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

With a laugh, then, but expressive of scorn, not gaiety, she exclaimed, 'And I, too, preaching? Can we never be tired, and good for nothing, but we must take to moralizing? Summon him, however, Ellis, yourself. Tell him to come without delay. I am sick; – and he is sick; and you are sick; – we are all round sick of this loathsome procrastination.'

Alert to seize any pretence to be gone, Juliet was already at the door; when Elinor, suddenly seeming to penetrate into her intentions, called her back; and demanded a solemn promise that she would not fail to return with Harleigh.

To the quick perceptions of Elinor, hesitation was alarm; she no sooner, therefore, observed it, than she peremptorily ordered Selina and Mrs Golding out of the room, and then, yet more positively, commanded Juliet to approach the sofa.

'I see,' she cried, 'your collusion! You imagine, by coming to me alternately, that you shall keep me in order? You conclude that I only present myself a bowl and a dagger, like a Tragedy Queen, to have them dashed from my hands, that I may be ready for a similar exhibition another day? – And can Harleigh, the noble Harleigh! judge me thus pitifully? No! no! Full of great and expansive ideas himself, he can better comprehend the exaltation of which a high, uncurbed, independent spirit is capable. But little minds deem all that is not common, all that has not been practised from father to son, and from generation to generation, to be trick, or to be impossible. You, Ellis, and such as you, who act always by rule, who never utter a word of which you have not weighed the consequence; never indulge a wish of which you have not canvassed the effects: who listen to no generous feeling; who shrink from every liberal impulse; who know nothing of nature, and care for nothing but opinion: – you, and such as you, tame animals of custom, wearied and wearying plodders on beaten tracks, may conclude me a mere vapouring impostor, and believe it as safe to brave as to despise me! You, Ellis – But no! – '

She stopt, and her look and manner suddenly lost their fierceness, as she added: 'Oh no! – You! You are not of that cast! Harleigh can only admire what alone is admirable. He would soon see through littleness or hypocrisy; you must be good and great at once – eminently good, unaffectedly great! – or how could Harleigh, the punctilious, discriminating Harleigh, adore you? Oh! I have known, and secretly appreciated you long; though I have been too little myself to acknowledge it! I have not been calm enough – perhaps not blind enough for justice! for if I saw your beauty less clearly – O happy Ellis! how do I admire, envy, revere, – and hate you!'

Shocked, yet filled with pity, Juliet would have sought to deprecate her enmity, and soften her feelings; but her fiery eye shewed that any attempt at offering her consolation would be regarded as insult. 'I disdain,' she cried, 'all expedient, all pretence. However the abortion of my purpose may have made me appear a mere female mountebank, I have meant all that I have seemed to mean: though, by waiting for the moment of most eclat , opportunity has been past by, and action has been frustrated. But I can die only once. That over, – all is ended. 'Tis therefore I have studied how to finish my career with most effect. Let Harleigh, however, beware how he doubt my sincerity! doubt from him would drive me mad indeed! To the torpid formalities of every-day customs; the drowsy thoughts of every-day thinkers; he may believe me insensible, and I shall thank him; but, indifferent to my own principles of honour! – lost to my own definitions of pride, of shame, of heroism! – Oh! if he touch me there! – if he can judge of me so degradingly … my senses will still go before my life!'

She held her forehead, with a look of fearful pain; but, soon recovering, laughed, and said, 'There are fools, I know, in the world, who suppose me mad already! only because I go my own way; while they, poor cowards, yoked one to another, always follow the path of their forefathers; without even venturing to mend the road, however it may have been broken up by time, accident or mischief. I have full as much contempt of their imbecility, as they can have of my insanity. But hear me, Ellis! approach and mark me. I must have a conference with Harleigh. You must be present. A last conference! Whatever be its event, I have bound myself to Elinor Joddrel never to demand another! But do not therefore imagine my life or death to be in your power. No! My resolution is taken. Take yours. Let the interview which I demand pass quietly in this room; or be responsible for the consequences of the public desperation to which I may be urged!'

Gloomily, she then added, 'Harleigh has refused to come; I will send him word that you are here; will he still refuse?'

Juliet blushed; but could not answer. Elinor paused a moment, and then said, 'If he knows that he can see you elsewhere, he will be firm; if not … he will return with my messenger! By that I can judge the present state of your connexion.'

She rang the bell, and told Mrs Golding to go instantly to Mr Harleigh, and acquaint him that Elinor Joddrel and Miss Ellis desired to speak with him immediately.

Vainly Juliet remonstrated against the strange appearance of such a message, not only to himself, but to the family and the world: 'Appearance?' she cried; 'after what I have done, what I have dared, – have I any terms to keep with the world? with appearances? Miserable, contemptible, servile appearances, to which sense, happiness, and feeling are for ever to be sacrificed! And what will the world do in return? How recompense the victims to its arbitrary prejudices? By letting them quickly sink into nothing; by suffering them to die with as little notice and distinction as they have lived; and with as little choice.'

Mrs Golding returned, bringing the respects of Mr Harleigh, but saying that he was forced, by an indispensable engagement, to refuse himself the honour of waiting upon Miss Joddrel.

'Run to him again! – ' cried Elinor, with vehemence; 'run, or he will be gone! Make him enter the first empty room, and tell him 'tis Miss Ellis alone who desires to speak with him. Fly!'

Yet more earnestly, now, Juliet would have interfered; but the peremptory Elinor insisted upon immediate obedience. 'If still,' she cried 'he come not … I shall conclude you to be already married!'

She laughed, yet wore a face of horrour at this idea; and spoke no more till Mrs Golding returned, with intelligence that Mr Harleigh was waiting in the parlour.

The bosom of Juliet now swelled and heaved high, with tumultuous distress and alarm, and her cheeks were dyed with the crimson tint of conscious shame; while Elinor, turning pale, dropt her head upon the pillow of the sofa, and sighed deeply for a moment in silence. Recovering then, 'This, at least,' she said, 'is explicit; let it be final! Your influence is not disguised; use it, Ellis, to snatch me from the deplorable buffoonery of running about the world – not like death after the lady, but the lady after death! Assure yourselves that you will never devise any stratagem that will turn me from my purpose; though you may render ridiculous in its execution, what in its conception was sublime. Happiness such as yours, Ellis, ought to be above all narrow malignity. You ought to be proud, Ellis, voluntarily to serve her whom involuntarily you have ruined!'

Juliet was beginning some protestations of kindness; but Elinor, interrupting her, said, 'I can give credit only to action. I must have a conference; but it is not to talk of myself; – nor of you; nor even of Harleigh. No! the soft moment of indulgence to my feelings is at an end! When I allowed my heart that delicious expansion; when I abandoned it to nature, and permitted it those open effusions of tenderness, I thought my dissolution at hand, and meant but to snatch a few last precious minutes of extacy from everlasting annihilation! but these endless delays, these eternal procrastinations, make me appear so unmeaning an idiot, even to myself, that, for the remnant of my doleful ditty, I must resist every natural wish; and plod on, till I plod off, with the stiff and stupid decorum of a starched old maid of half a century. Procure me, however, this definitive conference. It is upon no point of the old story, I promise you. You cannot be more tired of that than I am ashamed. 'Tis simply an earnest curiosity to know the pure, unadulterate thoughts of Harleigh upon death and immortality. I have applied to him, fruitlessly, myself; he inexorably refers me to some old canonicals; without considering that it is vain to ask for guides to shew us a road, before we are convinced, or at least persuaded, that it will lead us to some given spot. Let him but make clear, that 'tis his own opinion that death does not sink us to nothing; let him but satisfy me, that he does not turn me over to others, only because he thinks as I think himself, and has not the courage to avow it; – and then, in return, I may suffer him to send to me some one of his black robed tribe, to harangue me about here and hereafter.'