide her altered and nearly distorted face upon Lady Aurora’s shoulder.
‘Speak to me, my sister!’ cried Lady Aurora. ‘Tell me that your pity for the good Bishop is not stronger than all your love for me? than all your value for your own security from barbarous brutality? than your trust in Providence, that will surely protect so pious and exemplary a person?’
‘No, Heaven forbid!’ answered Juliet; ‘but, when Providence permits us to see a way,—when it opens a path to us by which evil may be avoided, by which duty may be exerted,—ought the difficulties of that way, the perils of that path, to make us recoil from the attempt? When the natural means are obvious, ought we to wait for some miracle?’
‘Ah, my sister!’ cried Lady Aurora, ‘would you, then, still go? Have you yielded in mere transient compassion?’
‘No, sweet Aurora, no! To ruin your peace would every way destroy Mine! Yet—what a fatality! to fear the very enjoyment of the family protection for which I have been sighing my whole life, lest I can enjoy it but by a crime! I abandon the post of honour, in leaving the benefactor, the supporter, the preserver of my orphan existence, to perpetual chains, if not to massacre!—Or I break the tender heart of the gentlest, purest, and most beloved of sisters!’
Lady Aurora, now, looked all consternation; and, after a disturbed pause, ‘If you think it wrong,’ she cried, ‘not to sacrifice yourself,—Oh my sister! let not mere commiseration for my weakness lead you astray! We all know there is another world, in which we yet may meet again!’
‘Angel! angel!’ cried Juliet, pressing Lady Aurora to her bosom. ‘You will aid me, then, to do right’ by nobly supporting yourself, you will help to keep me from sinking? Religion will give you strength of mind to submit to our worldly separation, and all my sufferings will be endurable, while they open to me the hope of a final re-union with my angel sister!’
They now mutually sought to re-animate each other. Piety strengthened the fortitude of Juliet, and supplied its place to Lady Aurora; and, in soft pity to each other, each strove to look away from, and beyond, all present and actual evil; and to work up their minds, by religious hopes and reflections, to an enthusiastic foretaste of the joys of futurity.
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