Fanny Burney - The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 2 of 5)

It would be difficult to say, whether this reference caused greater surprise to Mrs Maple or to Harleigh; but the feelings which accompanied it were as dissimilar as their characters: Mrs Maple was highly offended, that there should be any competition, between herself and any other, relative to a communication that came from her niece; while Harleigh felt an enchantment that glowed through every vein, in the prospect of some confidence. But when Mrs Maple found that all resistance was vain, and that through this channel only she could procure any information, her resentment gave way to her eagerness for hearing it, and she told Mr Harleigh to take the letter.

This was as little what he wished, as what Ellis meant: his desire was to speak with her upon the important subject open between them; and her's, was to make an apology for shewing him the letter, and to offer some explanation of a part of its contents. He approached her, however, to receive it, and she could not hold it back.

'If you will allow me,' said he, in taking it, 'to give you my plain opinion, when I have read it… Where may I have the pleasure of seeing you?'

Revived by this question, she eagerly answered, 'Wherever Mrs Maple will permit.'

Harleigh, who, in the scowl upon Mrs Maple's face, read a direction that they should remain where they were, would not wait for her to give it utterance; but, taking the hand of Ellis, with a precipitation to which she yielded from surprise, though with blushing shame, said, 'In this next room we shall be nearest to give the answer to Mrs Maple;' and led her to the adjoining apartment.

He did not dare shut the door, but he conducted her to the most distant window; and, having expressed, by his eyes, far stronger thanks for her trust than he ventured to pronounce with his voice, was beginning to read the letter; but Ellis, gently stopping him, said, 'Before you look at this, let me beg you, Sir, to believe, that the hard necessity of my strange situation, could alone have induced me to suffer you to see what is so every way unfit for your perusal. But Miss Joddrel has herself made known that she left a message with me for Mrs Maple; what right, then, have I to withhold it? Yet how – advise me, I entreat, – how can I deliver it? And – with respect to what you will find relative to Lord Melbury – I need not, I trust, mortify myself by disclaiming, or vindicating – '

He interrupted her with warmth: 'No!' he cried, 'with me you can have nothing to vindicate! Of whatever would not be perfectly right, I believe you incapable.'

Ellis thanked him expressively, and begged that he would now read the letter, and favour her with his counsel.

He complied, meaning to hurry it rapidly over, to gain time for a yet more interesting subject; but, struck, moved, and shocked by its contents, he was drawn from himself, drawn even from Ellis, to its writer. 'Unhappy Elinor!' he cried, 'this is yet more wild than I had believed you! this flight, where you can expect no pursuit! this concealment, where you can fear no persecution! But her intellects are under the controul of her feelings, – and judgment has no guide so dangerous.'

Ellis gently enquired what she must say to Mrs Maple.

He hastily put by the letter. 'Let me rather ask,' he cried, half smiling, 'what you will say to Me? – Will you not let me know something of your history, – your situation, – your family, – your name? The deepest interest occasions my demand, my inquietude. – Can it offend you?'

Ellis, trembling, looking down, and involuntarily sighing, in a faltering voice, answered, 'Have I not besought you, Sir, to spare me upon this subject? Have I not conjured you, if you value my peace, – nay, my honour! – what can I say more solemn? – to drop it for ever more?'

'Why this dreadful language?' cried Harleigh, with mingled impatience and grief: 'Can the impression of a cumpulsatory engagement – or what other may be the mystery that it envelopes? Will you not be generous enough to relieve a perplexity that now tortures me? Is it too much for a man lost to himself for your sake, – lost he knows not how, – knows not to whom, – to be indulged with some little explanation, where, and how, he has placed all his hopes? – Is this too much to ask?'

'Too much?' repeated Ellis, with quickness: 'O no! no! Were my confidence to depend upon my sense of what I owe to your generous esteem, your noble trust in a helpless Wanderer, – known to you solely through your benevolence, – were my opinion – and my gratitude my guides, – it would be difficult, indeed, to say what enquiries you could make, that I could refuse to satisfy; – what you could ask, that I ought not to answer! but alas! – '

She hesitated: heightened blushes dyed her cheeks; and she visibly struggled to restrain herself from bursting into tears.

Touched, delighted, yet affrighted, Harleigh tenderly demanded, 'O, why resist the generous impulse, that would plead for some little frankness, in favour of one who unreservedly devotes to you his whole existence?'

Suddenly now, as if self-alarmed, checking her sensibility, she gravely cried, 'What would it avail that I should enter into any particulars of my situation, when what has so recently passed, makes all that has preceded immaterial? You have heard my promise to Miss Joddrel, – you see by this letter how direfully she meditates to watch its performance; – '

'And can you suffer the wild flights of a revolutionary enthusiast, impelled by every extravagant new system of the moment; – however you may pity her feelings, respect her purity, and make allowance for her youth, to blight every fair prospect of a rational attachment? to supersede every right? and to annihilate all consideration, all humanity, but for herself?'

'Ah no! – if you believe me ungrateful for a partiality that contends with all that appearances can offer against me, and all that circumstance can do to injure me; if you think me insensible to the honour I receive from it, you do yet less justice to yourself than to me! But here, Sir, all ends! – We must utterly separate; – you must not any where seek me; – I must avoid you every where! – '

She stopt. – The sudden shock which every feature of Harleigh exhibited at these last words, evidently and forcibly affected her; and the big tears, till now forced back, rolled unrestrained, and almost unconsciously, down her cheeks, as she suffered herself, for a moment, in silence to look at him: she was then hastily retiring; but Harleigh, surprised and revived by the sight of her emotion, exclaimed, 'O why this fatal sensibility, that captivates while it destroys? that gives fascination even to repulse?' He would have taken her hand; but, drawing back, and even shrinking from his touch, she emphatically cried, 'Remember my engagement! – my solemn promise!'

'Was it extorted?' cried he, detaining her, 'or had it your heart's approbation?'

'From whatever motive it was uttered,' answered she, looking away from him, 'it has been pronounced, and must be adhered to religiously!' She then broke from him, and escaping by a door that led to the hall, sought refuge from any further conflict by hastening to her chamber: not once, till she arrived there, recollecting that her letter was left in his hands; while the hundred pounds, which she meant to return to him, were still in her own.

Painfully revolving a scene which had deeply affected her, Ellis, for some time, had remained uninterrupted, when, opening her door to a gentle tap, she was startled by the sight of Harleigh. The letter of Elinor was in his hand, which he immediately presented to her, and bowing without speaking, without looking at her, instantly disappeared.

Ellis was so confounded, first by his unexpected sight, and next by his so speedily vanishing, that she lost the opportunity of returning the bank notes. For some minutes she gazed pensively down the staircase; slowly, then, she shut her door, internally uttering 'all is over: – he is gone, and will pursue me no more.' Then casting up her eyes, which filled with tears, 'may he,' she added, 'be happy!'