Ellis concluded that, upon seeing the chaise at the door, he had entered some shop to write these lines.
The silence which she had guarded, relative to his former packet, from terrour of the conflicts to which such a subject might lead, had made him now, she imagined, suppose it not partially but completely expended. And can he think, she cried, that not alone I have had recourse, – unacknowledged, yet essential recourse, – to his generosity in my distress, but that I am contented to continue his pensioner?
She blushed; but not in anger: she felt that it was from his view of her situation, notions of her character, that he pressed her thus to pecuniary obligation. She would not, however, even see the amount, or contents, of what he had sealed up, which she now enclosed, and sealed up herself, with the remaining notes of the first packet.
The lines which he had written in the cover, she read a second time. If, indeed, she cried, he could become a disinterested friend!.. She was going to read them again, but checked by the suggested doubt, – the if, – she paused a moment, sighed, felt herself blush, and, with a quick motion that seemed the effect of sudden impulse, precipitately destroyed them; murmuring to herself, while brushing off with her hand a starting tear, that she would lose no time and spare no exertions, for replacing and returning the whole sum.
Yet she was forced, with whatever reluctance, to leave the development of her intentions to the chances of opportunity; for she knew not the address of Harleigh, and durst not risk the many dangers that might attend any enquiry.
A short time afterwards, she received a letter from Selina, containing a summons from Elinor for the next morning.
Mr Naird, the surgeon, had induced Mrs Maple to consent to this measure, which alone deterred Elinor from tearing open her wound; and which had extorted from her a promise, that she would remain quiet in the interval. She had positively refused to admit a clergyman; and had affronted away a physician.
Ellis could not hesitate to comply with this demand, however terrified she felt at the prospect of the storm which she might have to encounter.
The desperate state of her own affairs, called, nevertheless, for immediate attention; and she decided to begin a new arrangement, by relinquishing the far too expensive apartment which Miss Arbe had forced her to occupy.
In descending to the shop, to give notice of her intention, she heard the voice of Miss Matson, uttering some sharp reprimand; and presently, and precipitately, she was passed, upon the stairs, by a forlorn, ill-dressed, and weeping female; whose face was covered by her handkerchief, but whose air was so conspicuously superiour to her garb of poverty, that it was evidently a habit of casual distress, not of habitual indigence. Ellis looked after her with quick-awakened interest; but she hastily mounted, palpably anxious to escape remark.
Miss Matson, softened in her manners since she had been paid, expressed the most violent regret, at losing so genteel a lodger. Ellis knew well how to appreciate her interested and wavering civility; yet availed herself of it to beg a recommendation to some decent house, where she might have a small and cheap chamber; and again, to solicit her assistance in procuring some needle-work.
A room, Miss Matson replied, with immediate abatement of complaisance, of so shabby a sort as that, might easily enough be found; but as to needle-work, all that she had had to dispose of for some time past, had been given to her new lodger up two pair of stairs, who had succeeded Mr Riley; and who did it quicker and cheaper than any body; which, indeed, she had need do, for she was extremely troublesome, and always wanting her money.
'And for what else, Miss Matson,' said Ellis, dryly, 'can you imagine she gives you her work?'
'Nay, I don't say any thing as to that,' answered Miss Matson, surprised by the question: 'I only know it's sometimes very inconvenient.'
Ah! thought Ellis, must we be creditors, and poor creditors, ourselves, to teach us justice to debtors? And must those who endure the toil be denied the reward, that those who reap its fruits may retain it?
Miss Matson accepted the warning, and Ellis resolved to seek a new lodging the next day.
CHAPTER XL
At five o'clock, on the following morning, the house of Miss Matson was disturbed, by a hurrying message from Elinor, demanding to see Miss Ellis without delay. Ellis, arose, with the utmost trepidation: it was the beginning of May, and brightly light; and she accompanied the servant back to the house.
She found all the family in the greatest disorder, from the return of another messenger, who had been forwarded to Mr Harleigh, with the unexpected news that that gentleman had quitted Brighthelmstone. The intelligence was conveyed in a letter, which he had left at the hotel, for Miss Maple; and in which another was enclosed for Elinor. Mrs Maple had positively refused to be the bearer of such unwelcome tidings to the sick room; protesting that she could not risk, before the surgeon and the nurse, the rude expression which her poor niece might utter; and could still less hazard imparting such irritating information tête à tête.
'Why, then,' said Ireton, 'should not Miss Ellis undertake the job? Nobody has had a deeper share in the business.'
This idea was no sooner started, than it was seized by Mrs Maple; who was over-joyed to elude the unpleasant task imposed upon her by Harleigh; and almost equally gratified to mortify, or distress, a person whom she had been led, by numberless small circumstances, which upon little minds operate more forcibly than essential ones, to consider as a source of personal disgrace to her own dignity and judgement. Deaf, therefore, to the remonstrances of Ellis, upon whom she forced the letter, she sent for Mr Naird, charged him to watch carefully by the side of her poor niece, desired to be called if any thing unhappy should take place; and, complaining of a violent head-ache, retired to lie down.
Ellis, terrified at this tremendous commission, and convinced that the feelings and situation of Elinor were too publicly known for any attempt at secresy, applied to Mr Naird for counsel how to proceed.
Mr Naird answered that, in cases where, as in the present instance, the imagination was yet more diseased than the body, almost any certainty was less hurtful than suspense. 'Nevertheless, with so excentrical a genius,' he added, 'nothing must be risked abruptly: if, therefore, as I presume, this letter is to acquaint the young lady, with the proper modifications, that Mr Harleigh will have nothing to say to her; you must first let her get some little inkling of the matter by circumstances and surmizes, that the fact may not rush upon her without warning: keep, therefore, wholly out of her way, till the tumult of her wonder and her doubts, will make any species of explication medicinal.'
She had certainly, he added, some new project in contemplation; for, after extorting from her, the preceding evening, a promise that she would try to sleep, he heard her, when she believed him gone, exclaim, from Cato's soliloquy:
'Our kind-hearted young ladies of Sussex,' continued Mr Naird, 'are as much scandalized that Mr Harleigh should have the insensibility to resist love so heroic, as their more prudent mammas that he should so publicly be made its object. No men, however, – at least none on this side the Channel, – can wonder that he should demur at venturing upon a treaty for life, with a lady so expert in foreign politics, as to make an experiment, in her own proper person, of the new atheistical and suicidical doctrines, that those ingenious gentlemen, on t'other side the water, are now so busily preaching for their fellow-countrymen's destruction.2 Challenging one's existence for every quarrel with one's Will; and running one's self through the Body for every affront to one's Mind; used to be thought peculiar to the proud and unbending humour of John Bull; but John did it rarely enough to make it a subject of gossipping, and news-paper squibs, for at least a week. Our merry neighbours, on the contrary, now once they have set about it, do the job with an air, and a grace, that shew us we are as drowsy in our desperation, as we are phlegmatic in our amusements. They talk of it wherever they go; write of it whenever they hold a pen; and are so piqued to think that we got the start of them, in beginning the game first, that they pop off more now in a month, than we do in a year: and I don't in the least doubt, that their intention is to go on with the same briskness, till they have made the balance even.'