Starting up, but preventing Ellis from rising, by laying a hand upon each of her shoulders, she gazed upon her eyes with a fixed stare, of almost frantic impatience, and said, 'Speak! say Yes, or No, at once!

Give me no phrase--Let me see no hesitation!--Kill me, or restore me to life!--Has Harleigh--' she gasped for breath--'ever made you any declaration?'

'None!' steadily, forcibly, and instantly Ellis answered.

'Enough!' cried she, recovering some composure.

She then walked up and down the room, involuntarily smiling, and her lips in a motion, that shewed that she was talking to herself. Then stopping, and taking Ellis by the hand, and half laughing, 'You will think me,' she cried, 'crazy; but I a.s.sure you I had never a more exquisite enjoyment of my senses. I see every thing to urge, and nothing to oppose my following the bent of my own humour; or, in other words, throwing off the trammels of unmeaning custom, and acting, as well as thinking, for myself.'

Again, then, walking up and down the chamber, she pursued her new train of ideas, with a glee which manifested that she found them delightful.

'My dear Ellis,' she cried, presently, 'have you ever chanced to hear of such a person as Dennis Harleigh?'

Ellis wished to avoid answering this question, on account of her informant, Selina; but her embarra.s.sment was answer sufficient. 'I see yes!' cried Elinor, 'I see that you have heard of that old story. Don't be frightened,' added she, laughing, 'I am not going to ask who blabbed it. I had as lieve it were one impertinent fool as another. Only never imagine me of the tribe of sentimental pedants, who think it a disgrace to grow wiser; or who suppose that they must abide by their first opinions, for fear the world should know that they think twice upon one subject. For what is changing one's mind, but taking the _pro_ one time, and the _con_ another?'

'But come,' continued she, 'this is no time for rattling. Two years I have existed upon speculation; I must now try how I shall fare upon practice. Is it not just, Ellis, that it should be you who should drag me out of the slough of despond, since it was you who flung me into it?--However, now for your commission. Do you feel as if you could execute it with spirit?'

'With willingness, certainly, if I see any chance of success.'

'No ifs, Ellis. I hate the whole tribe of dubiosity. However, that you may not make any blunder, I shall tell you my story myself; for all that you have heard from others, you must set down to ignorance or prejudice.

n.o.body knows my feelings, and n.o.body understands my reasons. So everybody is at war against me in the dark.

'Now hearken!

'Just as I came of age, and ought to have shaken off the shackles of Aunt Maple, and to have enjoyed my independence and my fortune together, accident brought into my way a young lawyer--this Dennis Harleigh--of great promise in the only profession in the world that gives wit fair play. And I thought him, then,--mark me, Ellis, then!--of a n.o.ble appearance. He delighted to tell me his causes, state their merits, and ask my opinions. I always took the opposite side to that which he was employed to plead, in order to try his powers, and prove my own. The French Revolution had just then burst forth, into that n.o.ble flame that nearly consumed the old world, to raise a new one, phoenix like, from its ashes. Soon tired of our every day subjects and contests, I began canva.s.sing with him the Rights of Man. He had fallen desperately in love with me, either for my wit or my fortune, or both; and therefore all topics were sure to be approved. Enchanted with a warfare in which I was certain to be always victorious, I grew so fond of conquest, that I was never satisfied but when combating; and the joy I experienced in the display of my own talents, made me doat upon his sight. The truth is, our mutual vanity mutually deceived us: he saw my pleasure in his company, and concluded that it was personal regard: I found nothing to rouse the energies of my faculties in his absence, and imagined myself enamoured of my vanquished antagonist. Aunt Maple did her little best--for every thing she does is little--to forward the connexion; because, though his fortune is trifling, his professional expectations are high; and though he is a younger brother, he is born of a n.o.ble family: and that sort of mean old stuff is always in her head; for if the whole world were revolutionized, you could never make her conceive a new idea. And the great fact of all is, she cannot bear I should leave her house before I marry, because, she is sure, in one of my own, I shall adopt some new system of life. Thus, in the toils of my self-love, I became entangled; poor Dennis called himself the happiest of men; the settlements were all drawn up; and we were looking about us for a house to our fancy, and all that sort of stuff, when Dennis introduced his family to us.--Now the rest, I suppose, you can divine?'

This was, indeed, not difficult; but Ellis durst not risk any reply.

With a rapidity scarcely intelligible, and in a manner wholly incoherent, she then went on: 'Ellis, I pretend not to any mystery. Why is one person adorable, and another detestable, but to call forth our love and our hatred? to give birth to all that s.n.a.t.c.hes us from mere inert existence; to our pa.s.sions, our energies, our n.o.blest conceptions of all that is towering and sublime? Whether you have any idea of this mental enlargement I cannot tell; but with it I see human nature endowed with capabilities immeasurable of perfection; and without it, I regard and treat the whole of my race as the mere dramatis personae of a farce; of which I am myself, when performing with such fellow-actors, a princ.i.p.al buffoon.'

Nearly out of breath, she stopt a moment; then, looking earnestly at Ellis, said, 'Do you understand me?'

Ellis, in a fearful accent, answered, 'I ... I am not quite sure.'

'Remove your doubts, then!' cried she, impatiently; 'I despise what is obscure, still more than I hate what is false. Falsehood may at least approach to that degree of grandeur which belongs to crime; but obscurity is always mean, always seeking some subterfuge, always belonging to art.'

Again she stopt; but Ellis, uncertain whether this remark were meant to introduce her confidence, or to censure her own secresy, waited an explanation in silence. Elinor was evidently, however, embarra.s.sed, though anxious to persuade herself, as well as Ellis, that she was perfectly at her ease. She walked a quick pace up and down the room; then stopt, seemed pausing, hemmed to clear her voice for speech; and then walked backwards and forwards before the window, which she frequently opened and shut, without seeming to know that she touched it; till, at length, seized with sudden indignation against herself, for this failure of courage, she energetically exclaimed, 'How paltry is shame where there can be no disgrace!--I disdain it!--disclaim it!--and am ready to avow to the whole world, that I dare speak and act, as well as think and feel for myself!'

Yet, even thus buoyed up, thus full fraught with defiance, something within involuntarily, invincibly checked her, and she hastily resumed her walks and her ruminations.

'What amazing, unaccountable fools,' she cried, 'have we all been for these quant.i.ties of centuries! Worlds seem to have a longer infancy taken out of the progress of their duration, even than the long imbecility of the childhood of poor mortals. But for the late glorious revolutionary shake given to the universe, I should, at this very moment, from mere cowardly conformity, be the wife of Dennis!--In spite of my repentance of the engagement, in spite of the aversion I have taken to him, and in spite of the contempt I have conceived--with one single exception--for the whole race of mankind, I must have been that poor man's despicable wife!--O despicable indeed! For with what sentiments could I have married him? Where would have been my soul while I had given him my hand? Had I not seen--known--adored--his brother!'

She stopt, and the deepest vermillion overspread her face; her effort was made; she had boasted of her new doctrine, lest she should seem impressed with confusion from the old one which she violated; but the struggle being over, the bravado and exultation subsided; female consciousness and native shame took their place; and abashed, and unable to meet the eyes of Ellis, she ran out of the room.

In the whole of this scene, Ellis observed, with mingled censure and pity, the strong conflict in the mind of Elinor, between ungoverned inclination, which sought new systems for its support; and an innate feeling of what was due to the s.e.x that she was braving, and the customs that she was scorning.

She soon re-appeared, but with a wholly new air; lively, disengaged, almost sportive. Her heart was lightened by unburthening her secret; the feminine delicacies which opposed the discovery, once broken through, oppressed her no more; and the idea of pa.s.sing, now, straight forward, to the purposes for which she had done herself this violence, re-animated her spirit, and gave new vigour to her faculties.

She laughed at herself for having run away, without explaining the meaning of her communication; and for charging Ellis with a commission, of which she had not made known even the nature. She then more clearly stated her situation.

From the time of her first interview with Albert, her whole mind had recoiled from all thought of union with his brother; yet the affair was so far advanced, and she saw herself so completely regarded by Albert as a sister, though treated by him with an openness, a frankness, and an affection the most captivating, that she had not courage to proclaim her change of sentiment.

The conflict of her mind, during this doubting state, threatened to cast her into a consumption. She was ordered to the south of France. And there, happily arrived, new scenes,--a new world, rather, opened to her a code of new ideas, that soon, she said, taught her to scoff at idle misery: and might even, from the occupation given to her feelings, by the glorious confusion, and mad wonders around her, have recovered her from the thraldom of an over-ruling propensity, had not Dennis, unable, from professional engagements, to quit his country, been so blind, upon hearing that her health was re-established, as to persuade his brother to cross the Channel, in order to escort the two travellers home. From the moment, the fated moment, that Albert arrived to be her guide and her guard, he became so irresistibly the master of her heart, that her destiny was determined. Whether good or ill, she knew not yet; but it was fixed. Ill had not occurred to her sanguine expectations, nor doubt, nor fear, till the eventful meeting with Ellis: till then, she had believed her happiness secure, for she had supposed that nothing stood in her way, save a little brotherly punctilio. But, since the junction of Ellis, the spontaneous interest which Albert had taken in her fate, and her affairs, had appeared to be so marvellous, that, at every new view of his pity, his respect, or his admiration, she was seized with the most uneasy feelings; which sometimes worked her up into pangs of excruciating jealousy; and, at others, seemed to be so ill founded, that, recollecting a thousand instances of his general benevolence, she laughed her own surmises to scorn. How the matter still stood, with regard to his heart, she confessed herself unable to form any permanent judgment. The time, however, was now, happily, arrived, to abolish suspense, for even Dennis, now, could bear it no longer. She expected, she said, a desperate scene, but, at least, it would be a final one. She had only, for many months past, been restrained from giving Dennis his dismission, lest Albert should drop all separate acquaintance, from the horrour of seeming treacherously to usurp the place of his brother.

Nevertheless, she would frankly have ended her disturbance, by an avowal of the truth, had not Albert been the eldest brother, and, consequently, the richest; and the disgraceful supposition, that she might be influenced to desire the change from mercenary motives, would have had power to yoke her to Dennis, for the rest of her weary existence, had not her mind been so luminously opened to its own resources, and inherent right of choice, by her continental excursion.

'The grand effect,' she continued, 'of beholding so many millions of men, let loose from all ties, divine or human, gave such play to my fancy, such a range to my thoughts, and brought forth such new, unexpected, and untried combinations to my reason, that I frequency felt as if just created, and ushered into the world--not, perhaps, as wise as another Minerva, but equally formed to view and to judge all around me, without the gradations of infancy, childhood, and youth, that hitherto have prepared for maturity. Every thing now is upon a new scale, and man appears to be worthy of his faculties; which, during all these past ages, he has set aside, as if he could do just as well without them; holding it to be his bounden duty, to be trampled to the dust, by old rules and forms, because all his papas and uncles were trampled so before him. However, I should not have troubled myself, probably, with any of these abstruse notions, had they not offered me a new road for life, when the old one was worn out. To find that all was novelty and regeneration throughout the finest country in the universe, soon infected me with the system-forming spirit; and it was then that I conceived the plan I am now going to execute; but I shall not tell it you in its full extent, as I am uncertain what may be your strength of mind for measures of force and character; and perhaps they may not be necessary. So now to your commission.

'I am fixed to cast wholly aside the dainty common barriers, which shut out from female practice all that is elevated, or even natural. Dennis, therefore, shall know that I hate him; Albert ... Ah, Ellis! that I hate him not!'

'My operations are to commence thus: Act I. Scene I. Enter Ellis, seeking Albert. Don't stare so; I know perfectly well what I am about.

Scene II. Albert and Ellis meet. Ellis informs him that she must hold a confabulation with him the next day; and desires that he will remain at Lewes to be at hand.--'

'Oh, Miss Joddrel!' interrupted Ellis, 'you must, at least, give me leave to say, that it is by your command that I make a request so extraordinary!'

'By no means. He must not suspect that I have any knowledge of your intention. The truth, like an explosion of thunder, shall burst upon his head at once. So only shall I truly know whether it will shake him with dismay--or magnetize him by its sublimity.'

'Yet how, Madam, under what pretence, can I take such a liberty?'

'Pho, pho; this is no time for delicate demurs. If he be not engaged to stay before I turn his brother adrift, he will accompany him to town, as a thing of course, to console him in his willowed state. The rest of my plot is not yet quite ripe for disclosure. But all is arranged. And though I know not whether the catastrophe will be tragic or comic, I am prepared in my part for either.'

She then went away.

CHAPTER XVII

Elinor returned almost instantly. 'Hasten, hasten,' she cried, 'Ellis!

There is no time to be lost. Scene the first is all prepared. Albert Harleigh, at this very moment, is poring over the county map in the hall. Run and tell him that you have something of deep importance to communicate to him to-morrow.'

'But may he not--if he means to go--desire to hear it immediately?'

Elinor, without answering, forced her away. Harleigh, whose back was to the stair-entrance, seemed intently examining some route. The distress of Ellis was extreme how to call for his notice, and how to execute her commission when it should be obtained. Slowly and unwillingly approaching a little nearer, 'I am afraid,' she hesitatingly said, 'that I must appear extremely importunate, but--'

The astonishment with which he turned round, at the sound of her voice, could only be equalled by the pleasure with which he met her eyes; and only surpa.s.sed, by the sudden burst of clashing ideas with which he saw her own instantly drop; while her voice, also, died away; her cheeks became the colour of crimson; and she was evidently and wholly at a loss what to say.

'Importunate?' he gently repeated, 'impossible!' yet he waited her own explanation.

Her confusion now became deeper; any sort of interrogation would have encouraged and aided her; but his quiet, though attentive forbearance seemed the result of some suspension of opinion. Ashamed and grieved, she involuntarily looked away, as she indistinctly p.r.o.nounced, 'I must appear ... very strange ... but I am constrained.... Circ.u.mstances of which I am not the mistress, force me to ... desire--to request--that to-morrow morning--or any part of to-morrow ... it might be possible that I could ... or rather that you should be able to ... to hear something that ... that....'

The total silence with which he listened, shewed so palpably his expectation of some competent reason for so singular an address, that her inability to clear herself, and her chagrin in the idea of forfeiting any part of an esteem which had proved so often her protection, grew almost insupportably painful, and she left her phrase unfinished; yet considered her commission to be fulfilled, and was moving away.

'To-morrow,' he said, 'I meant to have accompanied my brother, whose affairs--whatever may be his fate--oblige him to return to town: but if ... if to-morrow--'

He had now, to impede her retreat, stept softly between her and the staircase, and perceived, in her blushes, the force which she had put upon her modesty; and read, in the expression of her glistening eyes, that an innate sense of delicacy was still more wounded, by the demand which she had made, even than her habits of life. With respect, therefore, redoubled, and an interest beyond all calculation increased, he went on; 'If to-morrow ... or next day--or any part of the week, you have any commands for me, nothing shall hurry me hence till they are obeyed.'

Comforted to find herself treated with unabated consideration, however shocked to have the air of detaining him purposely for her own concerns, she was courtsying her thanks, when she caught a glance of Elinor on the stairs, in whose face, every pa.s.sion seemed with violence at work.