Juliet again smiled, but so faintly, from uncertainty to what this fantastic gallantry might tend, that Sir Jaspar, looking at her with concern, said,
'How's this, my dainty Ariel? Why so serious a brow? Have some of my nocturnal visitants whisked themselves through the key-hole of your chamber-door, also? And have they tormented your fancy with waking visions of fearful omens? Spurn them all! sweet syren! What can the tricks and malice of hobgoblins, or even the freaks and vagaries of fortune itself, enact against youth, beauty, and health such as yours? Give me but such arms, and I will brave the wayward sisters themselves.'
More seriously, then, 'Alas!' he cried, 'what is it, thus mystic, yet thus attractive, that allures me whether I will or not into your chains? – Could I but tell who, or what you are, – besides being an angel, – it is possible there might occur some idea, – some – some little notion of means to exorcise the wicked familiars that severally annoy us. Tell me but under what semblance the pigmy enemies invade you? Whether, as usual, with the darts of Master Cupid, shot, furiously, into your snowy bosom, or – '
'No, no, no!'
'Or whether by the bags of Plutus, emptied, furtively, from your strong box? In the first case, – little as my bosom is snowy! – I should but too well know how to pity; in the second, I should be proud and honoured to serve you. Tell me, then, who you are, resistless paragon! and you shall wander no more in the nameless state, an exquisite, but nearly visionary being! Tell me but who you are, and I will protect you, myself, with my life and fortune!'
Alarmed by this warmth, and doubtful whether it demanded gratitude or resentment, Juliet was silent.
'If you will not reveal to me your history,' he resumed, 'you will, at least, not refuse to let me divine it? I am a famous star-gazer; and, if once I can discover your ruling planet, I shall prognosticate your destiny in a second. Let me, then, read the lines of your face. Nay! you must not hide it! You must give me fair play. Or, shall I examine the palm of your hand?'
Juliet laughed, but drew on her gloves.
'O you little Tyrant! I must only, then, catch, as I can, a glimpse of your countenance; A nauseous task, enough, to dwell on any thing so ugly! All I can make out from it, just now, is the figure of a coronet.'
'A coronet?'
'Yes; under which I perceive the cypher D. Do you know any thing of any nobleman whose name begins with a D? I cannot decipher the rest of the letters, except that the last is – I think, an h.'
Juliet started.
'My art, I must, however, own, is at a stand, to discover whether this nobleman may be a lover or a kinsman. To discern that, the general lines of the face are inadequate. I must investigate the eyes.'
Juliet pertinaciously looked down.
'How now, my dainty, Ariel? Will you give me no answer? neither verbal nor visual? Will you not even tell me whether I must try to make the old peer my advocate, or whether I must run him through the body? Surely you won't let me court him as of kin if he be a rival? nor pink him as a rival if he be of kin?
'He is neither, I can assure you, Sir: he is nothing to me whatsoever.'
'You know, at least, then, it seems, whom I mean?'
'Sir?'
'My tiny elves have not here deluded me? I am always afraid lest those merry little wags should be playing me some prank. But it is you who are the wicked Will o' the Wisp, that lures all others, yet never can be lured yourself! Lord Denmeath has really, then, and in sober truth, the happiness of some way belonging to you?'
'No, Sir; – you mistake me; – I never – ' She left her phrase unfinished.
'Shall I relate what the prattling tell-tales have blabbed to me further? They pretend that Lord Denmeath ought himself to be your protector; but that he is so void of taste, so empty of sentiment, that he seeks to disguise, if not disown, an affinity that, with more liberal ideas, he would exult in as an honour.'
'Who talked of affinity, Sir?' cried Juliet, with quickness irrepressible. —
'Was it Lord Denmeath? – Did he name me to you?'
'Name you? Has any one named you? Indefinable, unconquerable, unfathomable Incognita! Has any one presumed to give you a human genealogy? Are you not straight descended from the clouds? without even taking the time to change yourself first into a mortal? Explain, expound, unravel to me, in soft pity – '
Juliet solemnly entreated him to forbear any further interrogatory, assuring him that all enquiry gave her pain.
'Then shall "the stars,"' cried he, '"fade away, the sun grow dim, and nature," – like my poor old carcass! – "sink in years," ere one grain more of the favourite attribute of our general mother shall be sown in my discourse! But you, in all things marvellous! You! have you really, and bona fide, so little in your composition of our naughty mamma, as not even to desire to know in what shape appeared to me the tattling little elf, that talked to me of Lord Denmeath?'
'You have not then, Sir, seen him?'
'Or if I had? – twenty interviews would not have initiated me into his affairs with so much promptitude, as twenty minutes sufficed for doing with my elfin fay.'
'I conjecture, then, Sir, your informant: Miss Selina Joddrel?'
'Even so. Upon determining to quit Brighthelmstone, three or four days ago, I drove over to Lewes, to offer what apologies I could suggest to Mrs Maple, for the vagaries of my hopeful nephew and heir, – who is suddenly set out for Constantinople in search, as he writes me word, of a fair Circassian! The last of my designs, in so delicate a case, you will easily believe, was to embarrass the injured and deserted fair one by my sight. But she had a fortitude far above my precautions. She flew to me herself; and her own plaintive tale had no sooner been bemoaned, than she hastened to favour me with the history of the whole house. I then learnt your sudden disappearance; and heard, with extreme satisfaction, from the indignation I had felt in seeing your ill treatment, that my meek sister-in-law had fallen into fits, from the first shock of finding that you were no longer under her dominion. My Lord Denmeath, who had already gone through the ceremonial of demanding Mrs Maple's permission to obtain a private audience with you, seemed thunderstruck at the news, that the bird he so much wished to sing to him was flown. The whole house was in disorder; running, enquiring, asserting, denying; – the wild Elinor alone was tame and tranquil, – for Mr Harleigh has kept constantly in sight.'
Delicate, and ever feeling Harleigh! thought Juliet; Her life, and My reputation, hang suspended upon the same guardian care!
'That eccentric and most original personage,' continued Sir Jaspar, 'has now wholly made over her mind to the study of controversial theology. Every chair is covered with polemical tracts, to prove one side of an argument, that every table is covered to disprove on the other. If she settle her opinion one way, she will probably become the foundress of some new-fangled monastery; if on the other, she will be discovered, some star-light night, seeking truth at the bottom of a well.'
Juliet then anxiously enquired into the state of her health.
'She seems to me,' answered the Baronet, 'quite as well as it is possible for a person to be, who is afflicted with the restless malady of struggling for occasion to exhibit character; instead of leaving its display to the jumble of nature and of accident. But these new systemers do not break out of bounds more wildly from whim, than they afterwards seek retreat within them, tamely, from experience. The little Selina, on the contrary, who has escaped the trouble of supporting a character, by not having an idea that could form one, had the kindness to make me the most liberal communication of every thing that she has either seen or heard, since she has been skipping about in this nether world; and, in her scampers from room to room, and from person to person, she had gathered sundry interesting particulars of a certain fair unknown. – '