The Wanderer Volume I Part 16

CHAPTER XII

Selina, regarding herself as a free agent, since Ireton professed a respect for Ellis that made him ashamed of his former doubts, flew, the next morning, to the chamber of that young person, to talk over the play, Lord Melbury, and Lady Aurora Granville: but found her _protegee_ absorbed in deep thought, and neither able nor willing to converse.

When the family a.s.sembled to breakfast, Mrs Maple declared that she had not closed her eyes the whole night, from the vexation of having admitted such an unknown Wanderer to sup at her table, and to mix with people of rank.

Elinor was wholly silent.

They were not yet separated, when Lady Aurora Granville and Mrs Howel called to renew their thanks for the entertainment of the preceding evening.

'But Miss Ellis?' said Lady Aurora, looking around her, disappointed; 'I hope she is not more indisposed?'

'By no means. She is quite well again,' answered Mrs Maple, in haste to destroy a disposition to pity, which she thought conferred undue honour upon the stranger.

'But shall we not have the pleasure to see her?'

'She ... generally ... breakfasts in her own room,' answered Mrs Maple, with much hesitation.

'May I, then,' said Lady Aurora, going to the bell, 'beg that somebody will let her know how happy I should be to enquire after her health?'

'Your Ladys.h.i.+p is too good,' cried Mrs Maple, in great confusion, and preventing her from ringing; 'but Miss Ellis--I don't know why--is so fond of keeping her chamber, that there is no getting her out of it ...

some how.--'

'Perhaps, then, she will permit me to go up stairs to her?'

'O no, not for the world! besides ... I believe she has walked out.'

Lady Aurora now applied to Selina, who was scampering away upon a commission of search; when Mrs Maple, following her, privately insisted that she should bring back intelligence that Miss Ellis was taken suddenly ill.

Selina was forced to comply, and Lady Aurora with serious concern, to return to Brighthelmstone ungratified.

Mrs Maple was so much disconcerted by this incident, and so nettled at her own perplexed situation, that nothing saved Ellis from an abrupt dismission, but the representations of Mrs Fenn, that some fine work, which the young woman had just begun, would not look of a piece if finished by another hand.

The next morning, the breakfast party was scarcely a.s.sembled, when Lord Melbury entered the parlour. He had ridden over, he said, to enquire after the health of Miss Ellis, in the name of his sister, who would do herself the pleasure to call upon her, as soon as she should be sufficiently recovered to receive a visit.

Elinor was struck with the glow of satisfaction which illumined the face of Harleigh, at this reiterated distinction. A glow of a far different sort flushed that of Mrs Maple, who, after various ineffectual evasions, was constrained to say that she hoped Miss Ellis would be well enough to appear on the morrow. And, to complete her provocation, she was reduced, when Lord Melbury was gone, to propose, herself, that Selina should lend the girl a gown, and what else she might require, for being seen, once again, without involving them all in shame.

Ellis, informed by Selina of these particulars, shed a torrent of grateful tears at the interest which she had thus unexpectedly excited; then, reviving into a vivacity which seemed to renew all the pleasure that she had experienced on the night of the play, she diligently employed herself in appropriating the attire which Selina supplied for the occasion.

Mrs Maple, now, had no consolation but that the stay of Lady Aurora in the neighbourhood would be short, as that young lady and her brother were only at Brighthelmstone upon a visit to the Honourable Mrs Howel; who, having a capital mansion upon the Steyne, resided there the greatest part of the year.

Mrs Howel accompanied her young guest to Lewes the following morning.

Miss Ellis was enquired for without delay, and as Mrs Maple would suffer no one to view her chamber, she was summoned into the drawing-room.

She entered it with a blush of bright pleasure upon her cheeks; yet with eyes that were glistening, and a bosom that seemed struggling with sighs. Lady Aurora hastened to meet her, uttering such kind expressions of concern for her indisposition, that Ellis, with charmed sensibility, involuntarily advanced to embrace her; but rapidly, and with timid shame, drew back, her eyes cast down, and her feelings repressed. Lady Aurora, perceiving the design, and its check, instantly held out her hand, and smilingly saying, 'Would you cheat me of this kindness?' led her to a seat next to her own upon a sofa.

The eyes of the stranger were not now the only ones that glistened.

Harleigh could not see her thus benignly treated, or rather, as he conceived, thus restored to the treatment to which she had been accustomed, and which he believed her to merit, without feeling tears moisten his own.

With marked civility, though not with the youthful enthusiasm of Lady Aurora, Mrs Howel, also, made her compliments to Miss Ellis. Lord Melbury arrived soon afterwards, and, the first ceremonies over, devoted his whole attention to the same person.

O powerful prejudice! thought Harleigh; what is judgment, and where is perception in your hands? The ladies of this house, having first seen this charming Incognita in tattered garments, forlorn, desolate, and distressed; governed by the prepossession thus excited of her inferiority, even, to this moment, either neglect or treat her harshly; not moved by the varied excellencies that should create gentler ideas, nor open to the interesting attractions that might give them more pleasure than they could bestow! While these visitors, hearing that she is a young lady of family, and meeting her upon terms of equality, find, at once, that she is endowed with talents and accomplishments for the highest admiration, and with a sweetness of manners, and powers of conversation, irresistibly fascinating.

The visit lasted almost the whole morning, during which he observed, with extreme satisfaction, not only that the dejection of Ellis wore away, but that a delight in the intercourse seemed reciprocating between herself and her young friends, that gave new beauty to her countenance, and new spirit to her existence.

When the visitors rose to be gone, 'I cannot tell you, Miss Ellis,'

said Lady Aurora, 'how happy I shall be to cultivate your acquaintance.

Will you give me leave to call upon you for half an hour to morrow?'

Ellis, with trembling pleasure, cast a fearful glance at Mrs Maple, who hastily turned her head another way. Ellis then gratefully acceded to the proposal.

'Miss Ellis, I hope,' said Mrs Howel, in taking leave, 'will permit me, also, to have some share of her society, when I have the honour to receive her at Brighthelmstone.'

Ellis, touched, enchanted, could attempt no reply beyond a courtesy, and stole, with a full heart, and eyes overflowing, to her chamber, the instant that they left the house.

Mrs Maple was now in a dilemma which she would have deemed terrible beyond all comparison, but from what she experienced the following minute, when the butler put upon the table a handful of cards, left by the groom of Mrs Howel, amongst which Mrs Maple perceived the name of Miss Ellis, mingled with her own, and that of the Miss Joddrels, in an invitation to a small dancing-party on the ensuing Thursday.

'This exceeds all!' she cried: 'If I don't get rid of this wretch, she will bring me into universal disgrace! she shall not stay another day in my house.'

'Has she, Madam, for a single moment,' said Harleigh, with quickness, 'given you cause to repent your kind a.s.sistance, or reason to harbour any suspicion that you have not bestowed it worthily?'

'Why, you go beyond Elinor herself, now, Mr Harleigh! for even she, you see, does not ask me to keep her any longer.'

'Miss Joddrel,' answered Harleigh, turning with an air of gentleness to the mute Elinor, 'is aware how little a single woman is allowed to act publicly for herself, without risk of censure.'

'Censure?' interrupted Elinor, disdainfully, 'you know I despise it!'

He affected not to hear her, and continued, 'Miss Joddrel leaves, therefore, Madam, to your established situation in life, the protection of a young person whom circ.u.mstances have touchingly cast upon your compa.s.sion, and who seems as innocent as she is indigent, and as formed, nay elegant in her manners, as she is obscure and secret in her name and history. I make not any doubt but Miss Joddrel would be foremost to sustain her from the dangers of lonely penury, to which she seems exposed if deserted, were my brother already--' He approached Elinor, lowering his voice; she rose to quit the room, with a look of deep resentment; but could not first escape hearing him finish his speech with 'as happy as I hope soon to see him!'

'Ah, Mr Harleigh,' said Mrs Maple, 'when shall we bring that to bear?'

'She never p.r.o.nounces a positive rejection,' answered Harleigh, 'yet I make no progress in my peace-offerings.'

He would then have entered more fully upon that subject, in the hope of escaping from the other: Mrs Maple, however, never forgot her anger but for her interest; and Selina was forced to be the messenger of dismission.

She found Ellis so revived, that to destroy her rising tranquillity would have been a task nearly impossible, had Selina possessed as much consideration as good humour. But she was one amongst the many in whom reflection never precedes speech, and therefore, though sincerely sorry, she denounced, without hesitating, the sentence of Mrs Maple.

Ellis was struck with the deepest dismay, to be robbed thus of all refuge, at the very moment when she flattered herself that new friends, perhaps a new asylum, were opening to her. Whither could she now wander?

and how hope that others, to whom she was still less known, would escape the blasting contagion, and believe that distress might be guiltless though mysterious? A few s.h.i.+llings were all that she possessed; and she saw no prospect of any recruit. Elinor had not once spoken to her since the play; and the childish character, even more than the extreme youth of Selina, made it seem improper, in so discarded a state, to accept any succour from her clandestinely. Nevertheless, the awaited letter was not yet arrived; the expected friend had not yet appeared. How, then, quit the neighbourhood of Brighthelmstone, where alone any hope of receiving either still lingered? The only idea that occurred to her, was that of throwing herself upon the compa.s.sion of her new acquaintances, faithfully detailing to them her real situation at Mrs Maple's, and appealing to their generosity to forbear, for the present, all enquiry into its original cause.

This determined, she anxiously desired, before her departure, to restore, if she could discover their owner, the anonymous bank-notes, which she was resolute not to use; and, hearing the step of Harleigh pa.s.sing her door in descending the stairs, she hastened after him, with the little packet in her hand.

Turning round as he reached the hall, and observing, with pleased surprise, her intention to speak to him, he stopt.

'You have been so good to me, Sir,' she said, 'so humane and so considerate, by every possible occasion, that I think I may venture to beg yet one more favour of you, before I leave Lewes.'