The Wanderer Volume I Part 25

'Yet, with all this,' said Ellis, looking at him expressively, 'with all this....' she knew not how to proceed; but he saw her meaning. 'With all this,' he said, 'you are surprised, perhaps, that I should look for other qualities, other virtues in her whom I should aspire to make the companion of my life? I beseech you, however, to believe, that neither insolence nor ingrat.i.tude makes me insensible to her worth; but, though it often meets my admiration, sometimes my esteem, and always my good will and regard, it is not of a texture to create that sympathy without which even friends.h.i.+p is cold. I have, indeed ... till now....'

He paused.

'Poor, poor, Miss Joddrel!' exclaimed Ellis, 'If you could but have heard,--or if I knew but how to repeat, even the millionenth part of what she thinks of you!--of the respect with which she is ready to yield to your opinions; of the enthusiasm with which she honours your character; of the devotion with which she nearly wors.h.i.+ps you--'

She stopt short, ashamed; and as fearful that she had been now too urgent, as before that she had been too cold.

Harleigh heard her with considerable emotion. 'I hope,' he said, 'your feelings, like those of most minds gifted with strong sensibility, have taken the pencil, in this portrait, from your cooler judgment? I should be grieved, indeed, to suppose--but what can a man suppose, what say, upon a subject so delicate that may not appear offensive? Suffer me, therefore, to drop it; and have the goodness to let that same sensibility operate in terminating, in such a manner as may be least shocking to her, all view, and all thought, that I ever could, or ever can, entertain the most distant project of supplanting my brother.'

'Will you not, at least, speak to her yourself?'

'I had far rather speak to you!--Yet certainly yes, if she desire it.'

'Give me leave, then, to say,' cried Ellis, moving towards the bedroom door, 'that you request an audience.'

'By no means! I merely do not object to it. You may easily conceive what pain I shall be spared, if it may be evaded. All I request, is a few moments with you! Hastily, therefore, let me ask, is your plan decided?'

'To the best of my power,--of my ideas, rather,--yes. But, indeed, I must not thus abandon my charge!'

'And will you not let me enquire what it is?'

'There is one thing, only, in which I have any hope that my exertions may turn to account; I wish to offer myself as a governess to some young lady, or ladies.'

'I beseech you,' cried he, with sudden fervour, 'to confide to me the nature of your situation! I know well I have no claim; I seem to have even no pretext for such a request; yet there are sometimes circ.u.mstances that not only excuse, but imperiously demand extraordinary measures: perhaps mine, at this moment, are of that sort! perhaps I am at a loss what step to take, till I know to whom I address myself!'

'O Sir!' cried Ellis, holding up her hands in act of supplication, 'you will be heard!'

Harleigh, conscious that he had been off all guard, silenced himself immediately, and walked hastily to the window.

Ellis knew not whether to retire, at once, to her own room; or to venture into that of Elinor; or to require any further answer. This last, however, Harleigh seemed in no state to give: he leant his forehead upon his hand, and remained wrapt in thought.

Ellis, struck by a manner which shewed that he felt, and apparently, repented the possible meaning that his last words might convey, was now as much ashamed for herself as for Elinor; and not wis.h.i.+ng to meet his eyes, glided softly back to her chamber.

Here, whatever might be the fulness of her mind, she was not allowed an instant for reflection: Elinor followed her immediately.

She shut the door, and walked closely up to her. Elinor feared to behold her; yet saw, by a glance, that her eyes were sparkling, and that her face was dressed in smiles. 'This is a glorious day for me!' she cried; ''tis the pride of my life to have brought such a one into the history of my existence!'

Ellis officiously got her a chair; arranged the fire; examined if the windows were well closed; and sought any occupation, to postpone the moment of speaking to, or looking at her.

She was not offended; she did not appear to be hurried; she seemed enchanted with her own ideas; yet she had a strangeness in her manner that Ellis thought extremely alarming.

'Well,' she cried, when she had taken her seat, and saw that Ellis could find no further pretext for employing herself in the little apartment; 'what garb do you bring me? How am I to be arrayed?'

Ellis begged to know what she meant.

'Is it a wedding-garment?' replied she, gaily; 'or ...' abruptly changing her tone into a deep hoa.r.s.e whisper, 'a shroud?'

Ellis, shuddering, durst not answer. Elinor, catching her hand said, 'Don't be frightened! I am at this moment equal to whatever may be my destiny: I am at a point of elevation, that makes my fate nearly indifferent to me. Speak, therefore! but only to the fact. I have neither time nor humour for narratory delays. I tried to hear you; but you both talked so whisperingly, that I could not make out a sentence.'

'Indeed, Miss Joddrel,' said Ellis, trembling violently, 'Mr Harleigh's regard--his affection--'

'Not a word of that trite cla.s.s!' cried Elinor, with sudden severity, 'if you would not again work all my pa.s.sions into inflammation involve me no more in doubt! Fear nothing else. I am no where else vulnerable.

Set aside, then, all childish calculations, of giving me an inch or two more, or an inch or two less of pain,--and be brief and true!'

Ellis could not utter a word: every phrase she could suggest seemed to teem with danger; yet she felt that her silence could not but indicate the truth which it sought to hide; she hung her head, and sighed in disturbed perplexity. Elinor looked at her for some time with an examining eye, and then, hastily rising, emphatically exclaimed, 'You are mute?--I see, then, my doom! And I shall meet it with glory!'

Smiles triumphant, but wild, now played about her face. 'Ellis,' she cried, 'go to your work, or whatever you were about, and take no manner of heed of me. I have something of importance to arrange, and can brook no interruption.'

Ellis acquiesced, returning to the employment of her needle, for which Mrs Fenn took especial care that she should never lack materials.

Elinor spoke to her no more; but her ruminations, though undisturbed by her companion, were by no means quiet, or silent. She paced hastily up and down the room; sat, in turn, upon a chair, a window seat, and the bed; talked to herself, sometimes with a vehemence that made several detached words, though no sentences, intelligible; sometimes in softer accents, and with eyes and gestures of exultation; and, frequently, she went into a corner by the side of the window, where she looked, in secret, at something in a s.h.a.green case that she held in her hand, and had brought out of her chamber; and to which she occasionally addressed herself, with a fervency that shook her whole frame, and with expressions which, though broken, and half p.r.o.nounced, denoted that she considered it as something sacred.

At length, with an air of transport, she exclaimed, 'Yes! that will produce the best effect! what an idiot have I been to hesitate!' then, turning with quickness to Ellis: 'Ellis,' she cried, 'I have withheld from any questions relative to yourself, because I abominate all subterfuge; but you will not suppose I am contented with my ignorance?

You will not imagine it a matter of indifference to me, to know how I have failed?'

She reddened; pa.s.sion took possession of every feature, and for a moment nearly choaked her voice: she again walked, with rapid motion, about the room, and then e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, 'Let me be patient! let me not take away all grandeur from my despair, and reduce it to mere common madness!--Let me wait the fated moment, and then--let the truth burst, blaze, and flame, till it devour me!

'Ellis,' she presently added, 'find Harleigh; tell him I wish him a good journey from the summer-house in the garden. Not a soul ever enters it at this time of the year. Bid him go thither directly. I shall soon join him. I will wait in my room till you call me. Be quick!'

Ellis required not to have this order repeated: to place her under the care of Harleigh, and intimate to him the excess of her love, with the apprehensions which she now herself conceived of the dangerous state of her mind, was all that could be wished; and where so essential a service might be rendered, or a mischief be prevented, personal punctilio was out of the question.

He was not in the hall; but, from one of the windows, she perceived him walking near the house. A painful sensation, upon being obliged again, to force herself upon his notice, disturbed, though she would not suffer it to check her. He was speaking with his groom. She stopt at the hall-door, with a view to catch his eye, and succeeded; but he bowed without approaching her, and continued to discourse with his groom.

To seem bent upon pursuing him, when he appeared himself to think that he had gone too far, and even to mean to shun her, dyed her cheeks of the deepest vermilion; though she compelled herself, from a terrour of the danger of delay, to run across the gravel-walk before the house, to address him. He saw her advance, with extreme surprise, but by no means with the same air of pleasure, that he had manifested in the morning.

His look was embarra.s.sed, and he seemed unwilling to meet her eyes. Yet he awaited her with a respect that made his groom, unbidden, retire to some distance; though to await her at all, when he might have met her, struck her, even in this hurried and terrified moment, as offering the strongest confirmation which she had yet received, that it was not a man of pleasure or of gallantry, but of feeling and of truth, into whose way she was thus singularly and frequently cast: and the impression which she had made upon his mind, had never, to her hitherto nearly absorbed faculties, appeared to be so serious or so sincere, as now, when he first evidently struggled to disguise a partiality, which he seemed persuaded that he had, now, first betrayed. The sensations which this discovery might produce in herself were unexamined: the misery with which it teemed for Elinor, and a desire to relieve his own delicacy, by appearing unconscious of his secret, predominated: and she a.s.sumed sufficient self-command, to deliver the message of Elinor, with a look, and in a voice, that seemed insensible and un.o.bservant of every other subject.

He soon, now, recovered his usual tone, and disengaged manner. 'She must certainly,' he said, 'be obeyed; though I so little expected such a summons, that I was giving directions for my departure.'

'Ah, no!' cried Ellis, 'rather again defer it.'

'You would have me again defer it?' he repeated, with a vivacity he tried still more, though vainly, to subdue than to disguise.

The word again did not make the cheeks of Ellis paler; but she answered, with eagerness, 'Yes, for the same purpose and same person!--I am forced to speak explicitly--and abruptly. Indeed, Sir, you know not, you conceive not, the dreadfully alarming state of her nerves, nor the violence of her attachment.--You could scarcely else--' she stopt, for he changed colour and looked hurt: she saw he comprehended that she meant to add, you could scarcely else resist her: she finished, therefore, her phrase, by 'scarcely else plan leaving her, till you saw her more composed, and more reconciled to herself, and to the world.'

'You may imagine,' said he, pensively, 'it is any thing rather than my inclination that carries me hence ... but I greatly fear 'tis the only prudent measure I can pursue.'

'You can best judge by seeing her,' said Ellis: 'her situation is truly deplorable. Her faculties are all disordered; her very intellects, I fear, are shaken; and there is no misfortune, no horrour, which her desperation, if not softened, does not menace.'

Harleigh now seemed awakened to sudden alarm, and deep concern; and Ellis painfully, with encreasing embarra.s.sment, from encreasing consciousness, added, 'You will do, I am sure, what is possible to s.n.a.t.c.h her from despair!' and then returned to the house: satisfied that her meaning was perfectly comprehended, by the excess of consternation into which it obviously cast Harleigh.

CHAPTER XVIII

Comforted, at least, for Elinor, whose situation in being known, seemed to lose its greatest danger, Ellis, with less oppression upon her spirits, returned to the dressing-room.