Harleigh was here summoned to Miss Maple, and Elinor returned to her interrogatories; but the stranger only reverted to her hopes, that she might still depend upon the promised conveyance to Brighthelmstone?

'Tell me, at least, what it was you flung into the sea?'

'Ah, Madam, that would tell every thing!'

'You are a most provoking little devil,' cried Elinor, impatiently, 'and I am half tempted to have nothing more to say to you. Give me, however, some account how you managed matters with that sweet tender dove Mrs Ireton.'

The recital that ensued of the disasters, difficulties, and choler of that lady, proved so entertaining to Elinor, that she soon not only renewed her engagement of taking her unknown guest free to Lewes, but joined the warmest a.s.surances of protection. 'Not that we must attempt,'

she cried, 'to get rid of the spite of Aunt Maple, for if we do, alter so completely the basis of her composition, that she won't know how to stand upright.'

'But now,' she continued, 'where are you to dine? Aunt Maple is too fusty to let you sit at our table.'

The stranger earnestly solicited permission to eat alone: Elinor consented; a.s.signed her a chamber, and gave orders to Mrs Golding, her own maid, to take care of the traveller.

The repast below stairs was no sooner finished, than Elinor flew back to summon the Incognita to descend for exhibition. 'I have told them all,'

she said, 'that you are arrived, though I have revealed nothing of your metamorphosis; and there is a sister of mine, a conceited little thing, who is just engaged to be married, and who is wild to see you; and it is a rule, you know, to deny nothing to a bride elect; probably, poor wretch, because every one knows what a fair way she is in to be soon denied every thing! That quiz, Harleigh, would not stay; and that nothingly Ireton has nearly shrugged his shoulders out of joint, at the very idea of so great a bore as seeing you again. Come, nevertheless; I die to enjoy Aunt Maple's astonishment at your new phiz.'

The stranger sought to evade this request as a pleasantry; but finding that it was insisted upon seriously, protested that she had neither courage nor spirits for being produced as an object of sport.

Elinor now again felt a strong temptation to draw back from her promise; but while, between anger and generosity, she hung suspended, a message arrived from Mrs Maple, to order that the woman from France should be sent to the kitchen.

Elinor, changing the object of her displeasure, now warmly repeated her resolution to support the stranger; and, hastening to the dining-parlour, declared to her aunt, and to the party, that the woman from France should not be treated with indignity; that she was evidently a person who had been too well brought up to be consigned to domestics; and that she herself admired, and would abet her spirit, in refusing to be stared at like a wild beast.

CHAPTER VI

The affairs of Mrs Maple kept her a week longer in London; but the impatience of the Wanderer to reach Brighthelmstone, was compelled to yield to an utter inability of getting thither unaided. During this period, she gathered, from various circ.u.mstances, that Elinor had been upon the point of marriage with the younger brother of Harleigh, a handsome and flourishing lawyer; but that repeated colds, ill treated, or neglected, had menaced her with a consumption, and she had been advised to try a change of climate. Mrs Maple accompanied her to the south of France, where she had resided till her health was completely re-established. Harleigh, then, in compliment to his brother, who was confined by his profession to the capital, crossed the Channel to attend the two ladies home. They had already arrived at ---- on their return, when an order of Robespierre cast them into prison, whence enormous bribes, successful stratagems, and humane, though concealed a.s.sistance from some compa.s.sionate inhabitants of the town, enabled them, in common with the Admiral, the Iretons, and Riley, to effect their escape to a prepared boat, in which, through the friendly darkness of night, they reached the harbour of their country and their wishes.

The stranger learnt also from Elinor, by whom secresy or discretion were as carelessly set aside, as by herself they were fearfully practised, that young Ireton, urged by a rich old uncle, and an entailed estate, to an early marriage, after addressing and jilting half the women of England, Scotland, and Ireland, had run through France, Switzerland, and Italy, upon the same errand; yet was returned home heart-whole, and hand-unshackled; but that, she added, was not the extraordinary part of the business, male coquets being just as common, and only more impertinent than female; all that was worth remarking, was his conduct for the last few days. Some accounts which he had to settle with her aunt, had obliged him to call at their house, the morning after their arrival in London. He then saw Selina, Elinor's younger sister, a wild little girl, only fourteen years of age, who was wholly unformed, but with whom he had become so desperately enamoured, that, when Mrs Maple, knowing his character, and alarmed by his a.s.siduities, cautioned him not to make a fool of her young niece, he abruptly demanded her in marriage.

As he was very rich, Mrs Maple had, of course, Elinor added, given her consent, desiring only that he would wait till Selina reached her fifteenth birth-day; and the little girl, when told of the plan, had considered it as a frolic, and danced with delight.

During this interval, the time of the stranger was spent in the tranquil employment of needle-work, for which she was liberally supplied with cast-off materials, to relieve her necessities, from the wardrobe of Elinor, through whose powerful influence she was permitted to reside entirely up stairs. Here she saw only her protectress, into whose apartment Mrs Maple did not deign, and no one else dared, to intrude unbidden. The spirit of contradiction, which was termed by Elinor the love of independence, fixed her design of supporting the stranger, to whom she delighted to do every good office which Mrs Maple deemed superfluous, and whom she exulted in thus exclusively possessing, as a hidden curiosity. But when she found that no enquiry produced any communication, and that nothing fresh offered for new defiance to Mrs Maple, a total indifference to the whole business took place of its first energy, and the young woman, towards the end of the week, fell into such neglect that it was never mentioned, and hardly even remembered, that she was an inhabitant of the house.

When the morning, most anxiously desired by herself, for the journey to Lewes, arrived, she heard the family engaged in preparations to set off, yet received no intimation how she was to make one of the party. With great discomfort, though with tolerable patience, she awaited some tidings, till the sound of carriages driving up to the street door, alarmed her with apprehensions of being deserted, and, hastily running down stairs, she was drawn by the voice of Elinor to the door of the breakfast-parlour; but the sound of other voices took from her the courage to open it, though the baggage collected around her shewed the journey so near, that she deemed it unsafe to return to her chamber.

In a few minutes, Harleigh, loaded with large drawings, crossed the hall, and, observing her distress, enquired into its cause.

She wished to speak to Miss Joddrel.

He entered the parlour, and sent out Elinor, who, exclaiming, 'O, it's you, is it? Mercy on me! I had quite forgotten you!--' ran back, crying, 'Aunt, here's your old friend, the grim French voyager! Shall she come in?'

'Come in? What for, Miss Joddrel? Because Mr Harleigh was so kind as to make a hoy of my boat, does it follow that you are to make a booth of my parlour?'

'She is at the door!' said Harleigh, in a low voice.

'Then she is at her proper place; where else should such a sort of body be?'

Harleigh took up a book.

'O, but do let her come in, Aunt, do let her come in!' cried the young Selina. 'I was so provoked at not seeing her the other day, that I could have cried with pleasure! and sister Elinor has kept her shut up ever since, and refused me the least little peep at her.'

The opposition of Mrs Maple only the more strongly excited the curiosity of Selina, who, encouraged by the clamorous approbation of Elinor, flew to the door.

There, stopping short, she called out, 'La! here's nothing but a young woman!--La! Aunt, I'm afraid she's run away!'

'And if she is, Niece, we shall not break our hearts, I hoped not but, if she's decamped, it's high time I should enquire whether all is safe in the house.'

'Decamped?' cried Elinor, 'Why she's at the door! Don't you know her, Aunt? Don't you see her, Ireton?'

The stranger, abashed, would have retreated. Harleigh, raising his eyes from his book, shook his head at Elinor, who, laughing and regardless, seized the hand of the young person, and dragged her into the parlour.

'Who is this?' said Mrs Maple.

'Who, Aunt? Why your memory is shorter than ever! Don't you recollect our dingy French companion, that you took such a mighty fancy to?'

Mrs Maple turned away with angry contempt; and the housekeeper, who had been summoned, appearing, orders were given for a strict examination whether the swarthy traveller, who followed them from France, were gone.

The stranger, changing colour, approached Elinor, and with an air that claimed her protection, said, 'Will you not, Madam, have the goodness to explain who I am?'

'How can I,' cried Elinor, laughing, 'when I don't know it myself?'

Every one stared; Harleigh turned round; the young woman blushed, but was silent.

'If here is another of your Incognitas, Miss Joddrel,' said Mrs Maple, 'I must beg the favour that you'll desire her to march off at once. I don't chuse to be beset by such sort of gentry quite so frequently.

Pray, young woman, what is it you want here?'

'Protection, Madam, and compa.s.sion!' replied the stranger, in a tone of supplication.

'I protest,' said Mrs Maple, 'she has just the same sort of voice that that black girl had! and the same sort of cant! And pray, young woman, what's your name?'

'That's right, Mrs Maple, that's right!' cried Ireton; 'make her tell her name!'

'To be sure I shall!' said Mrs Maple, seating herself on a sofa, and taking out her snuff-box. 'I have a great right to know the name of a person that comes, in this manner, into my parlour. Why do you not answer, young woman?'

The stranger, looking at Elinor, clasped her hands in act of entreaty for pity.

'Very fine, truly!' said Mrs Maple: 'So here's just the second edition of the history of that frenchified swindler!'

'No, no, Aunt; it's only the sequel to the first part, for it's the same person, I a.s.sure you. Did not you come over with us from France, Mademoiselle? In the same boat? and with the same surly pilot?'

The stranger silently a.s.sented.

Mrs Maple, now, doubly enraged, interrogated her upon the motives of her having been so disfigured, with the sternness and sharpness of addressing a convicted cheat.

The stranger, compelled to speak, said, with an air of extreme embarra.s.sment, 'I am conscious, Madam, how dreadfully all appearances are against me! Yet I have no means, with any prudence, to enter into an explanation: I dare not, therefore, solicit your good opinion, though my distress is so urgent, that I am forced to sue for your a.s.sistance,--I ought, perhaps, to say your charity!'