The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 4 of 5). Burney Fanny

not yet sufficiently miserable?'

      Penetrated with sorrow, and struck with alarm, Harleigh looked at her in silence; but when again he sought to take her hand, shrinking from his touch, though regarding him with an expression that supplicated rather than commanded forbearance; 'If you would not kill me, Mr Harleigh,' she cried, 'you will relinquish this terrible perseverance!'

      'Relinquish?' he repeated, 'What now? Now, that all delicacy for this wild, eccentric, though so generous Elinor is at an end? that she has, herself, annulled your engagement? Relinquish, now, the hopes so long pursued, – so difficultly caught? No, I swear to you – '

      Juliet arose. 'Oh hold, Mr Harleigh!' she cried; 'recollect yourself a moment! I lament if I have, involuntarily, caused you any transient mistake; yet, do me the justice to reflect, that I have never cast my destiny upon that of Miss Joddrel. No decision, therefore, of hers can make any change in mine.'

      She again put her hand upon the lock of the door.

      Harleigh fixt upon her his eyes, which spoke the severest disturbance, while, in tremulous accents, he uttered, 'And can you leave me thus, to wasting despondence? – and with this cold, chilling, blighting composure? – Is it from pitiless apathy, which incapacitates for judging of torments which it does not experience? – O no! Those eyes that so often glisten with the most touching sensibility, – those cheeks that so beautifully mantle with the varying dies of quick transition of sentiment, – that mouth, which so expressively plays in harmony with every word, – nay, every thought, – all, all announce a heart where every virtue is seconded and softened by every feeling! – a mind alive to the quickest sensations, yet invigorated with the ablest understanding! a soul of angelic purity! – '

      Some sound from the passage made him suddenly stop, and remove his foot; while the hand of Juliet dropt from the lock. They were both silent, and both, affrighted, stood suspended; till Juliet, shocked at the impropriety of such a situation, forced herself to open the door, – at the other side of which, looking more dead than alive, stood Elinor, leaning upon her sister.

      'I began to think,' she cried, in a hollow tone, 'that you were eloped! – and determining to trust to no messenger, I came myself.' She then endeavoured to call forth a smile; but it visited so unwillingly features nearly distorted by internal agony, that it gave a cast almost ghastly to her countenance.

      'Why, Harleigh,' she cried, 'should you thus shun me? Have I not given back her plighted faith to Ellis? Yet I am not ignorant how tired you must be of those old thread-bare topics, bowls, daggers, poignards, and bodkins: but they have had their reign, and are now dethroned. What remains is plain, common, stupid rationality. I wish to converse with you, Albert, only as a casuist; and upon a point of conscience which you alone can settle. For this world, and for all that belongs to it, all, with me, is utterly over! I have neither care nor interest left in it; and I have no belief that there is any other. I am very composedly ready, therefore, to take my last nap. I merely wish to learn, before I return to my torpid ignorance, whether it can be a fact, that you, Harleigh, you! believe in a future state for mortal man? And I engage you by your friendship, – which I still prize above all things! and by your honour, which you, I know, prize in the same manner, to answer me this question, instantly and categorically.'

      'Most faithfully, then, Elinor, yes! All the happiness of my present life is founded upon my belief of a life to come!'

      Elinor held up her hands. 'Astonishing!' she cried. 'Can judgment and credulity, wisdom and superstition, thus jumble themselves together! And in a head so clear, so even oracular! Give me, at least, your reasons; and see that they are your own!'

      Harleigh looked disturbed, but made not any answer.

      The wan face of Elinor was now lighted up with hues of scarlet. 'I feel,' she cried, 'the impropriety of this intrusion; – for who, if not I, – since we all prize most what we know least, – should respect happiness? When you have finished, however, your present conference, honour me, both of you, if you please, – that the period so employed may be less wearisome to either, – with a final one up stairs. Harleigh! A final one!'

      Harleigh was still silent.

      A yet deeper red now dyed the whole complexion of Elinor, and she added, 'If, to-day, you are too much engaged, – to-morrow will suffice. To-day, indeed, your solemn protestations of belief, upon a subject which to me, is a chaos, – dark, – impervious, impenetrable! has given ample employment to my ideas.'

      Repulsing, then, his silently offered arm, she returned, with Selina, to the chamber consigned to her by Mrs Ireton.

      CHAPTER LXIV

      Harleigh, confused, disconcerted, remained motionless; but when the conscious Juliet would have glided silently past him, he entreated for a moment's audience.

      'Oh no, Mr Harleigh, no!' she cried: 'these are scenes and alarms, that must be risked no more! – '

      She was hurrying away; but, upon his saying, 'Hear me, at least, for Elinor!' she turned back.

      His eye, now reproached even her compliance; but he rapidly communicated his opinion, that the conference demanded by Elinor ought, in prudence, for the present, to be avoided; since, while she had still some favourite object in view, life, would, unconsciously, be still supported. Time, thus, might insensibly be gained, not only for eluding her fatal project, but happily, perhaps, for taming the dauntless wildness that made her, now, seem to stand scoffingly at bay, between life and death.

      Juliet saw nothing to oppose to this statement, and thanking him that, at least, it liberated her, was again hastening away.

      'Hold, hold!' cried he, stopping her: 'it is not from me that it must liberate you! Elinor has ratified the restoration of your word – '

      'Oh, were that all! – ' she cried, hastily; but, stopping short, deeply blushing, 'Mr Harleigh,' she added, 'compel me not to repeat declarations that cannot vary! – Aid me rather, generously, – kindly, shall I say? – aid me, – to fly, to avoid you, – lest you become yourself …' her voice faltered as she pronounced, 'the most fatal of my enemies!'

      The penetrated Harleigh, charmed, though tortured, saw her eyes glittering with tears; but she forced her way past him, and took refuge in her chamber.

      There, in deep anguish, she was sinking upon a chair, when she received the gentle balm of a letter from Gabriella, written with exstatic joy at the prospect of their re-union.

      This decided her plan of immediate escape to London, under a full conviction that Harleigh, to obviate any calumnious surmizes from her disappearance, would studiously shew himself in the world; however cautiously he might avoid any interview with Elinor.