Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  Amazed, she enquired what was meant; and was answered, that her husband was in the hands of justice.

  The violence of the changed, yet mixed sensations, with which she was now assailed, made every pulse throb with so palpitating a rapidity, that she felt as if life itself was seeking a vent through every swelling vein. But, when again she was pressed to enter the house, and not to accompany her husband to prison; she shuddered, her head was bowed down with shame; and, making a motion that supplicated for silence, she seemed internally torn asunder with torturing incertitude how to act.

  During this instant, — it was scarcely more, — of irresolution, the landlady alighted, and the chaise was driven abruptly from the door. But Juliet had scarcely had time for new alarm, ere she found that she had only been removed to make way for another carriage; from the window of which she caught a glimpse of Sir Jaspar Herrington.

  Nor had she escaped his eye; her straw-bonnet having fallen off, without being missed, while she fainted, her head was wholly without shade.

  With all of speed in his power, the Baronet hobbled to the chaise. She covered her face, sinking with every species of confusion and distress. ‘Have I the honour,’ he cried, ‘to address Miss Granville? The Honourable Miss Granville?’ —

  ‘Good Heaven!—’ Juliet astonished, and raising her head, exclaimed.

  ‘If so, I have the dulcet commission,’ he continued, ‘to escort her to her brother and sister, Lord Melbury, and Lady Aurora Granville.’

  ‘Is it possible? Is it possible?’ cried Juliet, in an ecstacy that seemed to renovate her whole being: ‘I dare not believe it! — Oh Sir Jaspar! dear, good, kind, generous Sir Jaspar! delude me not, in pity!’

  ‘No, fairest syren!’ answered Sir Jaspar, in a rapture nearly equal to her own; ‘if there be any delusion to fear, ’tis poor I must be its victim!’

  ‘Oh take me, then, at once, — this instant, — this moment, — take me to them, my benevolent, my noble friend! If, indeed, I have a brother, a sister, — give me the heaven of their protection!—’

  Sir Jaspar, enchanted, invited her to honour him by accepting a seat in his chaise. With glowing gratitude she complied; though the just returning roses faded from her cheeks, as she alighted, upon perceiving Harleigh, aloof and disconsolate, fixed like a statue, upon a small planted eminence. Yet but momentarily was the whiter hue prevalent, and her skin, the next instant, burned with blushes of the deepest dye.

  This transition was not lost upon Harleigh: his eye caught, and his heart received it, with equal avidity and anguish. Ah why, thought he, so sensitive! why, at this period of despair, must I awaken to a consciousness of the full extent of my calamity! Yet, all his resentment subsided; to believe that she participated in his sentiments, had a charm so softening, so all-subduing, that, even in this crisis of torture and hopelessness, it dissolved his whole soul into tenderness.

  Juliet, faintly articulating, ‘Oh, let us be gone!’ moved, with cast down eyes, to the carriage of the Baronet; forced, from remaining weakness, to accept the assistance of his groom; Sir Jaspar not having strength, nor Harleigh courage, to offer aid.

  Sir Jaspar demanded her permission to stop at Salisbury, for his valet and baggage.

  ‘Any where! any where!’ answered the shaking Juliet, ‘so I go but to Lady Aurora!’

  Astonished, and thrilled to the soul by these words, Harleigh, who, unconsciously, had advanced, involuntarily repeated, ‘Lady Aurora? — Lady Aurora Granville?’ —

  Unable to answer, or to look at him, the trembling Juliet, eagerly laying both her hands upon the arm of the Baronet, as, cautiously, he was mounting into the carriage, supplicated that they might be gone.

  A petition thus seconded, from so adored a suppliant, was irresistible; he kissed each fair hand that thus honoured him; and had just accepted the offer of Harleigh, to aid his arrangements; when the furious prisoner, struggling with the peace-officers, and loudly swearing, re-appeared at the inn-door, clamorously demanding his wife.

  The tortured Juliet, with an impulse of agony, cast, now, the hands that were just withdrawn from the Baronet, upon the shoulder of Harleigh, who was himself fastening the chaise-door, tremulously, and in a tone scarcely audible, pronouncing, ‘Oh! hurry us away, Mr Harleigh! — in mercy! — in compassion!’

  Harleigh, bowing upon the hands which he ventured not to touch, but of which he felt the impression with a pang indescribable, called to the postilion to drive off full gallop.

  With a low and sad inclination of the head, Juliet, in a faultering voice, thanked him; involuntarily adding, ‘My prayers, Mr Harleigh, — my every wish for happiness, — will for ever be yours!’

  The chaise drove off; but his groan, rather than sigh, reached her agonized ear; and, in an emotion too violent for concealment, yet to which she durst allow no vent, she held her almost bursting forehead with her hand; breathing only by smothered sighs, and scarcely sensible to the happiness of an uncertain escape, while bowed down by the sight of the misery that she had inflicted, where all that she owed was benevolence, sympathy, and generosity.

  Not even the delight of thus victoriously carrying off a disputed prize, could immediately reconcile Sir Jaspar to the fear of even the smallest disorder in the economy of his medicines, anodynes, sweetmeats, and various whims; which, from long habits of self-indulgence, he now conceived to be necessaries, not luxuries.

  But when, after having examined, in detail, that his travelling apparatus was in order, he turned smilingly to the fair mede of his exertions; and saw the deep absorption of all her faculties in her own evident affliction, he was struck with surprise and disappointment; and, after a short and mortified pause, ‘Can it be, fair ænigma!’ he cried, ‘that it is with compunction you abandon this Gallic Goliah?’

  Surprised, through this question, from the keen anguish of speechless suffering; retrospection and anticipation alike gave way to gratitude, and she poured forth her thanks, her praises, and her wondering delight, at this unexpected, and marvellous rescue, with so much vivacity of transport, and so much softness of sensibility for his kindness, that the enchanted Sir Jaspar, losing all forbearance, in the interest with which he languished to learn, more positively, her history and her situation, renewed his entreaties for communication, with an urgency that she now, for many reasons, no longer thought right to resist: anxious herself, since concealment was at an end, to clear away the dark appearances by which she was surrounded; and to remove a mystery that, for so long a period, had made her owe all good opinion to trust and generosity.

  She pondered, nevertheless, and sighed, ere she could comply. It was strange to her, she said, and sad, to lift up the veil of secresy to a new, however interesting and respectable acquaintance; while to her brother, her sister, and her earliest friend, she still appeared to be inveloped in impenetrable concealment. Yet, if to communicate the circumstances which had brought her into this deplorable situation, could shew her sense of the benevolence of Sir Jaspar, she would set apart her repugnance, and gather courage to retrace the cruel scenes of which he had witnessed the direful result. Her inestimable friend had already related the singular history of all that had preceded their separation; but, uninformed herself of the dreadful events by which it had been followed, she could go no further: otherwise, from a noble openness of heart, which made all disguise painful, if not disgusting to her, Sir Jaspar would already have been satisfied.

  The Baronet, ashamed, would now have withdrawn his petition; but Juliet no longer wished to retract from her engagement.

  CHAPTER LXXX

  The first months after the departure of Gabriella, were passed, Juliet narrated, quietly, though far from gaily, in complete retirement. To lighten, through her cares and services, the terrible change of condition experienced by her benefactress, the Marchioness, and by her guardian, the Bishop, was her unremitting, and not successless endeavour: but even this sad tranquillity was soon broken in upon, by an accidental interview with a returned emigrant,
who brought news of the dangerous state of health into which the young son of Gabriella had fallen. Too well knowing that this cherished little creature was the sole consolation and support of its exiled mother, the Marchioness earnestly desired that her daughter should possess again her early companion; who best could aid to nurse the child; or, should its illness prove fatal, to render its loss supportable. It was, therefore, settled, that, guarded and accompanied by a faithful ancient servant, upon whose prudence and attachment the Marchioness had the firmest reliance, Juliet should follow her friend: and the benevolent Bishop promised to join them both, as soon as his affairs would permit him to make the voyage.

  To obtain a passport being then impossible, Ambroise, this worthy domestic, was employed to discover means for secretly crossing the channel: and, as adroit as he was trusty, he found out a pilot, who, though ostensibly but a fisherman, was a noted smuggler; and who passed frequently to the opposite shore; now with goods, now with letters, now with passengers. By this man the Marchioness wrote to prepare Gabriella for the reception of her friend, who was to join her at Brighthelmstone; whither, in her last letter, written, as Juliet now knew, in the anguish of discovering symptoms of danger in the illness of her darling boy, Gabriella had mentioned her intended excursion for sea-bathing. The diligent Ambroise soon obtained information that the pilot was preparing to sail with a select party. The Marchioness would rather have postponed the voyage, till an answer could have been received from her daughter; yet this was not an opportunity to be neglected.

  The light baggage, therefore, was packed, and they were waiting the word of command from the pilot, when a commissary, from the Convention, arrived, to purify, he said, and new-organize the town, near which, in a villa that had been a part of her marriage-portion, the Marchioness and her brother then resided. To this villa the commissary made his first visit. The Bishop, by this agent of the inhuman Robespierre, was immediately seized; and, while his unhappy sister, and nearly adoring ward, were vainly kneeling at the feet of his condemner, — not accuser! to supplicate mercy for innocence, — not for guilt! the persons who were rifling the Bishop, shouted out, with savage joy, that they had found a proof of his being a traitor, in a note in his pocket-book, which was clearly a bribe from the enemy to betray the country. The commissary, who, having often been employed as a spy, had a competent knowledge of modern languages, which he spoke intelligibly, though with vulgar phraseology and accent; took the paper, and read it without difficulty. It was the promissory note of the old Earl Melbury.

  He eagerly demanded the Citoyenne Julie; swearing that, if six thousand pounds were to be got by marrying, he would marry without delay. He ordered her, therefore, to accompany him forthwith to the mayoralty. At her indignant refusal, he scoffingly laughed; but, upon her positive resistance, ordered her into custody. This, also, moved her not; she only begged to be confined in the same prison with the Bishop. Coarsely mocking her attachment for the priest, and holding her by the chin, he swore that he would marry her, and her six thousand pounds.

  A million of deaths, could she die them, she resolutely replied, she would suffer in preference.

  Her priest, then, he said, should away to the guillotine; though she had only to marry, and sign the promissory-note for the dower, to set the parson at liberty. Filled with horrour, she wrung her hands, and stood suspended; while the Marchioness, with anguish indescribable, and a look that made a supplication that no voice could pronounce, fell upon her neck, gasping for breath, and almost fainting.

  ‘Ah, Madam!’ Juliet cried, ‘what is your will? I am yours, — entirely yours! command me!’ —

  The Marchioness could not speak; but her sighs, her groans, rather, were more eloquent than any words.

  ‘Bind the priest!’ the commissary cried. ‘His trial is over; bind the traitor, and take him to the cell for execution.’

  The Marchioness sunk to the floor.

  ‘No!’ cried Juliet, ‘bind him not! Touch not his reverend and revered person! — Give me the paper! I will sign what you please! I will go whither you will!’

  ‘Come, then,’ cried the commissary, ‘to the mayoralty.’

  Juliet covered her face, but moved towards the door.

  The Bishop, hitherto passive and meekly resigned, now, with a sudden effort of strength, repulsing his gaolers, while fire darted from his eyes, and a spirit of command animated all his features, exclaimed, ‘No, generous Juliet! my own excellent child, no! Are a few years more or less, — perhaps but a few minutes, — worth purchasing by the sacrifice of truth, and the violation of every feeling? I will not be saved upon such terms!’

  ‘No preaching,’ cried the commissary; ‘off with him at once.’

  The men now bound his hands and arms; while, returning to his natural state of calmness, he lifted up his eyes towards heaven, and, in a loud and sonorous voice, ejaculated, in Latin, a fervent prayer; with an air so absorbed in mental and pious abstraction, that he seemed unconscious what became of his person.

  Juliet, who had shrunk back at his speech, again advanced, and, with agony unspeakable, held out her hand, in token of consent. The commissary received it triumphantly, at the moment that the Bishop, upon reaching the door, turned round to take a last view of his unhappy sister; who, torn with conflicting emotions, seemed a statue of horrour. But no sooner did he perceive the hand of his ward unresistingly grasped by the commissary, than again the expression of his face shewed his soul brought back from its heavenly absorption; and, stopping short, with an air which, helpless and shackled as he was, overawed his fierce conductors, ‘Hold yet a moment,’ he cried. ‘Oh Juliet! Think, — know what you are about! ’Tis not to this world alone you are responsible for vows offered up at the altar of God! My child! my more than daughter! sacrifice not your purity to your affections! Drag me not back from a virtuous death to a miserable existence, by the foul crime of wilful perjury!’

  Juliet affrighted, again snatched away her hand, with a look at the commissary which pronounced an abhorrent refusal.

  The commissary, stamping with fury, ordered the Bishop instantly to the cell of death. Where guilt, he said, had been proved, there was no need of any tribunal; and the execution should take place with the speed called for by his dangerous crimes.

  Juliet, cold, trembling, and again irresolute, was involuntarily turning to the commissary; but the Bishop, charging her to be firm, pronounced a pious blessing upon her head; faintly spoke a last adieu to his miserable sister, and, with commanding solemnity, accompanied his gaolers away.

  The horrour of that moment Juliet attempted not to describe; nor could she recur to it, without sighs and emotions that, for a while, stopt her narration.

  Sir Jaspar would have spared her the resumption of the history; but she would not, having thus raised, trifle with his curiosity.

  The commissary, she continued, then took possession of all the money, plate, and jewels he could find, and pursued what he called his rounds of purification.

  How the Marchioness or herself out-lived that torturing day, Juliet declared she could with difficulty, now, conceive. She was again willing to become a victim to the safety of her guardian; but even the Marchioness ceased to desire his preservation upon terms from which he himself recoiled as culpable. Early the next morning they were both conducted to a large house upon the market-place, where, in the most direful suspense, they were kept waiting for more than two hours; in which interval, such was the oppression of terrour, neither of them opened their lips.

  The commissary, at length, broke into the room, and, seating himself in an arm-chair, while, humbly and tremblingly, they stood at the door, demanded of Juliet whether she were become more reasonable. Her head drooped, but she would not answer. ‘Follow me,’ he cried, ‘to this balcony.’ He opened a door leading to a large apartment that looked upon the market-place. She suspected some sinister design, and would not obey. ‘Come you, then!’ he cried, to the Marchioness; and, taking her by the shoulder, rudely and grossly,
he pushed her before him, till she entered upon the balcony. A dreadful scream, which then broke from her, brought Juliet to her side.

  Here, again, overpowered by the violence of bitter recollections, which operated, for the moment, with nearly the force of immediate suffering, Juliet was obliged to take breath before she could proceed.

  ‘Oh Sir Jaspar!’ she then cried, ‘upon approaching the wretched Marchioness, what a distracting scene met my eyes! A scaffolding, — a guillotine, — an executioner, — were immediately opposite me! and in the hand of that hardened executioner, was held up to the view of the senseless multitude, the ghastly, bleeding head of a victim that moment offered up at the shrine of unmeaning though ferocious cruelty! Four other destined victims, kneeling and devoutly at prayers, their hands tied behind them, and their heads bald, were prepared for sacrifice; and amidst them, eminently conspicuous, from his dignified mien, and pious calmness, I distinguished my revered guardian! the Marchioness had distinguished her beloved brother! — Oh moment of horrour exceeding all description! I cast myself, nearly frantic, at the feet of the commissary; I embraced his knees, as if with the fervour of affection; wildly and passionately I conjured him to accept my hand and fortune, and save the Bishop! — He laughed aloud with triumphant derision; but gave an immediate order to postpone the execution of the priest. I blest him, — yes, with all his crimes upon his head! — and even again I should bless him, to save a life so precious!

  ‘The Marchioness, recovering her strength with her hopes, seized the arm of the messenger of this heavenly news, hurrying him along with a force nearly supernatural, and calling out aloud herself, from the instant that she entered the market place, “Un sursit! Un sursit!”