In Juliet, though happiness was not less exalted, pleasure wore the chastened garb of moderation, even in the midst of a frankness that laid open her heart. Yet, seeing his suit thus authorized by her brother, and certain of the approbation of the Bishop, and of her uncle, to so equal and honourable an alliance; she indulged her soft propensities in his favour, by gently conceding avowals, that rewarded not alone his persevering constancy, but her own long and difficult forbearance. 'Many efforts, many conflicts,' she cried, 'in my cruel trials, I have certainly found harder; but none, none so distasteful, as the unremitting necessity of seeming always impenetrable – where most I was sensitive!'
'By sweetness such as this,' cried Harleigh, 'you would almost persuade me to rejoice at a suspense that has nearly maddened me! Yet, – could you have conceived the agony, the despair of my mind, at your icy, relentless silence! not once to trust me as a friend! not one moment to confide in my integrity! never to consult, to commune, to speak, nor to hear! – You smile? – Can it be at the pain you have inflicted?' —
'Oh no, no, no! If I smile, 'tis at the greater pain I have, I trust, averted! While conscious that I might, eventually, be chained to another, every duty admonished me to resist every feeling! – Yet with hope always, ultimately, before me, I had not the force to utter a word, – a baneful word! – that might teach you to renounce me! – even though I deemed it indispensable to my honour to exact a total separation. Had I confided to you my fearful secret, – had you yourself aided the abolition of my shackles, should I not, in a situation so delicate, so critical, have fixed an eternal barrier between us, – or have sacrificed the fame of both to the most wounding of calumnies? Ah no! from the instant that my heart interfered, – that I was conscious of a new motive that urged my wish of liberation, – I have held it my duty, I have felt it my future happiness, to avoid, – to fear, – to fly you! – '
'I was most favoured, then, it seems,' replied Harleigh, with a smile of rapture, 'when I thought you most inexorable? I must thank you for your rejections, your avoidance, your implacable, immoveable coldness?'
'Reverse, else, the medal,' cried she, gaily, 'and see whether the impression will be more to your taste!'
'Loveliest Miss Ellis! most beloved Miss Granville! My own, – at length! at length! my own sweet Juliet! that, and that only can be to my taste which has brought me to the bliss of this moment!'
With blushing tenderness, Juliet then confessed, that at the moment of his first generous declaration, following the summer-house scene with Elinor, she had felt pierced with an aggravated horrour of her nameless ties, that had nearly burst her heart asunder.
With minute retrospection, then, enjoying even every evil, and finding motives of congratulation from every pain that was past, they mutually recapitulated their feelings, their conjectures, their rising and progressive partiality, since the opening of their acquaintance. One circumstance alone was tinted with regret, – 'Elinor?' cried Juliet, 'Oh! how will Elinor bear to hear of this event!'
'Fear her not!' he returned. 'She has a noble, though, perhaps, a masculine spirit, and she will soon, probably, think of this affair only with pique and wonder, – not against me, for she is truly generous; but against herself, for she is candid and just. She has always internally believed, that perseverance in the honour that she has meant to shew me, must ultimately be victorious; but, where partiality is not desired, it can only be repaid, by man to woman as by woman to man, from weakness, or vanity. Gratitude is all-powerful in friendship, for friendship may be earned; but love, more wilful, more difficult, more capricious, – love must be inspired, or must be caught. When Elinor, who possesses many of the finest qualities of the mind, sees the fallacy of her new system; when she finds how vainly she would tread down the barriers of custom and experience, raised by the wisdom of foresight, and established, after trial, for public utility; she will return to the habits of society and common life, as one awakening from a dream in which she has acted some strange and improbable part. – '
A sound quick, but light, of feet here interrupted the tête à tête, followed by the words, 'My sister! my sister!' and, in less than a minute, Lady Aurora was in the arms of Juliet. 'Ah!' she cried, 'You are not, then, gone! dear – cruel sister! – yet you could quit me, and quit me without even a last adieu!'
'Sweetest, most amiable of sisters!' cried the happy Juliet; 'can you wonder I could not take leave of you, when that leave was, I feared, to sunder us for life? when I thought myself destined to exile, slavery, and misery? Could I dare imagine I was so soon to be restored to you? Could I presume to hope that from anguish so nearly insupportable, I was destined to be elevated, – every way! – to the summit of all I can conceive of terrestrial happiness!'
The grateful Harleigh, at these words, came forward to present himself to Lady Aurora; who learnt with enchantment the purposed alliance; not alone from the prospect of permanent happiness which it opened to her sister, but also as a means to overcome all possible opposition, on the part of Lord Denmeath, to a public acknowledgment of relationship.
Juliet, who, in the indulgence of sentiments so long and so imperiously curbed, found a charm nearly as fascinating as that which their avowal communicated to Harleigh, began now, with blushing animation, to recount to her delightedly listening Aurora, the various events, the unceasing obligations, which had formed and fixed her attachment.
A tale which, like this, had equal attraction to the speaker and to the hearers, had little chance to be brief: it was not, therefore, far advanced, when they were joined by Lord Melbury; who, gathering from Lady Aurora the situation of affairs, bounded, wild as a young colt, with joy.
The minutes, now, were lengthening unconsciously to hours, when the various narratives and congratulations were interrupted by a loud 'Halloo!' followed by the appearance of the old sailor.
'Please your honours,' said the worthy tar, 'master begins to be afeard you've as good as forgot him: he's been walking upon the beach, alongside the old French parson, till one foot is plaguely put to it to wag afore t'other. Howsomever, he'd scorn to give up to a Frenchman, to the longest day he has to live; more especialsome to a parson; you may take Jack's word for that!'
The happy party now hastened to the strand; but there perceived neither the Bishop nor the Admiral. The sailor, slily grinning at their surprize, told them, with a merry nod, and a significant leer, that he would shew them a sight that would make them stare amain; which was no other than an honest Englishman, sitting, cheek by jowl, beside a Frenchman; as lovingly as if they were both a couple of Christians, coming off the same shore.
He then led them to a bathing-machine; in which the Admiral was civilly, though with great perplexity, labouring to hold discourse with the Bishop.
The impatient Harleigh besought Lord Melbury to be his agent, with the guardian and the uncle of his lovely sister. Lord Melbury joyfully complied. The affair, however momentous, was neither long nor difficult to arrange. The Bishop felt an implicit trust in the known judgment and tried discretion of his ward; and the Admiral held that a female, as the weaker vessel, could never properly, nor even honourably, make the voyage of life, but under the safe convoy of a good husband.