The shop-man made an attempt to enter into conversation with Juliet; but she gravely requested that he would be so good as to order a smith to open the lock of her door.

He ought not, he said, to leave the house in the absence of Miss Matson; but he would run the risk for the pleasure of obliging her, if she would only step down into the shop, to answer to the bell or the knocker.

To this, in preference to being shut out of her room, she would immediately have consented, but that she feared the arrival of Sir Lyell Sycamore. She asked the shop-man, therefore, if there were any objection to her waiting in the little parlour.

None in the world, he answered; for he had Miss Matson's leave to use it when she was out of a Sunday; and he should be very glad if Miss Ellis would oblige him with her company.

Juliet declined this proposal with an air that repressed any further attempt at intimacy; and the shop-man returned to his post.

'I must not, I suppose,' the Baronet, then advancing, said, 'presume to offer you shelter under my roof from the inclemencies of the staircase?

And yet I think I may venture, without being indecorous, to mention, that I am going out for my usual airing; and that you may take possession of your old apartment, upon your own misanthropical terms. At all events, I shall leave you the door open, place some books upon the table, take out my servants, and order that no one shall molest you.'

Extremely pleased by a kindness so much to her taste, Juliet would gratefully have accepted this offer, but for the visit that she knew to be designed for the same apartment; which the absence of its master was not likely to prevent, as the pretence of writing a note, or his name, would suffice with Sir Lyell for mounting the stairs. Who then could protect Flora? Could Juliet herself come forward, when no one else remained in the house, conscious, as she could not but be, of the dishonourable views of which she, also, had been the object? The departure of Sir Jaspar appeared, therefore, to be big with mischief; and, when he was making a leave-taking bow, she almost involuntarily said, 'You are forced, then, Sir, to go out this morning?'

Surprized and pleased, he answered, 'What! have my little fairy elves given you a lesson of humanity? Nay, if so, though they should pommel and maul me for a month to come, I shall yet be their obedient humble servant.'

He then gave orders aloud that his carriage should be put up; saying, that he had letters to write, and that his servants might go and amuse themselves for an hour or two where they pleased.

Juliet, now, was crimsoned with shame and embarra.s.sment. How account for thus palpably wishing him to remain in the house? or how suffer him, by silence, to suppose it was from a desire of his society? Her blushes astonished, yet, by heightening her beauty, charmed still more than they perplexed him. To settle what to think of her might be difficult and teazing; but to admire her was easy and pleasant. He approached her, therefore, with the most flattering looks and smiles; but, to avoid any mistake in his manner of addressing her, he kept his speech back, with his judgment, till he could learn her purpose.

This prudential circ.u.mspection redoubled her confusion, and she hesitatingly stammered her concern that she had prevented his airing.

More amazed still, but still more enchanted, to see her thus at a loss what to say, though evidently pleased that he had relinquished his little excursion, he was making a motion to take her hand, which she had scarcely perceived, when a violent ringing at the door-bell, checked him; and concentrated all her solicitude in the impending danger of Flora; and, in her eagerness to rescue the simple girl from ruin, she hastily said: 'Can you, Sir Jaspar, forgive a liberty in the cause of humanity? May I appeal to your generosity? You will receive a visitor in a few minutes, whom I have earnest reasons for wishing you to detain in your apartment to the last moment that is possible. May I make so extraordinary a request?'

'Request?' repeated Sir Jaspar, charmed by what he considered as an opening to intimacy; 'can you utter any thing but commands? The most benignant sprite of all Fairyland, has inspired you with this gracious disposition to dub me your knight.'

Yet his eyes, still bright with intelligence, and now full of fanciful wonder, suddenly emitted an expression less rapturous, when he distinguished the voice of Sir Lyell Sycamore, in parley with the shop-man. Disappointment and chagrin soon took place of sportive playfulness in his countenance; and, muttering between his teeth, 'O ho!

Sir Lyell Sycamore!'--he fixed his keen eyes sharply upon Juliet; with a look in which she could not but read the ill construction to which her seeming knowledge of that young man's motions, and her apparent interest in them, made her liable; and how much his light opinion of Sir Lyell's character, affected his partial, though still fluctuating one of her own.

Sir Lyell, however, was upon the stairs, and she did not dare enter into any justification; Sir Jaspar, too, was silent; but the young baronet mounted, singing, in a loud voice,

O my love, lov'st thou me?

Then quickly come and see one who dies for thee!

'Yes here I come, Sir Lyell!'--in a low, husky, laughing voice, cried Flora, peeping through her chamber-door; which was immediately at the head of the stairs, upon the second floor; and to which Sir Lyell looked up, softly whispering, 'Be still, my little angel! and, in ten minutes--' He stopt abruptly, for Sir Jaspar now caught his astonished sight, upon the landing-place of the attic story, with Juliet retreating behind him.

'O ho! you are there, are you?' he cried, in a tone of ludicrous accusation.

'And you, you are there, are you?' answered Sir Jaspar, in a voice more seriously taunting.

Juliet, hurt and confounded, would have escaped through the garret to the back stairs, but that her hat and cloak, without which she could not leave the house, were shut into her room. She tried, therefore, to look unmoved; well aware that the best chance to escape impertinence, is by not appearing to suspect that any is intended.

Three strides now brought Sir Lyell before her. His amazement, vented by rattling exclamations, again perplexed Sir Jaspar; for how could Juliet have been apprized of his intended visit, but by himself?

Sir Lyell, mingling the most florid compliments upon her radiant beauty, and bright bloom, with his pleasure at her sight, said that, from the reports which had reached him, that she had given up her singing, and her teaching, and that Sir Jaspar had taken the room which she had inhabited, he had concluded that she had quitted Brighthelmstone. He was going rapidly on in the same strain, the observant Sir Jaspar intently watching her looks, while curiously listening to his every word; when Juliet, without seeming to have attended to a syllable, related, with grave brevity, that she had unfortunately shut in the key of her room, and must therefore seek Miss Matson, to demand another; and then, with steady steps, that studiously kept in order innumerable timid fears, she descended to the shop; leaving the two Baronets mutually struck by her superiour air and manner; and each, though equally desirous to follow her, involuntarily standing still, to wait the motions of the other; and thence to judge of his pretensions to her favour.

Juliet found the shop empty, but the street-door open, and the shop-man sauntering before it, to look at the pa.s.sers by. Glad to be, for a while, at least, spared the distaste of his company, she shut herself into the little parlour, carefully drawing the curtain of the gla.s.s-door.

The two Baronets, as she expected, soon descended; the younger one eager to take leave of the elder, and privately re-mount the stairs; and Sir Jaspar, fixed to obey the injunctions, however unaccountable, of Juliet, in detaining and keeping sight of him to the last moment.

'Decamped, I swear, the little vixen!' exclaimed Sir Lyell, striding in first; 'but why the d--l do you come down, Sir Jaspar?'

'For exercise, not ceremony,' he answered; though, little wanting further exertion, and heartily tired, he dropt down upon the first chair.

Sir Lyell vainly offered his arm, and pressed to aid him back to his apartment; he would not move.

After some time thus wasted, Sir Lyell, mortified and provoked, cast himself upon the counter, and whistled, to disguise his ill humour.

A pause now ensued, which Sir Jaspar broke, by hesitatingly, yet with earnestness, saying, 'Sir Lyell Sycamore, I am not, you will do me the justice to believe, a sour old fellow, to delight in mischief; a surly old dog, to mar the pleasures of which I cannot partake; if, therefore, to answer what I mean to ask will thwart any of your projects, leave me and my curiosity in the lurch; if not, you will sensibly gratify me, by a little frank communication. I don't meddle with your affair with Flora; 'tis a blooming little wild rose-bud, but of too common a species to be worth a.n.a.lysing. This other young creature, however, whose wings your bird-lime seems also to have entangled--'

'How so?' interrupted Sir Lyell, jumping eagerly from the counter, 'what the d--l do you mean by that?'

'Not to be indiscreet, I promise you,' answered Sir Jaspar; 'but as I see the interest she takes in you,--'

'The d--l you do?' exclaimed Sir Lyell, in an accent of surprize, yet of transport.

Sir Jaspar now, ironically smiling, said, 'You don't know it, then, Sir Lyell? You are modest?--diffident? unconscious?--'

'My dear boy!' cried Sir Lyell, riotously, and approaching familiarly to embrace him, 'what a devilish kind office I shall owe you, if you can put any good notions into my head of that delicious girl!'

New doubts now destroying his recent suspicions, Sir Jaspar held back, positively refusing to clear up what had dropt from him, and laughingly saying, 'Far be it from me to put any such notions into your head! I believe it amply stored! All my desire is to get some out of it. If, therefore, you can tell me, or, rather, will tell me, who or what this young creature is, you will do a kind office to my imagination, for which I shall be really thankful. Who is she, then? And what is she?'

'D--l take me if I either know or care!' cried Sir Lyell, 'further than that she is a beauty of the first water; and that I should have adored her, exclusively, three months ago, if I had not believed her a thing of alabaster. But if you think her--'

'Not I! not I!--I know nothing of her!' interrupted Sir Jaspar: 'she is a rose planted in the snow, for aught I can tell! The more I see, the less I understand; the more I surmize, the further I seem from the mark.

Honestly, then, whence does she come? How did you first see her? What does she do at Brighthelmstone?'

'May I go to old Nick if I am better informed than yourself! except that she sings and plays like twenty angels, and that all the women are jealous of her, and won't suffer a word to be said to her. However, I made up to her, at first, and should certainly have found her out, but for Melbury, who annoyed me with a long history of her virtue, and character, and Lady Aurora's friendship, and the d--l knows what; that made me so cursed sheepish, I was afraid of embarking in any measures of spirit. My sister, also, took lessons of her; and other game came into chase; and I should never have thought of her again, but that, when I went to town, a week or two ago, I learnt, from that Queen of the Crabs, Mrs Howel, that Melbury, in fact, knows no more of her than we do. He had n.o.body's world but her own for all her fine sentiments; so that he and his platonics would have kept me at bay no longer, if I had not believed her decamped from Brighthelmstone, upon hearing that you had got her lodging. How came you to turn her into the garret, my dear boy?

Is that _a la mode_ of your _vieille cour_?'

Sir Jaspar protested that, when he took the apartment, he knew not of her existence; and then enquired, whether Sir Lyell could tell in what name she had been upon the stage; and why she had quitted it.

'The stage? O the d--l!' he exclaimed, 'has she been upon the stage?'

'Yes; I heard the fact mentioned to her, the other day, by a fellow-performer! some low player, who challenged her as a sister of the buskins.'

'What a glorious Statira she must make!' cried Sir Lyell. 'I am ready to be her Alexander when she will. That hint you have dropt, my dear old boy, sha'n't be thrown away upon me. But how the d--l did you find the dear charmer out?'

Sir Jaspar again sought to draw back his information; but Sir Lyell swore that he would not so lightly be put aside from a view of success, now once it was fairly opened; and was vowing that he should begin a siege in form, and persevere to a surrender; when the conversation was interrupted, by the entrance of the shop-man, accompanied by a mantua-maker, who called upon some business.

Juliet, who, from the beginning, had heard this discourse with the utmost uneasiness, and whom its conclusion had filled with indignant disgust; had no resource to avoid the yet greater evil of being joined by the interlocutors, but that of sitting motionless and unsuspected, till they should depart; or till Miss Matson should return. But her care and precaution proved vain: the shop-man invited Mrs Hart, the mantua-maker, into the little parlour; and, upon opening the door, Juliet met their astonished view.

Sir Jaspar, not without evident anxiety, endeavoured to recollect what had dropt from him, that might hurt her; or how he might palliate what might have given her offence. But Sir Lyell, not at all disconcerted, and privately persuaded that half his difficulties were vanquished, by the accident that acquainted her with his design; was advancing, eagerly, with a volley of rapid compliments, upon his good fortune in again meeting with her; when Juliet, not deigning to seem conscious even of his presence, pa.s.sed him without notice; and, addressing Mrs Hart, entreated that she would go up stairs to the room of Miss Pierson, to examine whether it were necessary to send for any advice; as she had returned home alone, and complained of being ill. Mrs Hart complied; and Juliet followed her to Flora's chamber-door.

CHAPTER XLVII