She stopt, and her look and manner suddenly lost their fierceness, as she added: ‘Oh no! — You! You are not of that cast! Harleigh can only admire what alone is admirable. He would soon see through littleness or hypocrisy; you must be good and great at once — eminently good, unaffectedly great! — or how could Harleigh, the punctilious, discriminating Harleigh, adore you? Oh! I have known, and secretly appreciated you long; though I have been too little myself to acknowledge it! I have not been calm enough — perhaps not blind enough for justice! for if I saw your beauty less clearly — O happy Ellis! how do I admire, envy, revere, — and hate you!’
Shocked, yet filled with pity, Juliet would have sought to deprecate her enmity, and soften her feelings; but her fiery eye shewed that any attempt at offering her consolation would be regarded as insult. ‘I disdain,’ she cried, ‘all expedient, all pretence. However the abortion of my purpose may have made me appear a mere female mountebank, I have meant all that I have seemed to mean: though, by waiting for the moment of most eclat, opportunity has been past by, and action has been frustrated. But I can die only once. That over, — all is ended. ’Tis therefore I have studied how to finish my career with most effect. Let Harleigh, however, beware how he doubt my sincerity! doubt from him would drive me mad indeed! To the torpid formalities of every-day customs; the drowsy thoughts of every-day thinkers; he may believe me insensible, and I shall thank him; but, indifferent to my own principles of honour! — lost to my own definitions of pride, of shame, of heroism! — Oh! if he touch me there! — if he can judge of me so degradingly ... my senses will still go before my life!’
She held her forehead, with a look of fearful pain; but, soon recovering, laughed, and said, ‘There are fools, I know, in the world, who suppose me mad already! only because I go my own way; while they, poor cowards, yoked one to another, always follow the path of their forefathers; without even venturing to mend the road, however it may have been broken up by time, accident or mischief. I have full as much contempt of their imbecility, as they can have of my insanity. But hear me, Ellis! approach and mark me. I must have a conference with Harleigh. You must be present. A last conference! Whatever be its event, I have bound myself to Elinor Joddrel never to demand another! But do not therefore imagine my life or death to be in your power. No! My resolution is taken. Take yours. Let the interview which I demand pass quietly in this room; or be responsible for the consequences of the public desperation to which I may be urged!’
Gloomily, she then added, ‘Harleigh has refused to come; I will send him word that you are here; will he still refuse?’
Juliet blushed; but could not answer. Elinor paused a moment, and then said, ‘If he knows that he can see you elsewhere, he will be firm; if not ... he will return with my messenger! By that I can judge the present state of your connexion.’
She rang the bell, and told Mrs Golding to go instantly to Mr Harleigh, and acquaint him that Elinor Joddrel and Miss Ellis desired to speak with him immediately.
Vainly Juliet remonstrated against the strange appearance of such a message, not only to himself, but to the family and the world: ‘Appearance?’ she cried; ‘after what I have done, what I have dared, — have I any terms to keep with the world? with appearances? Miserable, contemptible, servile appearances, to which sense, happiness, and feeling are for ever to be sacrificed! And what will the world do in return? How recompense the victims to its arbitrary prejudices? By letting them quickly sink into nothing; by suffering them to die with as little notice and distinction as they have lived; and with as little choice.’
Mrs Golding returned, bringing the respects of Mr Harleigh, but saying that he was forced, by an indispensable engagement, to refuse himself the honour of waiting upon Miss Joddrel.
‘Run to him again!—’ cried Elinor, with vehemence; ‘run, or he will be gone! Make him enter the first empty room, and tell him ’tis Miss Ellis alone who desires to speak with him. Fly!’
Yet more earnestly, now, Juliet would have interfered; but the peremptory Elinor insisted upon immediate obedience. ‘If still,’ she cried ‘he come not ... I shall conclude you to be already married!’
She laughed, yet wore a face of horrour at this idea; and spoke no more till Mrs Golding returned, with intelligence that Mr Harleigh was waiting in the parlour.
The bosom of Juliet now swelled and heaved high, with tumultuous distress and alarm, and her cheeks were dyed with the crimson tint of conscious shame; while Elinor, turning pale, dropt her head upon the pillow of the sofa, and sighed deeply for a moment in silence. Recovering then, ‘This, at least,’ she said, ‘is explicit; let it be final! Your influence is not disguised; use it, Ellis, to snatch me from the deplorable buffoonery of running about the world — not like death after the lady, but the lady after death! Assure yourselves that you will never devise any stratagem that will turn me from my purpose; though you may render ridiculous in its execution, what in its conception was sublime. Happiness such as yours, Ellis, ought to be above all narrow malignity. You ought to be proud, Ellis, voluntarily to serve her whom involuntarily you have ruined!’
Juliet was beginning some protestations of kindness; but Elinor, interrupting her, said, ‘I can give credit only to action. I must have a conference; but it is not to talk of myself; — nor of you; nor even of Harleigh. No! the soft moment of indulgence to my feelings is at an end! When I allowed my heart that delicious expansion; when I abandoned it to nature, and permitted it those open effusions of tenderness, I thought my dissolution at hand, and meant but to snatch a few last precious minutes of extacy from everlasting annihilation! but these endless delays, these eternal procrastinations, make me appear so unmeaning an idiot, even to myself, that, for the remnant of my doleful ditty, I must resist every natural wish; and plod on, till I plod off, with the stiff and stupid decorum of a starched old maid of half a century. Procure me, however, this definitive conference. It is upon no point of the old story, I promise you. You cannot be more tired of that than I am ashamed. ’Tis simply an earnest curiosity to know the pure, unadulterate thoughts of Harleigh upon death and immortality. I have applied to him, fruitlessly, myself; he inexorably refers me to some old canonicals; without considering that it is vain to ask for guides to shew us a road, before we are convinced, or at least persuaded, that it will lead us to some given spot. Let him but make clear, that ’tis his own opinion that death does not sink us to nothing; let him but satisfy me, that he does not turn me over to others, only because he thinks as I think himself, and has not the courage to avow it; — and then, in return, I may suffer him to send to me some one of his black robed tribe, to harangue me about here and hereafter.’
All contestation on the part of Juliet, was but irritating; she was forced upon her commission, and compelled solemnly to promise, that she would return with Harleigh, and be present at the conference.
CHAPTER LXIII
With unsteady footsteps, and covered with blushes, Juliet repaired to the parlour, where Harleigh, with delighted, yet trembling impatience, was awaiting her arrival.
The door was half open, and he had placed himself at a distant window, to force her entire entrance into the room, before she could see him, or speak; but, that point gained, he hastened to shut it, exclaiming, ‘How happy for me is this incident, whatever may have been its origin! Let me instantly avail myself of it, to entreat—’
‘Give me leave,’ interrupted Juliet, looking every way to avoid his eyes; ‘to deliver my message. Miss Joddrel—’
‘When we begin,’ cried Harleigh, eagerly, ‘upon the unhappy Elinor, she must absorb us; let me, then, first—’
‘I must be heard, Sir,’ said Juliet, with more firmness, ‘or I must be gone!—’
‘You must be heard, then, undoubtedly!’ he cried, with a smile, and offering her a chair, ‘for you must not be gone!’
Juliet declined being seated, but delivered, nearly in the words that she had received it, her message.
Harleigh looked pained and di
stressed, yet impatient, as he listened. ‘How,’ he cried, ‘can I argue with her? The false exaltation of her ideas, the effervescence of her restless imagination, place her above, or below, whatever argument, or reason can offer to her consideration. Her own creed is settled — not by investigation into its merits, not by reflection upon its justice, but by an impulsive preference, in the persuasion that such a creed leaves her mistress of her destiny.’
‘Ah, do not resist her!’ cried Juliet. ‘If there is any good to be done — do it! and without delay!’
‘It is not you I can resist!’ he tenderly answered, ‘if deliberately it is your opinion I should comply. But her peculiar character, her extraordinary principles, and the strange situation into which she has cast herself, give her, for the moment, advantages difficult, nay dangerous to combat. Unawed by religion, of which she is ignorant; unmoved by appearances, to which she is indifferent; she utters all that occurs to an imagination inflamed by passion, disordered by disappointment, and fearless because hopeless, with a courage from which she has banished every species of restraint: and with a spirit of ridicule, that so largely pervades her whole character, as to burst forth through all her sufferings, to mix derision with all her sorrows, and to preponderate even over her passions! Reason and argument appear to her but as marks for dashing eloquence or sportive mockery. Nevertheless, if, by striking at every thing, daringly, impetuously, unthinkingly, she start some sudden doubt; demand some impossible explanation; or ask some humanly unanswerable question; she will conclude herself victorious; and be more lost than ever to all that is right, from added false confidence in all that is wrong.’
‘If so, the conference were, indeed, better avoided,’ said Juliet with sadness; ‘yet — as it is not the sacred truth of revealed religion that she means to canvass; as it is merely the previous question, of the possibility, or impossibility, according to her notions, of a future state for mankind, which she desires to discuss; I do not quite see the danger of answering the doubts, or refuting the assertions, that may lead her afterwards, to an investigation so important to her future welfare. If she would consult with a clergyman, it were certainly preferable; but that will be a point no longer difficult to gain, when once you have convinced her, upon her own terms of controversy, that you yourself have a firm belief in immortality.’
‘The attempt shall surely be made,’ said Harleigh, ‘if you think such a result, as casting her into more reverend hands, may ensue. If I have fled all controversy with her, from the time that she has publicly proclaimed her religious infidelity, it has by no means been from disgust; an unbeliever is simply an object of pity; for who is so deplorably without resource in sickness or calamity? — those two common occupiers of half our existence! No; if I have fled all voluntary intercourse with her, it has only been that her total contempt of the world, has forced me to take upon myself the charge of public opinion for us both. While I considered her as the future wife of my brother, I frankly contested whatever I thought wrong in her notions. The wildness of her character, the eccentricity of her ideas, and the violence of all her feelings; with her extraordinary understanding — parts, I ought to say; for understanding implies rather what is solid than brilliant; — joined to the goodness of her heart, and the generosity, frankness, and openness of her nature, excited at once an anxiety for my brother, and an interest for herself, that gave occasion to the most affectionate animadversion on my part, and produced alternate defence or concession on hers. But her disdain of flattery, or even of civil acquiescence, made my freedom, opposed to the courteous complaisance which my brother deemed due to his situation of her humble servant, strike her in a point of view ... that has been unhappy for us all three! Yet this was a circumstance which I had never suspected, — for, where no wish is met, remark often sleeps; — and I had been wholly unobservant, till you—’
Called from the deep interest with which she had involuntarily listened to the relation of his connection with Elinor, by this sudden transition to herself, Juliet started; but he went on.
‘Till you were an inmate of the same house! till I saw her strange consternation, when she found me conversing with you; her rising injustice when, with the respect and admiration which you inspired, I mentioned you; her restless vigilance to interrupt whatever communication I attempted to have with you; her sudden fits of profound yet watchful taciturnity, when I saw you in her presence;—’
‘I may tell her,’ interrupted Juliet, disturbed, ‘that you will wait upon her according to her request?’
‘When you,’ cried he, smiling, ‘are her messenger, she must not expect quite so quick, quite so categorical an answer! I must first—’
‘On the contrary, her impatience will be insupportable if I do not relieve it immediately.’
She would have opened the door, but, preventing her, ‘Can you indeed believe,’ he cried, with vivacity; ‘is it possible you can believe, that, having once caught a ray of light, to illumine and cheer the dread and nearly impervious darkness, that so long and so blackly overclouded all my prospects, I can consent, can endure to be cast again into desolate obscurity?’
Juliet, blushing, and conscious of his allusion to her reception of him in the church yard, for which, without naming Sir Lyell Sycamore, she knew not how to account, again protested that she must not be detained.
Still, however, half reproachfully, half laughingly, stopping her, ‘And is it thus,’ he cried, ‘that you summon me to Brighthelmstone, — only to mock my obedience, and disdain to hear me?’
‘I, Sir? — I, summon you?’
‘Nay, see my credentials!’
He presented to her the following note, written in an evidently feigned hand:
‘If Mr Harleigh will take a ramble to the church-yard upon the Hill, at Brighthelmstone, next Thursday morning, at five o’clock, he will there meet a female fellow-traveller, now in the greatest distress, who solicits his advice and assistance, to extricate her from her present intolerable abode.’
Deeply colouring, ‘And could Mr Harleigh,’ she cried, ‘even for a moment believe, — suppose,—’
He interrupted her, with an air of tender respect. ‘No; I did not, indeed, dare believe, dare suppose that an honour, a trust such as might be implied by an appeal like this, came from you! Yet for you I was sure it was meant to pass; and to discover by whom it was devised, and for what purpose, irresistibly drew me hither, though with full conviction of imposition. I came, however, pre-determined to watch around your dwelling, at the appointed hour, ere I repaired to the bidden place. But what was my agitation when I thought I saw you! I doubted my senses. I retreated; I hung back; your face was shaded by your head-dress; — yet your air, — your walk, — was it possible I could be deceived? Nevertheless, I resolved not to speak, nor to approach you, till I saw whether you proceeded to the church-yard. I was by no means free from suspicion of some new stratagem of Elinor; for, fatigued with concealment, I was then publicly at my house upon Bagshot Heath, where the note had reached me. Yet her distance from Brighthelmstone for so early an hour, joined to intelligence which I had received some time ago, — for you will not imagine that the period which I spend without seeing, I spend also without hearing of you? — that you had been observed, — and more than once, — at that early hour, in the church-yard—’
‘True!’ cried Juliet, eagerly, ‘at that hour I have frequently met, or accompanied, a friend, a beloved friend! thither; and, in her name, I had even then, when I saw you, been deluded: not for a walk; a ramble; not upon any party of pleasure; but to visit a little tomb, which holds the regretted remains of the darling and only child of that dear, unhappy friend!’
She wept. Harleigh, extremely touched, said, ‘You have, then, a friend here? — Is it, — may I ask? — is it the person you so earnestly sought upon your arrival? — Is your anxiety relieved? — your embarrassment? — your suspence? — your cruel distress? — Will you not give me, at length, some little satisfaction? Can you wonder that my forbear
ance is worn out? — Can my impatience offend you? — If I press to know your situation, it is but with the desire to partake it! — If I solicit to hear your name — it is but with the hope ... that you will suffer me to change it!’
He would have taken her hand, but, drawing back, and wiping her eyes, though irresistibly touched, ‘Offend?’ she repeated; ‘Oh far, — far!... but why will you recur to a subject that ought so long since to have been exploded? — while another, — an essential one, calls for all my attention? — The last packet which you left with me, you must suffer me instantly to return; the first, — the first—’ She stammered, coloured, and then added, ‘The first, — I am shocked to own, — I must defer returning yet a little longer!’
‘Defer?’ ardently repeated Harleigh. ‘Ah! why not condescend to think, at least, another language, if not to speak it? Why not anticipate, in kind idea, at least, the happy period, — for me! when I may be permitted to consider as included, and mutual in our destinies, whatever hitherto—’
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 325