The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)

by Fanny Burney

  CHAPTER LXXIX

  At this moment, a horseman, who had advanced full gallop, hastilydismounting, enquired aloud, whether any French gentleman had latelyarrived.

  All who were present, pointed to the foreigner; who, not hearing, oraffecting not to hear the demand, began pushing away the women, that hemight follow Juliet.

  The horseman, approaching, asked the foreigner his name.

  '_Qu'est ce que cela vous fait?_'[10] he answered.

  [Footnote 10: 'What is that to you?']

  'You must come with me into the inn,' the horseman replied, afterstedfastly examining his face.

  The foreigner, with a loud oath, refused to stir.

  The horseman, holding out a paper, clapped him upon the shoulder,saying, that he was a person who had been looked for some time, inconsequence of information which had been lodged against him; and thathe was to be sent out of the kingdom.

  This declaration made, he called upon the master of the house to lendhis assistance, for keeping the arrested person in custody, till thearrival of the proper officers of justice.

  The man, at first, could find no vent for his rage, except horrid oaths,and tremendous imprecations; but, when he was positively seized, with amenace of being bound hand and foot, if he offered any opposition, heswore that his wife, at least, should accompany him; and put forth hishand towards the chaise, to drag out Juliet.

  But Juliet was saved from his grasp by the landlady; who humanely, uponseeing her almost expiring condition, had entered the carriage, duringthe dispute, with a viol of sal volatile.

  The horseman, who was a peace-officer, said that he had no orders toarrest any woman. She might come, or stay, as she pleased.

  The foreigner vociferously claimed her; uttering execrations against allwho unlawfully withheld her; or would abet her elopement. He would thenhave passed round to the other door of the chaise, to seize her byforce; but the peace-officer, who was habitually deaf to any appeal, andresolute against any resistance; compelled him, though storming, raging,and swearing, his face distorted with fury, his under-jaw dropt, and hismouth foaming, to re-enter the inn.

  Juliet received neither relief nor fresh pain from what passed. Thoughno longer fainting, terrour and excess of misery operated so powerfullyupon her nerves, that his cries assailed her ears but as outrage uponoutrage; and, though clinging to the landlady, with instinctive entreatyfor support, she was so disordered by her recent fainting, and soabsorbed in the belief that she was lost, that she knew not what hadhappened; nor suspected any impediment to her forced journey; till thelandlady, now quitting her, advised her to have a room and lie down;saying that no wife could be expected to follow such a brute of ahusband to jail.

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

  The violence of the changed, yet mixed sensations, with which she wasnow assailed, made every pulse throb with so palpitating a rapidity,that she felt as if life itself was seeking a vent through everyswelling vein. But, when again she was pressed to enter the house, andnot to accompany her husband to prison; she shuddered, her head wasbowed down with shame; and, making a motion that supplicated forsilence, she seemed internally torn asunder with torturing incertitudehow to act.

  During this instant,--it was scarcely more,--of irresolution, thelandlady alighted, and the chaise was driven abruptly from the door. ButJuliet had scarcely had time for new alarm, ere she found that she hadonly been removed to make way for another carriage; from the window ofwhich she caught a glimpse of Sir Jaspar Herrington.

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

  With all of speed in his power, the Baronet hobbled to the chaise. Shecovered her face, sinking with every species of confusion and distress.'Have I the honour,' he cried, 'to address Miss Granville? TheHonourable Miss Granville?'--

  'Good Heaven!--' Juliet astonished, and raising her head, exclaimed.

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

  'Is it possible? Is it possible?' cried Juliet, in an ecstacy thatseemed to renovate her whole being: 'I dare not believe it!--Oh SirJaspar! dear, good, kind, generous Sir Jaspar! delude me not, in pity!'

  'No, fairest syren!' answered Sir Jaspar, in a rapture nearly equal toher own; 'if there be any delusion to fear, 'tis poor I must be itsvictim!'

  'Oh take me, then, at once,--this instant,--this moment,--take me tothem, my benevolent, my noble friend! If, indeed, I have a brother, asister,--give me the heaven of their protection!--'

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

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

  Juliet, faintly articulating, 'Oh, let us be gone!' moved, with castdown eyes, to the carriage of the Baronet; forced, from remainingweakness, to accept the assistance of his groom; Sir Jaspar not havingstrength, nor Harleigh courage, to offer aid.

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

  'Any where! any where!' answered the shaking Juliet, 'so I go but toLady Aurora!'

  Astonished, and thrilled to the soul by these words, Harleigh, who,unconsciously, had advanced, involuntarily repeated, 'Lady Aurora?--LadyAurora Granville?'--

  Unable to answer, or to look at him, the trembling Juliet, eagerlylaying both her hands upon the arm of the Baronet, as, cautiously, hewas 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 acceptedthe offer of Harleigh, to aid his arrangements; when the furiousprisoner, 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 thatwere just withdrawn from the Baronet, upon the shoulder of Harleigh, whowas himself fastening the chaise-door, tremulously, and in a tonescarcely audible, pronouncing, 'Oh! hurry us away, Mr Harleigh!--inmercy!--in compassion!'

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

  With a low and sad inclination of the head, Juliet, in a faulteringvoice, thanked him; involuntarily adding, 'My prayers, Mr Harleigh,--myevery wish for happiness,--will for ever be yours!'

  The chaise drove off; but his groan, rather than sigh, reached heragonized ear; and, in an emotion too violent for concealment, yet towhich she durst allow no vent, she held her almost bursting foreheadwith her hand; breathing only by smothered sighs, and scarcely sensibleto the happiness of an uncertain escape, while bowed down by the sightof the misery that she had inflicted, where all that she owed wasbenevolence, 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 smallestdisorder in the economy of his medicines, anodynes, sweetmeats, andvarious whims; which, from long habits of self-indulgence, he nowconceived to be necessaries, not luxuries.

  But when, after having examined, in de
tail, that his travellingapparatus was in order, he turned smilingly to the fair mede of hisexertions; and saw the deep absorption of all her faculties in her ownevident affliction, he was struck with surprise and disappointment; and,after a short and mortified pause, 'Can it be, fair aenigma!' he cried,'that it is with compunction you abandon this Gallic Goliah?'

  Surprised, through this question, from the keen anguish of speechlesssuffering; 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 oftransport, and so much softness of sensibility for his kindness, thatthe enchanted Sir Jaspar, losing all forbearance, in the interest withwhich he languished to learn, more positively, her history and hersituation, renewed his entreaties for communication, with an urgencythat she now, for many reasons, no longer thought right to resist:anxious herself, since concealment was at an end, to clear away the darkappearances 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 andgenerosity.

  She pondered, nevertheless, and sighed, ere she could comply. It wasstrange to her, she said, and sad, to lift up the veil of secresy to anew, however interesting and respectable acquaintance; while to herbrother, her sister, and her earliest friend, she still appeared to beinveloped in impenetrable concealment. Yet, if to communicate thecircumstances which had brought her into this deplorable situation,could shew her sense of the benevolence of Sir Jaspar, she would setapart her repugnance, and gather courage to retrace the cruel scenes ofwhich he had witnessed the direful result. Her inestimable friend hadalready related the singular history of all that had preceded theirseparation; but, uninformed herself of the dreadful events by which ithad been followed, she could go no further: otherwise, from a nobleopenness of heart, which made all disguise painful, if not disgusting toher, Sir Jaspar would already have been satisfied.

  The Baronet, ashamed, would now have withdrawn his petition; but Julietno longer wished to retract from her engagement.