The answer now was more civil, but evidently embarrassed, though professing much respect for the motives which guided the charitable Bishop; and a willingness to enter into some compromise for the young person in question; provided she could be settled abroad, that so strange a tale might not disturb his sister; nor involve his nephew and niece, by coming before the public.
All compromise was declined by the Bishop, who now made known the whole history to the old peer.
The answer, nevertheless, was again from Lord Denmeath, though written by the desire, and in the name of the Earl; briefly saying, Let the young woman marry and settle in France; and, upon the delivery of the original documents relative to her birth, she shall be portioned; but she shall never be received nor owned in England; the Earl being determined not to countenance such a disgrace to his family, and to the memory of his son, as the acknowledgment of so unsuitable a marriage.
The Bishop held his honour engaged to his departed friend, to sustain the birth-right of the innocent orphan; he menaced, therefore, accompanying her over to England himself, and putting all the documents, with the direction of the affair, into the hands of some celebrated lawyer.
Alarmed at this intimation, milder letters passed: but the result of all that the Bishop could obtain, was a promissory-note of six thousand pounds sterling, for the portion of a young person brought up at the convent of – , and known by the name of Mademoiselle Juliette; to be paid by Messieurs – , bankers, on the day of her marriage with a native of France, resident in that country.
The conditions annexed to the payment were then detailed, of delivering to the bankers the originals of all the MSS of which copies had been sent over; with an acquittal, signed by the new married couple, and by the Bishop, to all future right or claim upon the Melbury family. The whole to be properly witnessed, &c. This promissory-note had the joint seal and signature of the old Earl and of Lord Denmeath.
But the Bishop inflexibly insisted, that his ward should be recognized as the Honourable Miss Granville; and share an equal portion with her half-sister, Aurora; for whom, upon the premature death of Lord Granville, the old peer had solicited and obtained the title and honours of an earl's daughter.
All representation proving fruitless, the Bishop was preparing to attend Miss Granville to England, when the French Revolution broke out. The general confusion first stopt his voyage, and next destroyed even the materials of his agency. The family chateau was burnt by the populace; and all the papers of Juliet, which had been carefully hoarded up with the records of the house, were consumed! The promissory-note alone, and accidentally, had been saved; the Bishop chancing to have it in his pocket-book, for the purpose of consulting upon it with some lawyer.
With the nobleness of unsuspicious integrity, the Bishop wrote an account of this disaster to Lord Denmeath; whose answer contained tidings of the death of the old Earl, and reclaimed the promissory-note for revisal. But the Bishop, who possessed no other proof or document of the identity of Juliet, would by no means part with a paper that became of the utmost importance.
Juliet, pitied and sustained, loved and esteemed by all, had been prevailed upon to continue with her cherished and cherishing friends, till some political calm should enable the Bishop to conduct her to England, and there to struggle for her rights. At the opening, however, of the dreadful reign of Robespierre, sudden and immediate danger had compelled Gabriella, with her husband and her child, to emigrate: but Juliet, hopeless of making herself acknowledged by her family without the support of the Bishop, had preferred, till she could obtain the sanction of his presence, to remain with the Marchioness.
'And what,' Sir Jaspar cried, 'what is become of this Bishop? this man of peace, this worthiest wight that breathes the vital air?'
Gabriella herself knew not; nor what change of plan had induced her friend to venture over alone: she knew only that what was counselled by the Bishop must be wise; that what was executed by Juliet must be right.
Juliet, who had heard this recital with melting tenderness, was now with difficulty restrained, even by the presence of Sir Jaspar, from casting herself rather at the feet than into the arms, of her generous, noble, and confiding, though untrusted friend.
CHAPTER LXX
Various customers, though for small purchases, had, from time to time, interrupted, but not broken this narration. The Baronet respectfully made way for whoever came, but resumed his place the instant that it was vacated; spending the interval in selecting new pieces of ribbon; till, ere the history was finished, not a remnant of that article remained unsold. It was his purpose, he gallantly said, to present a top-knot, for a twelve-month to come, to every fair syren who, either by face, voice, shape, feature, complexion, size, air, or manner, should afford him so much pleasure as to remind him, however transiently, of the adorable haberdasher, whose taper fingers had put it into his possession.
Gabriella interrupted these compliments, to observe, with some anxiety, two strange men, who were sauntering up and down the street, and who, from time to time, peeped in at the window.
'And how can they do any better?' said the Baronet; 'unless you invite them into your apartments? 'Tis precisely what I shall enact myself, if you turn me out of doors! Do you fancy you are to dart yourselves, you and your mischievous partner, into as many hearts as you can find spectators, and then bid your poor wounded gazers go lie down and bleed, in the kennel, like so many puppies; without allowing them even a lamenting yell, or friendly barking, to call themselves into notice before they give up the ghost? I pity the poor caitiffs with all my heart.
'Let me, however, hope, that the seductive tale which I have been quaffing, has not intoxicated all my senses only to my own destruction! that my poor nerves have not been pierced and pinched; that my feelings have not been twitched and tweaked, and my senses scared and confounded, only to drag my own crazy folly into fuller view!'
He paused a few minutes, during which Gabriella began making out the account of her ribbons; and then, with a mild voice, but an arch brow, 'Hear me,' he resumed, 'my dulcet frog! for such, you know, is your destined classification in this country; hear, and under your auspices let me proceed. If this fair marvellous Wanderer, – in her birth no longer an Incognita, yet an Incognita still in her history; will venture to put herself under my protection, – honourably I mean; so don't frown! for nothing so spoils the forehead! Besides, who can look at you, and not mean honourably? With all your sweetness, there is a fire in your eye, that, if I harboured a naughty idea, only for a moment, would, I see plainly, consume me. Let us, however, talk the matter over with becoming seriousness. It may, perchance, be less difficult than you may imagine, to establish your fair journeywoman's rights.'
'O make the attempt, then,' cried Gabriella; 'exert yourself in so noble a trial!'
'A little activity,' he continued, 'and a great deal of menacing, adroitly put in play, will now and then do wonders. A little money, too, dexterously handled, rarely does much harm. When Lord Denmeath sees all these at work, take my word for it, he will think twice, before he will let them operate upon the public. We like mighty well to reap the fruits of our address in the world; but we have a sagacious tendency to keeping our ways and means to ourselves. Lord Denmeath, after all, as a worldly man, does but his office, in putting to sleep his conscience for the better keeping awake his interest. This is simply in the ordinary course of things: but, when the blood that is youthful is not generous; when life is begun with the crafty hardness that years, experience, and disappointment have given to those who are ending it; when we see even striplings, who ought to be made up of wild romance, and credulous enthusiasm, meanly, basely, heartlessly, for a few pitiful thousands, suffer an orphan to be cheated, despoiled of her rank in life, and made an alien to her country, as well as to her family; – then it is, that I curse Vanity as an imp of darkness, and Pride as a demon of hell! When a boy like Lord Melbury, a young girl such as Lady Aurora – '