‘Elinor! Elinor!’ cried Harleigh, in a universal tremour, ‘it is I that you will make mad!’ while Ellis, not daring to draw upon herself, again, the rebuke which might follow a single declaiming word, rose, and turning from them both, stood facing the window.
‘It is surely then Ellis! what you will not, Harleigh, avow, is precisely what you proclaim — it is surely Ellis!’
Ellis opened the window, and leant out her head; Harleigh, clapping his hand upon his crimsoned forehead, walked with hasty steps round the little apartment.
Losing now all self-command, and wringing her hands, in a transport of ungovernable anguish, ‘Oh, Harleigh! Harleigh!’ Elinor cried, ‘to what a chimera you have given your heart! to an existence unintelligible, a character unfathomable, a creature of imagination, though visible! O, can you believe she will ever love you as Elinor loves? with the warmth, with the truth, with the tenderness, with the choice? can she show herself as disinterested? can she prove herself as devoted?—’
‘She aims, Madam, at no rivalry!’ said Ellis, gravely, and returning to her seat: while Harleigh, tortured between resentment and pity, stood still; without venturing to look up or reply.
‘Rivalry?’ repeated Elinor, with high disdain: ‘No! upon what species of competition could rivalry be formed, between Elinor, and a compound of cold caution, and selfish prudence? Oh, Harleigh! how is it you thus can love all you were wont to scorn? double dealing, false appearances, and lurking disguise! without a family she dare claim, without a story she dare tell, without a name she dare avow!’
A deep sigh, which now burst from Ellis, terminated the conflict between indignation and compassion in Harleigh, who raised his eyes to meet those of Elinor, with an expression of undisguised displeasure.
‘You are angry?’ she cried, clasping her hands, with forced and terrible joy; ‘you are angry, and I am thankful for the lesson. I meant not to have lingered thus; my design was to have been abrupt and noble.’
Looking at him, then, with uncontrolled emotion, ‘If ever man deserved the sacrifice of a pure heart,’ she continued, ‘’tis you, Harleigh, you! and mine, from the period it first became conscious of its devotion to you, has felt that it could not survive the certitude of your union with another. All else, of slight, of failure, of inadequate pretensions, might be borne; for where neither party is happy, misery is not aggravated by contrast, nor mortification by comparison. But to become the object of insolent pity to the happy! — to make a part of a rival’s blessings, by being offered up at the shrine of her superiority — No, Harleigh, no! such abasement is not for Elinor. And what is the charm of this wretched machine of clay, that can pay for sustaining its burthen under similar disgrace? Let those who prize support it. For me, — my glass is run, — my cup is full, — I die!’
‘Die?’ repeated Ellis, with a faint scream, while Harleigh looked petrified with horrour.
‘Die, yes!’ answered Elinor, with a smile triumphant though ghastly; ‘or sleep! call it which you will! so animation be over, so feeling be past, so my soul no longer linger under the leaden oppression of disappointment; under sickness of all mortal existence; under incurable, universal disgust: — call it what you please, sleep, rest, or death; termination is all I seek.’
‘And is there, Elinor, no other name for what follows our earthly dissolution?’ cried Harleigh, with a shuddering frown. ‘What say you if we call it immortality?’
‘Will you preach to me?’ cried she, her eyes darting fire; ‘will you bid me look forward to yet another life, when this, short as it is deemed, I find insupportable? Ah, Harleigh! Harleigh!’ her eyes suffusing with sudden tenderness; ‘were I your’s — I might wish indeed to be immortal!’
Harleigh was extremely affected: he approached her, took her hand, and soothingly said, ‘My dear Elinor, compose your spirits, exert your strength of mind, and suffer us to discuss these subjects at some length.’
‘No, Harleigh; I must not trust myself to your fascinations! How do I know but they might bewitch me out of my reason, and entangle me, again, in those antique superstitions which make misery so cowardly? No, Harleigh! the star of Ellis has prevailed, and I sink beneath its influence. Else, only sometimes to see you, to hear of you, to watch you, and to think of you always, I would still live, nay, feel joy in life; for still my imagination would gift you, ultimately, with sensibility to my regard. But I anticipate the union which I see to be inevitable, and I spare my senses the shock which I feel would demolish them. — Harleigh! — dearest Harleigh, Adieu!’
A paleness like that of death overspread her face.
‘What is it,’ cried Harleigh, inexpressibly alarmed, ‘what is it Elinor means?’
‘To re-conquer, by the courage of my death, the esteem I may leave forfeited by my jealousy, my envy, my littleness in life! You only could have corrected my errours; you, by your ascendance over my feelings, might have refined them into virtues. Oh, Harleigh! weigh not alone my imperfections when you recollect my attachment! but remember that I have loved you so as woman never loved!’
Her voice now faultered, and she shook so violently that she could not support herself. She put her hand gently upon the arm of Harleigh, and, gliding nearly behind him, leant upon his shoulder. He would have spoken words of comfort, but she seemed incapable of hearing him. ‘Farewell!’ she cried, ‘Harleigh! Never will I live to see Ellis your’s! — Farewell! — a long farewell!’
Precipitately she then opened the shagreen case, and was drawing out its contents, when Ellis, darting forward, caught her arm, and screamed, rather than articulated, ‘Ellis will never be his! — Forbear! Forbear! — Ellis never will be his!’
The astonished Harleigh, who, hitherto, had rigorously avoided meeting the eyes of Ellis, now turned towards her, with an expression in which all that was not surprise was resentment; while Elinor, seeming suddenly suspended, faintly pronounced, ‘Ellis — deluding Ellis! — what is it you say?’
‘I am no deluder!’ cried Ellis, yet more eagerly: ‘Rely, rely upon my plighted honour!’
Harleigh now looked utterly confounded; but Ellis only saw, and seemed only to breathe for Elinor, who recovering, as if by miracle, her complexion, her voice, and the brightness of her eyes, rapturously exclaimed, ‘Oh Harleigh! — Is there, then, sympathy in our fate? Do you, too, love in vain?’ — And, from a change of emotion, too sudden and too mighty for the shattered state of her nerves, she sunk senseless upon the floor.
The motive to the strange protestations of Ellis was now apparent: a poniard dropt from the hand of Elinor as she fell, of which, while she spoke her farewell, Ellis had caught a glance.
Harleigh seemed himself to require the aid that he was called upon to bestow. He looked at Elinor with a mixture of compassion and horrour, and, taking possession of the poniard, ‘Unhappy Elinor!’ he cried, ‘into what a chaos of errour and of crime have these fatal new systems bewildered thee!’
The revival of Elinor was almost immediate; and though, at first, she seemed to have lost the remembrance of what had happened, the sight of Ellis and Harleigh soon brought it back. She looked from one to the other, as if searching her destiny; and then, with quick impatience, though somewhat checked by shame, cried, ‘Ellis! have you not mocked me?’
Ellis, covered with blushes and confusion, addressing herself to Harleigh, said, ‘Pardon, Mr Harleigh, my seeming presumption, where no option has been offered me; and where such an option is as wide from my expectations as it would be from my desert. This terrible crisis must be my apology.’
A shivering like that of an ague-fit again shook the agitated Elinor, who, ejaculating, ‘What farce is this? — Fool! fool! shall I thus sleepily be duped?’ looked keenly around for her lost weapon.
‘Duped? no, Madam,’ cried Ellis, in a tone impressive of veracity: ‘if I had the honour to be better known to Miss Joddrel, one assertion, I flatter myself, would suffice: my word is given; it has never yet been broken!’
While this declar
ation, though softened by a sigh the most melancholy, struck cold to the heart of Harleigh, its effect upon Elinor was that of an extacy which seemed the offspring of frenzy. ‘Do I awake, then,’ she cried, ‘from agony and death — agony, impossible to support! death, willing and welcome! to renewed life? to an interesting, however deplorable, existence? is my fate in harmony with the fate of Harleigh? Has he, even he! given his soul, — his noble soul! — to one who esteems and admires him, yet who will not be his? Can Harleigh love in vain?’
Tears now rolled fast and unchecked down her cheeks, while, in tones of enthusiasm, she continued, ‘I hail thee once again, oh life! with all thy arrows! Welcome, welcome, every evil that associates my catastrophe with that of Harleigh! — Yet I blush, methinks, to live! — Blush, and feel little, — nearly in the same proportion that I should have gloried to die!’
With these words, and recoiling from a solemn, yet tender exhortation, begun by Harleigh, she abruptly quitted the little building; and, her mind not more highly wrought by self-exaltation, than her body was weakened by successive emotions, she was compelled to accept the fearfully offered assistance of Ellis, to regain, with tottering steps, the house.
CHAPTER XIX
Ellis entered into the chamber with Elinor; who, equally exhausted in body and in mind, flung herself upon her bed, where she remained some time totally mute: her eyes wide open, yet looking at nothing, apparently in a state of stupefaction; but from which, in a few minutes, suddenly starting, and taking Ellis by the hand, with a commanding air, she abruptly said, ‘Ellis, are you fixed to marry Lord Melbury?’
Ellis positively disclaimed any such idea.
‘What am I to infer?’ cried Elinor, with returning and frightful agitation; ‘Will you be firm to your engagement? Is it truly your decision to refuse the hand of Harleigh, though he were to offer it you?’
Ellis shuddered, and looked down; but answered, ‘I will surely, Madam, never forget my engagement!’
The most perfect calm now succeeded to the many storms which had both impelled and shattered Elinor; and, after swallowing a copious draught of cold water, she laid her head upon her pillow, and fell into a profound and heavy, though not tranquil sleep.
Ellis, unable to conjecture in what frame of mind she might wake, did not dare leave her. She sat watchfully by her side, amazed to see, that, with such energy of character, such quickness of parts, such strength of comprehension, she not only gave way to all her impulses like a child, but, like a child, also, when over-fatigued, could suddenly lose her sufferings and her remembrance in a sort of spontaneous slumber.
But the balmy rest of even spirits, and a composed mind, was far from Elinor; exhausted nature claimed some respite from frantic exertion, and obtained it; but no more. She awoke then; yet, though it was with a frightful start, even this short repose proved salutary, not only to her nerves, but to her intellects. Her passions became less inflamed, and her imagination less heated; and, though she remained unchanged in her plans, and impenitent in her opinions, she acknowledged herself sensible to the strangeness of her conduct; and not without shame for its violence. These, however, were transitory sensations: one regret alone hung upon her with any serious weight: this was, having suffered her dagger to be seen and seized. She feared being suspected of a mere puerile effort, to frighten from Harleigh an offer of his hand, in menacing what she had not courage, nor, perhaps, even intention to perform.
This suggestion was intolerable: she blushed with shame as it crossed her mind. She shook with passion, as she considered, that such might be the disgraceful opinion, that might tarnish the glory that she meant to acquire, by dying at the feet of the object of her adoration, at the very moment of yielding to the happier star of an acknowledged rival; a willing martyr to successless, but heroick love.
She was now tempted to prove her sincerity by her own immediate destruction. ‘And yet,’ she cried, ‘shall I not bear what Harleigh bears? Shall I not know the destiny of Harleigh?’
This idea again reconciled her to present life, though not to her actual situation; and she ruminated laboriously, for some time, in gloomy silence; from which, however, breaking with sudden vivacity, ‘No, no!’ she cried: ‘I will not risk any aspersing doubt; I will shew him I have a soul that strenuously emulates the nobleness of his own. He shall see, he shall confess, that no meanness is mixt with the love of Elinor. He shall not suppose, because she glories in its undisguised avowal, that she waits in humble hope for a turn in her favour; that she is a candidate for his regard; a supplicant for his compassion! No! he shall see that she is frank without weakness, and free from every species of dissimulation or stratagem.’
She then rushed out of the room, shutting the door after her, and commanding Ellis not to follow: but Ellis fearing every moment some dreadful catastrophe, softly pursued her, till she saw her enter the servants’ hall; whence, after giving some orders, in a low voice and hurried manner, to her own footman, she re-mounted to her chamber; into which, without opposition, or even notice, Ellis also glided.
Here, eagerly seizing a pen, with the utmost rapidity, though with many blots, and frequent erazures, she wrote a long letter, which she read and altered repeatedly before she folded; she then wrote a shorter one; then rang for her maid, to whom she gave some secret directions, which she finished by commanding that she would find out Mr Harleigh, and desire that he would go immediately to the summer-house.
In about a quarter of an hour, which she spent in reading, revising, sealing, and directing her letters, the maid returned; and, after a long whisper, said, that she had given the message to Mr Harleigh.
Turning now to Ellis, with a voice and air of decision, that seemed imperiously to forbid resistance, she put into her hand the long letter which she had just written, and said, ‘Take this to him immediately; and, while he reads it, mark every change of his countenance, so as to be able to deduce, and clearly to understand, the sensations which pass in his mind.’
When Ellis expostulated upon the utter impropriety of her following Mr Harleigh, she sternly said, ‘Give the letter, then, to whatever other person you judge most proper to become a third in my confidence!’
She then nearly forced her out of the room.
Ellis did not dare venture to keep the letter, as she wished, till some opportunity should offer for presenting it quietly, lest some high importance should be annexed to its quick delivery; yet she felt that it would be cruel and indelicate to make over such a commission to another; in opposition, therefore, to the extremest personal repugnance, she compelled herself, with fearful and unwilling, yet hasty steps, to proceed again to the summer-house.
She found Harleigh, with an air at once pensive and alarmed, waiting for Elinor; but at the unexpected sight of Ellis, and of Ellis alone, every feature brightened; though his countenance, his manner, his whole frame, evinced increased agitation.
Anxious to produce her excuse, for an intrusion of which she felt utterly ashamed, she instantly presented him the letter, saying, ‘Miss Joddrel would take no denial to my being its bearer. She has even charged me to remain with you while you read it.’
‘Were that,’ said he, expressively, ‘the severest pain she inflicts upon me, I should soon become her debtor for feelings that leave pain apart! — Urgent, indeed, was my desire to see you again, and without delay; for after what has passed this morning, silence and forbearance are no longer practicable.’
‘Yet, at this moment,’ said Ellis, striving but ineffectually to speak without disturbance; ‘it will be impossible for me to defer returning to the house.’
‘Yet if not now, when?’
‘I know not — but she will be very impatient for some account of her letter.’
‘She will, at least, not be desperate, since she expects, and therefore will wait for you; how, then, can I hope to find a more favourable opportunity, for obtaining a few instants of your time?’
‘But, though she may not be desperate just now, is it not possib
le, Sir, that my staying may irritate, and make her so?’
‘That unhappily, is but too true! There is no relying upon the patience, or the fortitude, of one so completely governed by impulse; and who considers her passions as her guides to glory, — not as the subtlest enemies of every virtue! Nevertheless, what I feel for her is far beyond what, situated as I now am with her, I dare express — Yet, at this moment—’
‘Will you not read her letter?’
‘That you may run away?’ cried he, half smiling; ‘no, at this moment I will not read her letter, that you may be forced to stay!’
‘You cannot wish me to make her angry?’
‘Far, far from it! but what chance have I to meet you again, if I lose you now? Be not alarmed, I beg: she will naturally conclude that I am studying her letter; and, but for an insuperable necessity of — of some explanation, I could, indeed think of no other subject: for dreadful is the impression which the scene that I have just had with her has made upon my nerves. — Ah! how could she imagine such a one calculated to engage my heart? How wide is it from all that, to me, appears attractive! Her spirit I admire; but where is the sweetness I could love? I respect her understanding; but where is the softness that should make it charm while it enlightens? I am grateful for her partiality; but where is the dignity that might ennoble it, or the delicacy that might make it as refined as it is flattering? Where — where the soul’s fascination, that grows out of the mingled excellencies, the blended harmonies, of the understanding with the heart and the manners?’
Vainly Ellis strove to appear unconscious of the comparison, and the application, which the eyes of Harleigh, yet more pointedly than his words, marked for herself in this speech: her quickly rising blushes divulged all that her stillness, her unmoved features tried to disguise; and, to get rid of her confusion, she again desired that he would open the letter, and with an urgency which he could not resist. He merely stipulated that she would wait to hear his answer; and then read what follows.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 279