The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 1 of 5)

'Yet, with all this,' said Ellis, looking at him expressively, 'with all this…' she knew not how to proceed; but he saw her meaning. 'With all this,' he said, 'you are surprised, perhaps, that I should look for other qualities, other virtues in her whom I should aspire to make the companion of my life? I beseech you, however, to believe, that neither insolence nor ingratitude makes me insensible to her worth; but, though it often meets my admiration, sometimes my esteem, and always my good will and regard, it is not of a texture to create that sympathy without which even friendship is cold. I have, indeed … till now…'

He paused.

'Poor, poor, Miss Joddrel!' exclaimed Ellis, 'If you could but have heard, – or if I knew but how to repeat, even the millionenth part of what she thinks of you! – of the respect with which she is ready to yield to your opinions; of the enthusiasm with which she honours your character; of the devotion with which she nearly worships you – '

She stopt short, ashamed; and as fearful that she had been now too urgent, as before that she had been too cold.

Harleigh heard her with considerable emotion. 'I hope,' he said, 'your feelings, like those of most minds gifted with strong sensibility, have taken the pencil, in this portrait, from your cooler judgment? I should be grieved, indeed, to suppose – but what can a man suppose, what say, upon a subject so delicate that may not appear offensive? Suffer me, therefore, to drop it; and have the goodness to let that same sensibility operate in terminating, in such a manner as may be least shocking to her, all view, and all thought, that I ever could, or ever can, entertain the most distant project of supplanting my brother.'

'Will you not, at least, speak to her yourself?'

'I had far rather speak to you! – Yet certainly yes, if she desire it.'

'Give me leave, then, to say,' cried Ellis, moving towards the bedroom door, 'that you request an audience.'

'By no means! I merely do not object to it. You may easily conceive what pain I shall be spared, if it may be evaded. All I request, is a few moments with you! Hastily, therefore, let me ask, is your plan decided?'

'To the best of my power, – of my ideas, rather, – yes. But, indeed, I must not thus abandon my charge!'

'And will you not let me enquire what it is?'

'There is one thing, only, in which I have any hope that my exertions may turn to account; I wish to offer myself as a governess to some young lady, or ladies.'

'I beseech you,' cried he, with sudden fervour, 'to confide to me the nature of your situation! I know well I have no claim; I seem to have even no pretext for such a request; yet there are sometimes circumstances that not only excuse, but imperiously demand extraordinary measures: perhaps mine, at this moment, are of that sort! perhaps I am at a loss what step to take, till I know to whom I address myself!'

'O Sir!' cried Ellis, holding up her hands in act of supplication, 'you will be heard!'

Harleigh, conscious that he had been off all guard, silenced himself immediately, and walked hastily to the window.

Ellis knew not whether to retire, at once, to her own room; or to venture into that of Elinor; or to require any further answer. This last, however, Harleigh seemed in no state to give: he leant his forehead upon his hand, and remained wrapt in thought.

Ellis, struck by a manner which shewed that he felt, and apparently, repented the possible meaning that his last words might convey, was now as much ashamed for herself as for Elinor; and not wishing to meet his eyes, glided softly back to her chamber.

Here, whatever might be the fulness of her mind, she was not allowed an instant for reflection: Elinor followed her immediately.

She shut the door, and walked closely up to her. Elinor feared to behold her; yet saw, by a glance, that her eyes were sparkling, and that her face was dressed in smiles. 'This is a glorious day for me!' she cried; ''tis the pride of my life to have brought such a one into the history of my existence!'

Ellis officiously got her a chair; arranged the fire; examined if the windows were well closed; and sought any occupation, to postpone the moment of speaking to, or looking at her.

She was not offended; she did not appear to be hurried; she seemed enchanted with her own ideas; yet she had a strangeness in her manner that Ellis thought extremely alarming.

'Well,' she cried, when she had taken her seat, and saw that Ellis could find no further pretext for employing herself in the little apartment; 'what garb do you bring me? How am I to be arrayed?'

Ellis begged to know what she meant.

'Is it a wedding-garment?' replied she, gaily; 'or …' abruptly changing her tone into a deep hoarse whisper, 'a shroud?'

Ellis, shuddering, durst not answer. Elinor, catching her hand said, 'Don't be frightened! I am at this moment equal to whatever may be my destiny: I am at a point of elevation, that makes my fate nearly indifferent to me. Speak, therefore! but only to the fact. I have neither time nor humour for narratory delays. I tried to hear you; but you both talked so whisperingly, that I could not make out a sentence.'

'Indeed, Miss Joddrel,' said Ellis, trembling violently, 'Mr Harleigh's regard – his affection – '

'Not a word of that trite class!' cried Elinor, with sudden severity, 'if you would not again work all my passions into inflammation involve me no more in doubt! Fear nothing else. I am no where else vulnerable. Set aside, then, all childish calculations, of giving me an inch or two more, or an inch or two less of pain, – and be brief and true!'

Ellis could not utter a word: every phrase she could suggest seemed to teem with danger; yet she felt that her silence could not but indicate the truth which it sought to hide; she hung her head, and sighed in disturbed perplexity. Elinor looked at her for some time with an examining eye, and then, hastily rising, emphatically exclaimed, 'You are mute? – I see, then, my doom! And I shall meet it with glory!'

Smiles triumphant, but wild, now played about her face. 'Ellis,' she cried, 'go to your work, or whatever you were about, and take no manner of heed of me. I have something of importance to arrange, and can brook no interruption.'

Ellis acquiesced, returning to the employment of her needle, for which Mrs Fenn took especial care that she should never lack materials.

Elinor spoke to her no more; but her ruminations, though undisturbed by her companion, were by no means quiet, or silent. She paced hastily up and down the room; sat, in turn, upon a chair, a window seat, and the bed; talked to herself, sometimes with a vehemence that made several detached words, though no sentences, intelligible; sometimes in softer accents, and with eyes and gestures of exultation; and, frequently, she went into a corner by the side of the window, where she looked, in secret, at something in a shagreen case that she held in her hand, and had brought out of her chamber; and to which she occasionally addressed herself, with a fervency that shook her whole frame, and with expressions which, though broken, and half pronounced, denoted that she considered it as something sacred.

At length, with an air of transport, she exclaimed, 'Yes! that will produce the best effect! what an idiot have I been to hesitate!' then, turning with quickness to Ellis: 'Ellis,' she cried, 'I have withheld from any questions relative to yourself, because I abominate all subterfuge; but you will not suppose I am contented with my ignorance? You will not imagine it a matter of indifference to me, to know how I have failed?'

She reddened; passion took possession of every feature, and for a moment nearly choaked her voice: she again walked, with rapid motion, about the room, and then ejaculated, 'Let me be patient! let me not take away all grandeur from my despair, and reduce it to mere common madness! – Let me wait the fated moment, and then – let the truth burst, blaze, and flame, till it devour me!

'Ellis,' she presently added, 'find Harleigh; tell him I wish him a good journey from the summer-house in the garden. Not a soul ever enters it at this time of the year. Bid him go thither directly. I shall soon join him. I will wait in my room till you call me. Be quick!'

Ellis required not to have this order repeated: to place her under the care of Harleigh, and intimate to him the excess of her love, with the apprehensions which she now herself conceived of the dangerous state of her mind, was all that could be wished; and where so essential a service might be rendered, or a mischief be prevented, personal punctilio was out of the question.

He was not in the hall; but, from one of the windows, she perceived him walking near the house. A painful sensation, upon being obliged again, to force herself upon his notice, disturbed, though she would not suffer it to check her. He was speaking with his groom. She stopt at the hall-door, with a view to catch his eye, and succeeded; but he bowed without approaching her, and continued to discourse with his groom.

To seem bent upon pursuing him, when he appeared himself to think that he had gone too far, and even to mean to shun her, dyed her cheeks of the deepest vermilion; though she compelled herself, from a terrour of the danger of delay, to run across the gravel-walk before the house, to address him. He saw her advance, with extreme surprise, but by no means with the same air of pleasure, that he had manifested in the morning. His look was embarrassed, and he seemed unwilling to meet her eyes. Yet he awaited her with a respect that made his groom, unbidden, retire to some distance; though to await her at all, when he might have met her, struck her, even in this hurried and terrified moment, as offering the strongest confirmation which she had yet received, that it was not a man of pleasure or of gallantry, but of feeling and of truth, into whose way she was thus singularly and frequently cast: and the impression which she had made upon his mind, had never, to her hitherto nearly absorbed faculties, appeared to be so serious or so sincere, as now, when he first evidently struggled to disguise a partiality, which he seemed persuaded that he had, now, first betrayed. The sensations which this discovery might produce in herself were unexamined: the misery with which it teemed for Elinor, and a desire to relieve his own delicacy, by appearing unconscious of his secret, predominated: and she assumed sufficient self-command, to deliver the message of Elinor, with a look, and in a voice, that seemed insensible and unobservant of every other subject.

He soon, now, recovered his usual tone, and disengaged manner. 'She must certainly,' he said, 'be obeyed; though I so little expected such a summons, that I was giving directions for my departure.'

'Ah, no!' cried Ellis, 'rather again defer it.'

'You would have me again defer it?' he repeated, with a vivacity he tried still more, though vainly, to subdue than to disguise.

The word again did not make the cheeks of Ellis paler; but she answered, with eagerness, 'Yes, for the same purpose and same person! – I am forced to speak explicitly – and abruptly. Indeed, Sir, you know not, you conceive not, the dreadfully alarming state of her nerves, nor the violence of her attachment. – You could scarcely else – ' she stopt, for he changed colour and looked hurt: she saw he comprehended that she meant to add, you could scarcely else resist her: she finished, therefore, her phrase, by 'scarcely else plan leaving her, till you saw her more composed, and more reconciled to herself, and to the world.'

'You may imagine,' said he, pensively, 'it is any thing rather than my inclination that carries me hence … but I greatly fear 'tis the only prudent measure I can pursue.'

'You can best judge by seeing her,' said Ellis: 'her situation is truly deplorable. Her faculties are all disordered; her very intellects, I fear, are shaken; and there is no misfortune, no horrour, which her desperation, if not softened, does not menace.'

Harleigh now seemed awakened to sudden alarm, and deep concern; and Ellis painfully, with encreasing embarrassment, from encreasing consciousness, added, 'You will do, I am sure, what is possible to snatch her from despair!' and then returned to the house: satisfied that her meaning was perfectly comprehended, by the excess of consternation into which it obviously cast Harleigh.

CHAPTER XVIII

Comforted, at least, for Elinor, whose situation in being known, seemed to lose its greatest danger, Ellis, with less oppression upon her spirits, returned to the dressing-room.

Elinor was writing, and too intently occupied to heed the opening of the door. The motion of her hand was so rapid, that her pen seemed rather to skim over, than to touch her paper. Ellis gently approached her; but, finding that she did not raise her head, ventured not even to announce that her orders had been executed.

At length, her paper being filled, she looked up, and said, 'Well! is he there?'

'I have delivered to him, Madam, your commands.'

'Then,' cried she, rising with an exulting air, 'the moment of my triumph is come! Yes, Harleigh! if meanly I have offered you my person, nobly, at least, I will consecrate to you my soul!'

Hastily rolling up what she had been writing, and putting it into a desk, 'Ellis!' she added, 'Mark me well! should any accident betide me, here will be found the last and unalterable codicil to my will. It is signed, but not witnessed: it is not, however, of a nature to be disputed; it is to desire only that Harleigh will take care that my bones shall be buried in the same charnel-house, in which he orders the interment of his own. All that remains, finally, of either of us, there, at least, may meet!'

Ellis turned cold with horrour. Her first idea was to send for Mrs Maple; yet that lady was so completely without influence, that any interference on her part, might rather stimulate than impede what it was meant to oppose. It seemed, therefore, safest to trust wholly to Harleigh.

The eyes of Elinor were wild and fierce, her complexion was livid, her countenance was become haggard; and, while she talked of triumph, and fancied it was what she felt, every feature exhibited the most tortured marks of impetuous sorrow, and ungoverned disappointment.

She took from her bureau the shagreen case which she had so fondly caressed, and which Ellis concluded to contain some portrait, or cherished keep-sake of Harleigh; and hurried down stairs. Ellis fearfully followed her. No one happened to be in the way, and she was already in the garden, when, turning suddenly round, and perceiving Ellis, 'Oh ho!' she cried, 'you come unbidden? you are right; I shall want you.'

She then precipitately entered the summer-house, in which Harleigh was awaiting her in the keenest anxiety.

His disturbance was augmented upon observing her extreme paleness, though she tried to meet him with a smile. She shut and bolted the door, and seated herself before she spoke.

Assuming then a mien of austerity, though her voice betrayed internal tremour, 'Harleigh!' she cried, 'be not alarmed. I have received your answer! – fear not that I shall ever expect – or would, now, even listen to another! 'Tis to vindicate, not to lower my character that I am here. I have given you, I am aware, a great surprise by what you conceive to be my weakness; prepare yourself for a yet greater, from an opposite cause. I come to explain to you the principles by which I am actuated, clearly and roundly; without false modesty, insipid affectation, or artful ambiguity. You will then know from what plan of reasoning I adopt my measures; which as yet, believing to be urged only by my feelings, you attribute, perhaps, – like that poor scared Ellis, to insanity.'

Ellis forced a smile, and, seating herself at some distance, tried to wear the appearance of losing her apprehensions; while Harleigh, drawing a chair near Elinor, assured her that his whole mind was engaged in attention to what she might disclose.

Her voice now became more steady, and she proceeded.

'You think me, I know, tarnished by those very revolutionary ideas through which, in my own estimation, I am ennobled. I owe to them that I dare hold myself intellectually, as well as personally, an equal member of the community; not a poor, degraded, however necessary appendent to it: I owe to them my enfranchisement from the mental slavery of subscribing to unexamined opinions, and being governed by prejudices that I despise: I owe to them the precious privilege, so shamefully new to mankind, of daring to think for myself. But for them – should I not, at this moment, be pining away my lingering existence, in silent consumption? They have rescued me from that slow poison!'

'In what manner,' said Harleigh, 'can I presume – '

She interrupted him. 'Imagine not I am come to reproach you! or, still less, to soften you!' She stopt, confused, rose, and again seated herself, before she could go on. 'No! littleness of that description belongs not to such energies as those which you have awakened! I come but, I repeat, to defend myself, from any injurious suspicion, of having lightly given way to a mere impulse of passion. I come to bring you conviction that reason has guided my conduct; and I come to solicit a boon from you, – a last boon, before we separate for ever!'

'I am charmed if you have anything to ask of me,' said Harleigh, 'that my zeal, my friendship, my attachment, may find some vent; but why speak of so solemn a separation?'

'You will grant, then, what I mean to request?'

'What can it be I could refuse?'

'Enough! You will soon know. Now to my justification. Hear me, Harleigh!'

She arose, and, clasping her hands, with strong, yet tender, emotion, exclaimed. 'That I should love you – ' She stopt. Shame crimsoned her skin. She covered her face with both her hands, and sunk again upon her chair.

Harleigh was strongly and painfully affected. 'O Elinor!' he cried, and was going to take her hand; but the fear of misinterpretation made him draw back; and Elinor, almost instantly recovering, raised her head, and said, 'How tenacious a tyrant is custom! how it clings to our practice! how it embarrasses our conduct! how it awes our very nature itself, and bewilders and confounds even our free will! We are slaves to its laws and its follies, till we forget its usurpation. Who should have told me, only five minutes ago, that, at an instant such as this; an instant of liberation from all shackles, of defiance to all forms; its antique prescriptions should still retain their power to confuse and torment me? Who should have told me, that, at an instant such as this, I should blush to pronounce the attachment in which I ought to glory? and hardly know how to articulate… That I should love you, Harleigh, can surprise no one but yourself!'

Her cheeks were now in flames; and those of Harleigh were tinted with nearly as high a colour. Ellis fixed her eyes stedfastly upon the floor.

Shocked, in despite of her sunk expectations, that words such as these could be heard by Harleigh in silence, she resumed again the haughty air with which she had begun the conference.

'I ought not to detain you so long, for a defence so unimportant. What, to you, can it matter, that my valueless preference should be acknowledged from the spur of passion, or the dictates of reason? – And yet, to the receiver, as well as to the offerer, a sacrifice brings honour or disgrace, according to its motives. Listen, therefore, for both our sakes, to mine: though they may lead you to a subject which you have long since, in common with every man that breathes, wished exploded, the Rights of woman: Rights, however, which all your sex, with all its arbitrary assumption of superiority, can never disprove, for they are the Rights of human nature; to which the two sexes equally and unalienably belong. But I must leave to abler casuists, and the slow, all-arranging ascendence of truth, to raise our oppressed half of the human species, to the equality and dignity for which equal Nature, that gives us Birth and Death alike, designs us. I must spend my remaining moments in egotism; for all that I have time to attempt is my personal vindication. Harleigh! from the first instant that I saw you – heard you – knew you – '

She breathed hard, and spoke with difficulty; but forced herself on.

'From that first instant, Harleigh! I have lived but to cherish your idea!'

Her features now regained their highest expression of vivacity; and, rising, and looking at him with a sort of wild rapture, 'Oh Harleigh!' she continued, 'have I attained, at last, this exquisite moment? What does it not pay of excruciating suspense, of hateful, laborious forebearance and unnatural self-denial? Harleigh! dearest Harleigh! you are master of my soul! you are sovereign of my esteem, my admiration, my every feeling of tenderness, and every idea of perfection! – Accept, then, the warm homage of a glowing heart, that beats but for you; and that, beating in vain, will beat no more!'

The crimson hue now mounted to her forehead, and reddened her neck: her eyes became lustrous; and she was preparing, with an air of extacy, to open the shagreen case, which she had held folded to her bosom, when Harleigh, seizing her hand, dropt on one knee, and, hardly conscious of what he did, or what he felt, from the terrible impression made by a speech so full of love, despair, and menace, exclaimed, 'Elinor! you crown me, then, with honours, but to kill me with torture?'

With a look of softness new to her features, new to her character, and emanating from sensations of delight new to her hopes, Elinor sunk gently upon her chair, yet left him full possession of her hand; and, for some instants, seemed silent from a luxury of inward enjoyment. 'Is it Harleigh,' she then cried, 'Albert Harleigh, I see at my feet? Ah! what is the period, since I have known him, in which I would not joyfully have resigned all the rest of my life, for a sight, a moment such as this! Dear, dear, delicious poison! thrill, thrill through my veins! throb at my heart! new string every fibre of my frame! Is it, then, granted me, at last, to see thee thus? and thus dare speak to thee? to give sound to my feelings; to allow utterance of my love? to dare suffer my own breath to emit the purest flame that ever warmed a virgin heart? – Ah! Harleigh! proud Harleigh! – '

Harleigh, embarrassed had risen, though without quitting her hand, and re-seated himself.

'Proud, proud Harleigh!' she continued, angrily snatching away her hand; 'you think even this little moment of sympathy, too long for love and Elinor! you fear, perhaps, that she should expect its duration, or repetition? Know me, Harleigh, better! I come not to sue for your compassion, – I would not accept it! – Elinor may fail to excite your regard, but she will never make you blush that you have excited hers. My choice itself speaks the purity of my passion, for are not Harleigh and Honour one?'

She paused to recover some composure, and then went on.

'You have attached neither a weak, giddy, unguarded fool, nor an idly wilful or romantic voluptuary. My defence is grated upon your character as much as upon my own. I could divide it into many branches; but I will content myself with only striking at its root, namely, the Right of woman, if endowed with senses, to make use of them. O Harleigh! why have I seen you wiser and better than all your race; sounder in your judgment, more elegant in your manners, more spirited in your conduct; – lively though benevolent, – gentle, though brilliant, – Oh Albert! Albert! if I must listen to you with the same dull ears, look at you with the same unmarking eyes, and think of you with the same unmeaning coldness, with which I hear, see, and consider the time-wearing, spirit-consuming, soul-wasting tribe, that daily press upon my sight, and offend my understanding? Can you ask, can you expect, can you wish to doom half your species to so degraded a state? to look down upon the wife, who is meant for the companion of your existence; and upon the mother, of whose nature you must so largely partake; as upon mere sleepy, slavish, uninteresting automatons? Say! speak! answer, Harleigh! can such be your lordly, yet most unmanly desire?'

'And is it seriously that Elinor would have me reply to such a question?'

'No, Harleigh! your noble, liberal nature answers it in every word, in every look! You accord, then, – you conceive, at least, all that constitutes my defence, in allowing me the use of my faculties; for how better can I employ them than in doing honour to excellence? Why, for so many centuries, has man, alone, been supposed to possess, not only force and power for action and defence, but even all the rights of taste; all the fine sensibilities which impel our happiest sympathies, in the choice of our life's partners? Why, not alone, is woman to be excluded from the exertions of courage, the field of glory, the immortal death of honour, – not alone to be denied deliberating upon the safety of the state of which she is a member, and the utility of the laws by which she must be governed: – must even her heart be circumscribed by boundaries as narrow as her sphere of action in life? Must she be taught to subdue all its native emotions? To hide them as sin, and to deny them as shame? Must her affections be bestowed but as the recompence of flattery received; not of merit discriminated? Must every thing that she does be prescribed by rule? Must everything that she says, be limited to what has been said before? Must nothing that is spontaneous, generous, intuitive, spring from her soul to her lips? – And do you, even you, Harleigh, despise unbidden love!'