Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  The boy, spying Juliet, whom he was more than ever eager to join when he saw that she strove to avoid notice; darted from his lordship, calling out, ‘Ellis! Ellis! look! look! here’s Ellis!’

  Lord Melbury, with an air of the most animated surprize and delight, darted forward also, exclaiming, ‘Miss Ellis! How unexpected a pleasure! The moment I saw Mrs Ireton I had some hope I might see, also, Miss Ellis — but I had already given it up as delusory.’

  Again the fallen countenance of Juliet brightened into sparkling beauty. The idea that even Lord Melbury had been infected by the opinions which had been circulated to her disadvantage, had wounded, had stung her to the quick: but to find that, notwithstanding he had been prevailed upon to acquiesce that his sister, while so much mystery remained, should keep personally aloof, his own sentiments of esteem remained unshaken; and to find it by so open, and so prompt a testimony of respect and regard, displayed before the very witnesses who had sought to destroy, or invalidate, every impression that might be made in her favour, was a relief the most exquisitely welcome to her disturbed and fearful mind.

  Eager and rapid enquiries concerning her health, uttered with the ardour of juvenile vivacity, succeeded this first address. The party standing by, looked astonished, even abashed; while the face of Lady Aurora recovered its wonted expression of sweet serenity.

  Mrs Ireton, now, was seized with a desire the most violent, to repossess a protegée whose history and situation seemed daily to grow more wonderful. With a courtesy, therefore, as foreign from her usual manners, as from her real feelings, she said, ‘Miss Ellis, I am sure, will have the goodness to help me home with my two little companions? I am sure of that. She could not be so unkind as to leave the poor little things in the lurch?’

  Indignant as Juliet had felt at the treatment which she had received, resentment at this moment found no place in her mind; she was beginning, therefore, a civil, however decided excuse; when Mrs Ireton, suspicious of her purpose, flung herself languishingly upon a seat, and complained that she was seized with such an immoderate pain in her side, that, if somebody would not take care of the two little souls, she should arrive at Brighthelmstone a corpse.

  The Arramedes, Miss Brinville, and Selina, all declared that it was impossible to refuse so essential a service to a health so delicate.

  The fear, now, of a second public scene, with the dread lest Lord Melbury might be excited to speak or act in her favour, forced the judgment of Juliet to conquer her inclination, in leading her to defer the so often given dismission till her return to Brighthelmstone; she acceded, therefore, though with cruel unwillingness, to what was required.

  Mrs Ireton instantly recovered; and with the more alacrity, from observing that Lady Barbara Frankland joined the group, at this moment of victory.

  ‘Take the trouble, then, if you please, Ma’am,’ she replied, in her usual tone of irony; ‘if it will not be too great a condescension, take the trouble to carry Bijou to the coach. And bid Simon keep him safe while you come back, — if it is not asking quite too great a favour, — for Mr Loddard. And pray bring my wrapping cloak with you, Ma’am. You’ll be so good, I hope, as to excuse all these liberties? I hope so, at least! I flatter myself you’ll excuse them. And, if the cloak should be heavy, I dare say Simon will give you his arm. Simon is a man of gallantry, I make no doubt. Not that I pretend to know; but I take it for granted he is a man of gallantry.’

  Juliet looked down, repentant to have placed herself, even for another moment, in a power so merciless. Lord Melbury and Lady Aurora, each hurt and indignant, advanced, uttering kind speeches: while Lady Barbara, still younger and more unguarded, seizing the little dog, exclaimed ‘No, I’ll carry Bijou myself, Mrs Ireton. Poor Miss Ellis looks so tired! I’ll take care of him all the way to Brighthelmstone myself. Dear, pretty little creature!’ Then, skipping behind Lady Aurora, ‘Nasty whelp!’ she whispered, ‘how I’ll pinch him for being such a plague to that sweet Miss Ellis! Perhaps that will mend him!’

  The satisfaction of Lady Aurora at this trait glistened in her soft eyes; while Lord Melbury, enchanted, caught the hand of the spirited little lady, and pressed it to his lips; though, ashamed of his own vivacity, he let it go before she had time to withdraw it. She coloured deeply, but visibly with no unpleasant sensation; and, grasping the little dog, hid her blushes, by uttering a precipitate farewell upon the bosom of Lady Aurora; who smilingly, though tenderly, kissed her forehead.

  An idea that teemed with joy and happiness rose high in the breast of Juliet, as she looked from Lord Melbury to Lady Barbara. Ah! there, indeed, she thought, felicity might find a residence! there, in the rare union of equal worth, equal attractions, sympathising feelings, and similar condition!

  ‘And I, too,’ cried Lord Melbury, ‘must have the honour to make myself of some use; if Mrs Ireton, therefore, will trust Mr Loddard to my care, I will convey him safely to Brighthelmstone, and overtake my sister in the evening. And by this means we shall lighten the fatigue of Mrs Ireton, without increasing that of Miss Ellis.’

  He then took the little boy in his arms; playfully dancing him before the little dog in those of Lady Barbara.

  The heart of Juliet panted to give utterance to the warm acknowledgements with which it was fondly beating; but mingled fear and discretion forced her to silence.

  All the evil tendencies of malice, envy, and ill will, pent up in the breast of Mrs Ireton, now struggled irresistibly for vent; yet to insist that Juliet should take change of Mr Loddard, for whom Lord Melbury had offered his services; or even to force upon her the care of the little dog, since Lady Barbara had proposed carrying him herself, appeared no longer to exhibit dependency: Mrs Ireton, therefore, found it expedient to be again taken ill; and, after a little fretful moaning, ‘I feel quite shaken,’ she cried, ‘quite in a tremour. My feet are absolutely numbed. Do get me my furred clogs, Miss Ellis; if I may venture to ask such a favour. I would not be troublesome, but you will probably find them in the carriage. Though perhaps I have left them in the hall. You will have the condescension to help the coachman and Simon to make a search. And then pray run back, if it won’t fatigue you too much, and tie them on for me.’

  If Juliet now coloured, at least it was not singly; the cheeks of Lady Aurora, of Lady Barbara, and of Lord Melbury were equally crimsoned.

  ‘Let me, Mrs Ireton,’ eagerly cried Lord Melbury ‘have the honour to be Miss Ellis’s deputy.’

  ‘No, my lord,’ said Juliet, with spirit: ‘grateful and proud as I should feel to be honoured with your lordship’s assistance, it must not be in a business that does not belong to me. I will deliver the orders to Simon. And as Mrs Ireton is now relieved from her anxiety concerning Mr Loddard, I beg permission, once more, and finally, to take my leave.’

  Gravely then courtsying to Mrs Ireton, and bowing her head with an expression of the most touching sensibility to her three young supporters, she quitted the gallery.

  VOLUME IV.

  CHAPTER LX

  Juliet was precipitately followed by Lord Melbury.

  ‘It is not, then,’ he cried, ‘your intention to return to Mrs Ireton?’

  ‘No, my lord, never!’

  She had but just uttered these words, when, immediately facing her, she beheld Mrs Howel.

  A spectre could not have made her start more affrighted, could not have appeared to her more horrible. And Lord Melbury, who earnestly, at the same moment, had pronounced, ‘Tell me whither, then,—’ stopping abruptly, looked confounded.

  ‘May I ask your lordship to take me to Lady Aurora?’ Mrs Howel coldly demanded.

  ‘Aurora? — Yes; — she is there, Ma’am; — still in the gallery.’

  Mrs Howel presented him her hand, palpably to force him with her; and stalked past Juliet, without any other demonstration of perceiving her than what was unavoidably manifested by an heightened air of haughty disdain.

  Lord Melbury, distressed, would still have hung back; but Mrs Howel, taking his arm,
proceeded, as if without observing his repugnance.

  Juliet, in trembling dismay, glided on till she entered a vacant apartment, of which the door was open. To avoid intrusion, she was shutting herself in; but, upon some one’s applying, nearly the next minute, for admittance, the fear of new misconstruction forced her to open the door. What, then, was her shock at again viewing Mrs Howel! She started back involuntarily, and her countenance depicted undisguised horrour.

  With a brow of almost petrifying severity, sternly fixing her eyes upon Juliet, Mrs Howel, for a dreadful moment, seemed internally suspended, not between hardness and mercy, but between accusation and punishment. At length, in a tone, from the deep sounds of which Juliet shrunk, but had no means to retire, she slowly pronounced, while her head rose more loftily at every word, ‘You abscond from Mrs Ireton, though she would permit you to remain with her? ’Tis to Lord Melbury that you reveal your purpose; and the inexperienced youth whom you would seduce, is the only person that can fail to discover your ultimate design, in taking the moment of meeting with him, for quitting the honourable protection which snatches you from want, if not from disgrace: at the same time that it offers security to a noble family, justly alarmed for the morals, if not for the honour of its youthful and credulous chief.’

  The terror which, in shaking the nerves, seemed to have clouded even the faculties of Juliet, now suddenly subsided, superseded by yet more potent sensations of quick resentment. ‘Hold, Madam!’ she cried: ‘I may bear with cruelty and injustice, for I am helpless! but not with insult, for I am innocent!’

  Mrs Howel, surprised, paused an instant; but then harshly went on, ‘This cant, young woman, can only delude those who are ignorant of the world. Whatever you may chuse to utter to me of that sort will be perfectly null. What I have to say is simple; what you have to offer must, of course, be complicate. But I have no time to throw away upon rants and rodomontades, and I have no patience to waste upon impostors. Hear me then without reply.’

  ‘Not to reply, Madam, will cost me little,’ indignantly cried Juliet: ‘but to hear you, — pardon me, Madam, — force only can exact from me so dreadful a compliance.’

  She looked round, but not having courage to open a further door, nor power to pass by Mrs Howel, walked to a window.

  Not heeding her resistance, and disdaining her emotion, Mrs Howel continued: ‘My Lord Melbury is not, it is true, like his sister, under my immediate care; but he is here only to join her ladyship, whom my Lord Denmeath has entrusted to my protection. And, therefore, though he is as noble in mind as in rank, since he is still, in years, but a boy, I must, in honour, consider myself to be equally responsible to my Lord Denmeath for the brother as for the sister. This being the case, I must not leave him to the machinations of an adventurer. In two words, therefore, — Declare yourself for what you are; or return with Mrs Ireton to Brighthelmstone, and remain under her roof, since she deigns to permit it, till I have restored my young friends, safe and uninjured, to their uncle. Otherwise—’

  Juliet, casting up her eyes, as if calling upon heaven for patience, would have opened the window, to seek refuge in the air from sounds of which the shock was insupportable: but Mrs Howel, offended into yet deeper wrath, advanced with a mien of such rigid austerity, that she lost her purpose in her consternation, and listened irresistibly to what follows: ‘Otherwise, — mark me, young woman! the still unexplained mystery with which you have made your way into the kingdom, will authorise an application which you will vainly try to elude, and with which you will not dare to prevaricate. You will take your choice, and, in five minutes, you will be summoned to make it known.’

  With this menace she left the room.

  In an agony of terrour, that again absorbed even resentment, Juliet remained motionless, confounded, and incapable of deliberation, till the groom of Mrs Ireton came to inform her that his lady was ready to set out.

  Juliet, scarcely herself knowing her own intentions, precipitately ejaculated, ‘The crisis is arrived! — I must cast myself upon Lady Aurora!’

  The servant said he did not understand her.

  ‘Tell Lady Aurora — ;’ she cried, ‘or Lord Melbury, — no, Lady Aurora,—’ she stopt, fearfully balancing upon which to fix.

  The groom asked what he was to say.

  ‘You will say, — I must beg you to say,—’ cried Juliet, endeavouring to recollect herself, ‘that I desire, — that I wish, — that I take the liberty to request that Lady Aurora will have the goodness to honour me, — that I shall be eternally obliged if her ladyship will honour me with a few moment’s conversation!’

  The groom went; and almost the next instant, she heard the fleet step of Lady Aurora approaching, and her soft voice, with unusual emphasis, pronounce, ‘Pardon me, dear Madam, but I could not refuse her for a thousand worlds!’

  ‘She ought not to refuse her, Mrs Howel!’ added, with fervency, the voice of Lord Melbury; ‘in humanity, in justice, in decency, Aurora ought not to refuse her! Whatever may be your fears of objections to an intimacy, there can be none to common civility; for though we know not what Miss Ellis has been, we see what she now is; — a pattern of elegance, sweetness, and delicacy.’

  ‘A moment, my lord! — one moment, Lady Aurora!’ answered Mrs Howel; ‘we may be overheard here; — honour me with a moment’s attention in another room.’ She seemed drawing them away, and not a word more reached Juliet.

  A dreadful ten minutes preceded any farther information: a quick step, then, followed by a tap at the door, re-awakened at once terrour and hope. She awaited, motionless, its opening, but then saw neither the object she desired, nor that which she dreaded; neither Lady Aurora nor Mrs Howel, but Lord Melbury.

  Affrighted by the threatened vengeance of Mrs Howel, but irresistibly charmed by his generous defence, and trusting esteem, Juliet looked so disturbed, yet through her disturbance so gratified, that Lord Melbury, evidently much agitated himself, approached her with a vivacity of pleasure that he did not seek to repress, and could not have disguised.

  ‘Miss Ellis will, I am sure, forgive my intrusion,’ he cried, ‘when I tell her that it is made in the name of my sister. Aurora is grieved past all expression not to wait upon you herself; but Mrs Howel is in such haste to depart, from her fear of travelling after sun-set, that it is not possible to detain her. Poor Aurora sends you a thousand apologies, and entreats you not to think ill of her for appearing thus unfeeling—’

  ‘Think ill of Lady Aurora?’ interrupted Juliet, ‘I think her an angel!—’

  ‘She is very near it, indeed!’ cried Lord Melbury, ardently; ‘as near it, I own, as I wish her; for I don’t see, without wings, and flying to heaven, how she can well be nearer! However, since you are so kind, so liberal, as to do her that justice, would it be possible that you could communicate, through me, what you had the goodness to intend saying to her? She is quite broken-hearted at going away with an appearance of such unkindness. Can you give her this consolation?’

  ‘Oh, my lord!’ answered Juliet, with an energy that shewed off all guard, ‘if I might hope for Lady Aurora’s support — for your lordship’s protection, — with what transport would my o’er-burthened heart,— ‘Seized with sudden dread of Mrs Howel, she stopt abruptly, and fearfully looked around.

  Enchanted by a prospect of some communication, Lord Melbury warmly exclaimed, ‘Miss Ellis, I swear to you, by all that I hold most sacred, that if you will do me so great an honour as to trust me to be the bearer of your confidence to my sister, no creature upon earth, besides, shall ever, without your permission, hear what you may unfold! and it shall be my whole study to merit your good opinion, and to shew you my respect.’

  ‘O my lord! O Lord Melbury,’ cried Juliet, ‘what hopes, what sweet balsamic hopes you pour into my wounded bosom! after sufferings by which I have been nearly, — nay, through which I have even wished myself demolished!—’

  Lord Melbury, inexpressibly touched, eagerly, yet tenderly, answered, ‘Name, name what
there is I can be so happy as to do! Your wishes shall be my entire direction. And if I can offer you any services, I shall console Aurora, and, permit me to say, myself, still more than you.’

  ‘I will venture, then, my lord, — I must venture! — to lay open my perilous situation! — And yet I may put your feelings, — alas! — to a test, alas, my lord! — that not all your virtues, nor even your compassion may withstand!’

  Trembling almost as violently as she trembled herself, from impatience, from curiosity, from charmed interest, and indescribable wonder, Lord Melbury bent forward, so irresistibly and so palpably to take her hand, that Juliet, alarmed, drew back; and, calling forth the self-command of which her sorrows, her terrours, and her hopes had conjointly bereft her, ‘If I have been guilty,’ she cried, ‘of any indiscretion, my lord, in this hasty, almost involuntary disposition to confidence, — excuse, — and do not punish an errour that has its source only in a — perhaps — too high wrought esteem!—’

  Starting with a look nearly of horrour, ‘You kill me,’ he cried, ‘Miss Ellis, if you suspect me to be capable, a second time, of dishonouring the purest of sisters by forgetting the respect due to her friend!—’

  ‘No, my lord, no!’ warmly interrupted Juliet; ‘whatever you think dishonourable I am persuaded your lordship would find impracticable: but the stake is so great, — the risk so tremendous, — and failure would be so fatal!—’

  Her preturbation now became nearly overpowering; and, not with standing she was prepared, and resolved, to disclose herself, her ability seemed unequal to her will, and her breast heaved with sighs so oppressive, that though she frequently began with— ‘I will now, — I must now,—’ she strove vainly to finish her sentence.