by Fanny Burney
CHAPTER V
Upon the entrance of the travellers into London, the curiosity of MrsIreton was more than ever inflamed, to find that the journey, with allits delays, was at an end, before she had been able to gratify thatinsatiable passion in a single point. Yet every observation that shecould make tended to redouble its keenness. Neither ill humour norhaughtiness, now the patches and bandages were removed, could preventher from perceiving that the stranger was young and beautiful; nor fromremarking that her air and manner were strikingly distinguished from thecommon class. One method, however, still remained for diving into thismystery; it was clear that the young woman was in want, whatever elsemight be doubtful. Mrs Ireton, therefore, resolved to allow norecompense for her attendance, but in consideration of what she wouldcommunicate of her history.
At a large house in Grosvenor Square they stopt. Mrs Ireton turnedexultingly to the stranger: but her glance met no gratification. Theyoung woman, instead of admiring the house, and counting the number ofsteps that led to the vestibule, or of windows that commanded a view ofthe square, only cast her eyes upwards, as if penetrated withthankfulness that her journey was ended.
Surprised that stupidity should thus be joined with cunning, Mrs Iretonnow intently watched the impression which, when her servants appeared,would be made by their rich liveries.
The stranger, however, without regarding them, followed their mistressinto the hall, which that lady was passing through in stately silence,meaning to confound the proud vagrant more completely, by dismissing herfrom the best drawing-room; when the words, 'Permit me, Madam, to wishyou good morning,' made her look round. She then saw that her lateattendant, without waiting for any answer, was tranquilly preparing tobe gone. Amazed and provoked, she deigned to call after her, and desiredthat she would come the next day to be paid.
'I am more than paid already, Madam,' the Incognita replied, 'if mylittle services may be accepted as cancelling my obligation for thejourney.'
She had no difficulty, now, to leave the house without furtherinterruption, so astonished was Mrs Ireton, at what she thought theeffrontery of a speech, that seemed, in some measure, to level her withthis adventurer; though, in her own despite, she was struck with the airof calm dignity with which it was uttered.
The Wanderer obtained a direction to the house of Mrs Maple, from aservant; and demanded another to Titchfield Street. To the latter sherapidly bent her steps; but, there arrived, her haste ended indisappointment and perplexity. She discovered the apartment in which,with her husband and child, the lady whom she sought had resided; but itwas no longer inhabited; and she could not trace whether her friend hadset off for Brighthelmstone, or had only changed her lodging. After amelancholy and fruitless search, she repaired, though with feet and amind far less eager, to Upper Brooke Street, where she soon read thename of Mrs Maple upon the door of one of the capital houses. Sheenquired for Miss Joddrel, and begged that young lady might be told,that a person who came over in the same boat with her from France,requested the honour of admission.
To this message she presently heard the voice of Elinor, from thelanding-place, answer, 'O, she's come at last! Bring her up Tomlinson,bring her up!'
'Yes, Ma'am; but I'll promise you she is none of the person you havebeen expecting.'
'How can you tell that Tomlinson? What sort of figure is she?'
'As pretty as can be.'
'As pretty as can be, is she? Go and ask her name.'
The man obeyed.
The stranger, disconcerted, answered, 'My name will not be known to MissJoddrel, but if she will have the goodness to receive, I am sure shewill recollect me.'
Elinor, who was listening, knew her voice, and, calling Tomlinson upstairs, and heartily laughing, said, 'You are the greatest fool in thewhole world, Tomlinson! It is she! Bid her come to me directly.'
Tomlinson did as he was ordered, but grinned, with no smallsatisfaction, at sight of the surprise with which, when they reached thelanding-place, his young mistress looked at the stranger.
'Why, Tomlinson,' she cried, 'who have you brought me hither?'
Tomlinson smirked, and the Incognita could not herself refrain fromsmiling, but with a countenance so little calculated to excite distrust,that Elinor, crying, 'Follow me,' led the way into her dressing room.
The young woman, then, with an air that strongly supplicated forindulgence, said, 'I am truly shocked at the strange appearance which Imust make; but as I come now to throw myself upon your protection, Iwill briefly--though I can enter into no detail--state to you how I amcircumstanced.'
'O charming! charming!' cried Elinor, clapping her hands, 'you aregoing, at last, to relate your adventures! Nay, no drawing back! I won'tbe disappointed! If you don't tell me every thing that ever you did inyour life, and every thing that ever you said, and every thing that everyou thought,--I shall renounce you!'
'Alas!' answered the Incognita, 'I am in so forlorn a situation, that Imust not wonder if you conclude me to be some outcast of society,abandoned by my friends from meriting their desertion,--a poor destituteWanderer, in search of any species of subsistence!'
'Don't be cast down, however,' cried Elinor, 'for I will help you onyour way. And yet you have exactly spoken Aunt Maple's opinion of you.'
'And I have no right, I acknowledge, to repine, at least, none forresentment: yet, believe me, Madam, such is not the case! and if, as youhave given me leave to hope, you will have the benevolence to permit meto travel in your party, or in whatever way you please, toBrighthelmstone, I may there meet with a friend, under whose protectionI may acquire courage to give a more intelligible account of myself.'
A rap at the street door made Elinor ring the bell, and order, that whenMr Harleigh came, he should be shewn immediately up stairs.
Harleigh, presently appearing, looked round the apartment, with strikingeagerness, yet evident disappointment; and, slightly bowing to thescarcely noticed, yet marked courtsie of the stranger, said, 'Tomlinsontold me that our fellow-traveller was at last arrived?'
Elinor, taking the young woman apart, whispered a hasty injunction thatshe would not discover herself. Then, addressing Harleigh, 'I believe,'she said, 'you dream of nothing but that dismal Incognita. However, donot fancy you have all the mysterious charmers to yourself. I have oneof my own, now; and not such a dingy, dowdy heroine as yours!'
Harleigh turned with quickness to the stranger; but she looked down, andher complexion, and bloom, and changed apparel, made a momentarysuspicion die away.
Elinor demanded what news he had gathered of their strayed voyager?
None, he answered; and uneasily added, that he feared she had eitherlost herself, or been misled, or betrayed, some other way.
'O, pray don't waste your anxiety!' cried Elinor; 'she is in perfectsafety, I make no doubt.'
'I should be sorry,' he gravely replied, 'to think you in equal danger.'
'Should you?' cried she in a softened tone; 'should you, Harleigh, besorry if any evil befel me?'
'But why,' he asked, 'has Tomlinson given me this misinformation?'
'And why, Mr Harleigh, because Tomlinson told you that a stranger washere, should you conclude it could be no other than your blackfugitive?'
Again Harleigh turned to the traveller, and fixed his eyes upon herface: the patch, the bandage, the large cap, had hitherto completelyhidden its general form; and the beautiful outline he now saw, with soentire a contrast of complexion to what he remembered, again checked, orrather dissolved his rising surmizes.
Elinor begged him to be seated, and to quiet his perturbed spirit.
He took a chair, but, in passing by the young woman, her sex, herbeauty, her modest air, gave him a sensation that repelled his using it,and he leant upon its back, looking expressively at Elinor; but Elinoreither marked not the hint, or mocked it. 'So you have really,' shesaid, 'taken the pains to go to that eternal inn again, to enquire afterthis maimed and defaced Dulcinea? What in the world can have inspiredyou with such an interest
for this wandering Creole?
''Tis not her face does love create, For there no graces revel.'--
The bell of Mrs Maple now ringing, Elinor made a sign to the Incognitanot to avow herself, and flew down stairs to caution Tomlinson tosilence.
The chair which Harleigh had rejected for himself, he then offered tothe fair unknown. She declined it, but in a voice that made him start,and wish to hear her speak again. His offer then became a request, andshe thanked him in a tone that vibrated certainty upon his ears, that itcould be no other than the voice of his fellow-voyager.
He now looked at her with an earnest gaze, that seemed nearly to drawhis eyes from their sockets. The embarrassment that he occasioned herbrought him to his recollection, and, apologising for his behaviour, headded; 'A person--a lady--who accompanied us, not long since, fromabroad, had a voice so exactly resembling yours--that I find it ratherimpossible than difficult not to believe that I hear the same. Permit meto ask--have you any very near relation returned lately from France?'
She blushed, but without replying.
'I fancy,' he cried, 'I must have encountered two sisters?--yet you havesome reason, I own, to be angry at such a supposition--such acomparison--'
He paused, and a smile, which she could not repress, forced her tospeak; 'By no means!' she cried; 'I know well how good you have been tothe person to whom you allude, and I beg you will allow me--in hername--to return you the most grateful acknowledgements.'
Harleigh, now, yet more curiously examining her, said, 'It would nothave been easy to have forborne taking an interest in her fate. She wasin evident distress, yet never suffered herself to forget that she hadescaped from some yet greater. Her mind seemed fraught with strength andnative dignity. There was something singular, indescribable, in hermanner of supporting the most harassing circumstances. It was impossiblenot to admire her.'
The blush of the stranger now grew deeper, but she remained silent, tillElinor, re-entering, cried, 'Well, Harleigh, what say you to my newdemoiselle? And where would you have looked for your heart, if such hadseemed your Dulcinea?'
'I should, perhaps, have been but the safer!' answered he, laughing.
'Pho! you would not make me believe any thing so out of nature, as that,when you were in such a tindery fit as to be kindled by that dowdy, youcould have resisted being blown into flames at once by a creature suchas this?'
'Man is a perverse animal, Elinor; that which he regards as pointed forhis destruction, frequently proves harmless. We are all--boys andlibertines alone excepted--upon our guard against beauty; for, as everysense is up in arms to second its assault, our pride takes the alarm,and rises to oppose it. Our real danger is where we see no risk.'
'You enchant me, Harleigh! I am never so delighted as when I hear beautyset at nought--for I always suspect, Harleigh, that you do not think mehandsome?'
'If I think you better than handsome, Elinor--'
'Pho! you know there is no such better in nature; at least not in suchnature as forms taste in the mind of man; which I certainly do notconsider as the purest of its works; though you all hold it, yourselves,to be the noblest. Nevertheless, imagination is all-powerful; if,therefore, you have taken the twist to believe in such sublimity, youmay, perhaps, be seriously persuaded, that your heart would have beenmore stubborn to this dainty new Wanderer than to your ownwalnut-skinned gypsey.'
'Walnut-skinned?'
'Even so, noble knight-errand, even so! This person whom you now behold,and whom, if we believe our eyes, never met them till within this halfhour, if we give credit to our ears, scrambled over with us in thatcrazy boat from France.'
Harleigh was here summoned to Miss Maple, and Elinor returned to herinterrogatories; but the stranger only reverted to her hopes, that shemight still depend upon the promised conveyance to Brighthelmstone?
'Tell me, at least, what it was you flung into the sea?'
'Ah, Madam, that would tell every thing!'
'You are a most provoking little devil,' cried Elinor, impatiently, 'andI am half tempted to have nothing more to say to you. Give me, however,some account how you managed matters with that sweet tender dove MrsIreton.'
The recital that ensued of the disasters, difficulties, and choler ofthat lady, proved so entertaining to Elinor, that she soon not onlyrenewed her engagement of taking her unknown guest free to Lewes, butjoined the warmest assurances of protection. 'Not that we must attempt,'she cried, 'to get rid of the spite of Aunt Maple, for if we do, alterso completely the basis of her composition, that she won't know how tostand upright.'
'But now,' she continued, 'where are you to dine? Aunt Maple is toofusty to let you sit at our table.'
The stranger earnestly solicited permission to eat alone: Elinorconsented; assigned her a chamber, and gave orders to Mrs Golding, herown maid, to take care of the traveller.
The repast below stairs was no sooner finished, than Elinor flew back tosummon the Incognita to descend for exhibition. 'I have told them all,'she said, 'that you are arrived, though I have revealed nothing of yourmetamorphosis; and there is a sister of mine, a conceited little thing,who is just engaged to be married, and who is wild to see you; and it isa rule, you know, to deny nothing to a bride elect; probably, poorwretch, because every one knows what a fair way she is in to be soondenied every thing! That quiz, Harleigh, would not stay; and thatnothingly Ireton has nearly shrugged his shoulders out of joint, at thevery idea of so great a bore as seeing you again. Come, nevertheless; Idie to enjoy Aunt Maple's astonishment at your new phiz.'
The stranger sought to evade this request as a pleasantry; but findingthat it was insisted upon seriously, protested that she had neithercourage nor spirits for being produced as an object of sport.
Elinor now again felt a strong temptation to draw back from her promise;but while, between anger and generosity, she hung suspended, a messagearrived from Mrs Maple, to order that the woman from France should besent to the kitchen.
Elinor, changing the object of her displeasure, now warmly repeated herresolution to support the stranger; and, hastening to thedining-parlour, declared to her aunt, and to the party, that the womanfrom France should not be treated with indignity; that she was evidentlya person who had been too well brought up to be consigned to domestics;and that she herself admired, and would abet her spirit, in refusing tobe stared at like a wild beast.