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

by Fanny Burney · English · Gutenberg #37438 · 427,607 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 2 of 5)

Author: Fanny Burney


        
Release date: September 15, 2011 [eBook #37438]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online
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VOLUME II




CHAPTER XX


Ellis hastened to the house; but her weeping eyes, and disordered state
of mind, unfitted her for an immediate encounter with Elinor, and she
went straight to her own chamber; where, in severe meditation upon her
position, her duties, and her calls for exertion, she 'communed with her
own heart.' Although unable, while involved in uncertainties, to arrange
any regular plan of general conduct, conscience, that unerring guide,
where consulted with sincerity, pointed out to her, that, after what had
passed, the first step demanded by honour, was to quit the house, the
spot, and the connexions, in which she was liable to keep alive any
intercourse with Harleigh. What strikes me to be right, she internally
cried, I must do; I may then have some chance for peace, ... however
little for happiness!

Her troubled spirits thus appeased, she descended to inform Elinor of
the result of her commission. She had received, indeed, no direct
message; but Harleigh meant to desire a conference, and that desire
would quiet, she hoped, and occupy the ideas of Elinor, so as to divert
her from any minute investigation into the circumstances by which it had
been preceded.

The door of the dressing room was locked, and she tapped at it for
admission in vain; she concluded that Elinor was in her bed-chamber, to
which there was no separate entrance, and tapped louder, that she might
be heard; but without any better success. She remained, most uneasily,
in the landing-place, till the approaching footstep of Harleigh forced
her away.

Upon re-entering her own chamber, and taking up her needle-work, she
found a letter in its folds.

The direction was merely To Ellis. This assured her that it was from
Elinor, and she broke the seal, and read the following lines.

     'All that now remains for the ill-starred Elinor, is to fly the
     whole odious human race. What can it offer to me but disgust and
     aversion? Despoiled of the only scheme in which I ever gloried,
     that of sacrificing in death, to the man whom I adore, the
     existence I vainly wished to devote to him in life;--despoiled of
     this--By whom despoiled?--by you! Ellis,--by you!--Yet--Oh
     incomprehensible!--You, refuse Albert Harleigh!--Never, never could
     I have believed in so senseless an apathy, but for the changed
     countenance which shewed the belief in it of Harleigh.

     'If your rejection, Ellis, is that you may marry Lord Melbury,
     which alone makes its truth probable--you have done what is natural
     and pardonable, though heartless and mercenary; and you will offer
     me an opportunity to see how Harleigh--Albert Harleigh, will
     conduct himself when--like me!--he lives without hope.

     'If, on the contrary, you have uttered that rejection, from the
     weak folly of dreading to witness a sudden and a noble end, to a
     fragile being, sighing for extinction,--on your own head fall your
     perjury and its consequences!

     'I go hence immediately. No matter whither.

     'Should I be pursued, I am aware I may soon be traced: but to what
     purpose? I am independent alike in person, fortune, and mind; I
     cannot be brought back by force, and I will not be moved by idle
     persuasion, or hacknied remonstrance. No! blasted in all my worldly
     views, I will submit to worldly slavery no longer. My aunt,
     therefore, will do well not to demand one whom she cannot claim.

     'Tell her this.

     'Harleigh--

     'But no,--Harleigh will not follow me! He would deem himself bound
     to me ever after, by all that men hold honourable amongst one
     another, if, through any voluntary measure of his own, the shadow
     of a censure could be cast upon Elinor.

     'Oh, perfect Harleigh! I will not involve your generous
     delicacy--for not yours, not even yours would I be, by the foul
     constraint of worldly etiquette! I should disdain to owe your
     smallest care for me to any menace, or to any meanness.

     'Let him, not, therefore, Ellis, follow me; and I here pledge
     myself to preserve my miserable existence, till I see him again,
     in defiance of every temptation to disburthen myself of its
     loathsome weight. By the love I bear to him, I pledge myself!

     'Tell him this.

     'ELINOR JODDREL.'

Ellis read this letter in speechless consternation. To be the confident
of so extraordinary a flight, seemed danger to her safety, while it was
horrour to her mind.

The two commissions with which, so inconsiderately, she was charged, how
could she execute? To seek Harleigh again, she thought utterly wrong:
and how deliver any message to Mrs Maple, without appearing to be an
accomplice in the elopement? She could only prove her innocence by
shewing the letter itself, which, in clearing her from that charge, left
one equally heavy to fall upon her, of an apparently premeditated design
to engage, or, as the world might deem it, inveigle, the young Lord
Melbury into marriage. It was evident that upon that idea alone, rested
the belief of Elinor in a faithful adherence to the promised rejection;
and that the letter which she had addressed to Ellis, was but meant as a
memorandum of terrour for its observance.

Not long afterwards, Selina came eagerly to relate, that the dinner-bell
having been rung, and the family being assembled, and the butler having
repeatedly tapt at the door of sister Elinor, to hurry her; Mrs Maple,
not alarmed, because accustomed to her inexactitude, had made every body
dine: after which, Tomlinson was sent to ask whether sister Elinor chose
to come down to the dessert; but he brought word that he could not make
either her or Mrs Golding speak. Selina was then desired to enquire the
reason of such strange taciturnity; but could not obtain any answer.

Mrs Maple, saying that there was no end to her vagaries, then returned
to the drawing-room; concluding, from former similar instances, that,
dark, late, and cold as it was, Elinor had walked out with her maid, at
the very hour of dinner. But Mr Harleigh, who looked extremely uneasy,
requested Selina to see if her sister were not with Miss Ellis.

To this Ellis, by being found alone, was spared any reply; and Selina
skipt down stairs to coffee.

How to avoid, or how to sustain the examination which she expected to
ensue, occupied the disturbed mind of Ellis, till Selina, in about two
hours, returned, exclaiming, 'Sister Elinor grows odder and odder! do
you know she is gone out in the chariot? She ordered it herself,
without saying a word to aunt, and got in, with Golding, close to the
stables! Tomlinson has just owned it to Mr Harleigh, who was grown quite
frightened at her not coming home, now it's so pitch dark. Tomlinson
says she went into the hall herself, and made him contrive it all. But
we are no wiser still as to where she is gone.'

The distress of Ellis what course to take, increased every moment as it
grew later, and as the family became more seriously alarmed. Her
consciousness that there was no chance of the return of Elinor, made her
feel as if culpable in not putting an end to fruitless expectation; yet
how produce a letter of which every word demanded secresy, when all
avowal would be useless, since Elinor could not be forced back?

No one ascended again to her chamber till ten o'clock at night: the
confusion in the house was then redoubled, and a footman came hastily up
stairs to summon her to Mrs Maple.

She descended with terrour, and found Mrs Maple in the parlour, with
Harleigh, Ireton, and Mrs Fenn.

In a voice of the sharpest reprimand, Mrs Maple began to interrogate
her: while Harleigh, who could not endure to witness a haughty rudeness
which he did not dare combat, taking the arm of Ireton, whom he could
still less bear to leave a spectator to a scene of humiliation to Ellis,
quitted the room.

Vain, however, was either enquiry or menace; and Mrs Maple, when she
found that she could not obtain any information, though she had heard,
from Mrs Fenn, that Ellis had passed the morning with her niece,
declared that she would no longer keep so dangerous a pauper in the
house; and ordered her to be gone with the first appearance of light.

Ellis, courtseying in silence, retired.

In re-passing through the hall, she met Harleigh and Ireton; the former
only bowed to her, impeded by his companion from speaking; but Ireton,
stopping her, said, 'O! I have caught you at last! I thought, on my
faith, I was always to seek you where you were never to be found. If I
had not wanted to do what was right, and proper, and all that, I should
have met with you a hundred times; for I never desired to do something
that I might just as well let alone, but opportunity offered itself
directly.'

Ellis tried to pass him, and he became more serious. 'It's an age that I
have wanted to see you, and to tell you how prodigiously ashamed I am of
all that business. I don't know how the devil it was, but I went on,
tumbling from blunder to blunder, till I got into such a bog, that I
could neither stand still, nor make my way out:--'

Ellis, gratified that he would offer any sort of apology, and by no
means wishing that he would make it more explicit, readily assured him,
that she would think no more upon the subject; and hurried to her
chamber: while Harleigh, who stood aloof, thought he observed as much of
dignity as of good humour, in her flying any further explanation.

But Mrs Maple, who only meant, by her threat, to intimidate Ellis into a
confession of what she knew of the absence, and of the purposes, of
Elinor, was so much enraged by her calmness, that she told Mrs Fenn to
follow her, with positive orders, that, unless she would own the truth,
she should quit the house immediately, though it were in the dead of the
night.

Violence so inhuman rather inspired than destroyed fortitude in Ellis,
who quietly answered, that she would seek an asylum, till day-light, at
the neighbouring farmer's.

Selina followed, and, embracing her, with many tears, vowed eternal
friendship to her; and asked whether she did not think that Lady Aurora
would be equally constant.

'I must hope so!' she answered, sighing, 'for what else have I to hope?'

She now made her preparations; yet decided not to depart, unless again
commanded; hoping that this gust of passion would pass away, and that
she might remain till the morning.

While awaiting, with much inquietude, some new order, Selina, to her
great surprise, came jumping into the room, to assure her that all was
well, and more than well; for that her aunt not only ceased to desire to
send her away directly, but had changed her whole plan, and was foremost
now in wishing her to stay.

Ellis, begging for an explanation, then heard, that Ireton had told Mrs
Maple, that there was just arrived at Brighton M. Vinstreigle, a
celebrated professor, who taught the harp; and of whom he should be
charmed that Selina should take some lessons.

Mrs Maple answered, that it would be the height of extravagance, to send
for a man of whom they knew nothing, when they had so fine a performer
under their own roof. Ireton replied, that he should have mentioned that
from the first, but for the objections which then seemed to be in the
way of trusting Miss Ellis with such a charge: but when he again named
the professor, Mrs Maple hastily commissioned Selina to acquaint Ellis,
that, to-morrow morning they were to begin a regular course of lessons
together upon the harp.

Though relieved, by being spared the danger and disgrace of a nocturnal
expulsion, Ellis shrunk from the project of remaining longer in a house
in which Harleigh was admitted at pleasure; and over which Elinor might
keep a constant watch. It was consolatory, nevertheless, to her
feelings, that Ireton, hitherto her defamer, should acquiesce in this
offer, which, at least, not to disoblige Mrs Maple, she would accept for
the moment. To give lessons, also, to a young lady of fashion, might
make her own chosen scheme, of becoming a governess in some respectable
family, more practicable.

About midnight, a horseman, whom Mrs Maple had sent with enquiries to
Brighthelmstone, returned, and informed her, that he could there gather
no tidings; but that he had met with a friend of his own, who had told
him that he had seen Miss Joddrel, in Mrs Maple's carriage, upon the
Portsmouth road.

Mrs Maple, now, seeing all chance of her return, for the night, at an
end, said, that if her niece had freaks of this inconsiderate and
indecorous sort, she would not have the family disordered, by waiting
for her any longer; and, wishing the two gentlemen good night, gave
directions that all the servants should go to bed.

The next morning, during breakfast, the groom returned with the empty
carriage. Miss Joddrel, he said, had made him drive her and Mrs Golding
to an inn, about ten miles from Lewes, where she suddenly told him that
she should pass the night; and bid him be ready for returning at eight
o'clock the next morning. He obeyed her orders; but, the next morning,
heard, that she had gone on, over night, in a hired chaise, towards
Portsmouth; charging no one to let him know it. This was all the account
that he was able to give; except that, when he had asked whether his
mistress would not be angry at his staying out all night, Miss Joddrel
had answered, 'O, Ellis will let her know that she must not expect me
back.'

Selina, who related this, was told to fetch Ellis instantly.

Ellis descended with the severest pain, from the cruel want of
reflection in Elinor, which exposed her to an examination that, though
she felt herself bound to evade, it must seem inexcuseable not to
satisfy.

Mrs Maple and the two gentlemen were at the breakfast-table. Harleigh
would not even try to command himself to sit still, when he found that
Ellis was forced to stand: and even Ireton, though he did not move,
kept not his place from any intentional disrespect; for he would have
thought himself completely old-fashioned, had he put himself out of his
way, though for a person of the highest distinction.

'How comes it, Mistress Ellis,' said Mrs Maple, 'that you had a message
for me last night, from my niece, and that you never delivered it?'

Ellis, confounded, tried vainly to offer some apology.

Mrs Maple rose still more peremptorily in her demands, mingling the
haughtiest menaces with the most imperious interrogations; attacking her
as an accomplice in the clandestine scheme of Elinor; and accusing her
of favouring disobedience and disorder, for some sinister purposes of
her own.

Ireton scrupled not to speak in her favour; and Selina eagerly echoed
all that he advanced: but, Harleigh, though trembling with indignant
impatience to defend her, feared, in the present state of things, that
to become her advocate might rather injure than support her; and
constrained himself to be silent.

A succession of categorical enquiries, forced, at length, an avowal from
Ellis, that her commission had been given to her in a letter. Mrs Maple,
then, in the most authoritative manner, insisted upon reading it
immediately.

Against the justice of this desire there was no appeal; yet how comply
with it? The secret of Harleigh, with regard to herself, was included in
that of Elinor; and honour and delicacy exacted the most rigid silence
from her for both. Yet the difficulty of the refusal increased, from the
increased urgency, even to fury, of Mrs Maple; till, shamed and
persecuted beyond all power of resistance, she resolved upon committing
the letter to the hands of Harleigh himself; who, to an interest like
her own in its concealment, superadded courage and consequence for
sustaining the refusal.

This, inevitably, must break into her design of avoiding him; but,
hurried and harassed, she could devise no other expedient, to escape
from an appearance of utter culpability to the whole house. When again,
therefore, Mrs Maple, repeated, 'Will you please to let me see my
niece's letter, or not?' She answered that there was a passage in it
upon which Miss Joddrel had desired that Mr Harleigh might be consulted.

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.




CHAPTER XXI


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!'

From this sadness she was roused, by feeling, from the thickness of the
packet, that it must contain some additional paper; eagerly opening it,
she found the following letter:

     'I have acquainted Mrs Maple that Miss Joddrel has determined upon
     living, for a while, alone, and that her manner of announcing that
     determination, in her letter to you, is so peremptory, as to make
     you deem it improper to be produced. This, as a mark of personal
     respect, appeases her; and, upon this subject, I believe you will
     be tormented no more. With regard to the unfortunate secret of
     Elinor, I can but wish it as safe in her own discretion, as it will
     remain in your honour.

     'For myself, I must now practise that hardest lesson to the
     stubborn mind of man, submission to undefined, and what appears to
     be unnecessary evil. I must fly from this spot, and wait, where and
     as I can, the restoration of Elinor to prudence and to common life.
     I must trust that the less she is opposed, the less tenaciously
     she will cling to the impracticable project, of ruling the mind
     and will of another, by letting loose her own. When she hears that
     I deny myself inhabiting the mansion which you inhabit, perhaps,
     relieved from the apprehension of being deceived by others, she may
     cease to deceive herself. She may then return to her friends,
     contented to exist by the general laws of established society;
     which, though they may be ameliorated, changed, or reformed, by
     experience, wisely reflecting upon the past; by observation, keenly
     marking the present; or by genius, creatively anticipating the
     future, can never be wholly reversed, without risking a re-bound
     that simply restores them to their original condition.

     'I depart, therefore, without one more effort to see you. I yield
     to the strange destiny that makes me adore in the dark; yet that
     blazons to my view and knowledge the rarest excellencies, the most
     resistless attractions: but to remain in the same house, yet
     scarcely ever to behold you; or, in seeing you but for a moment, to
     awaken a sensibility that electrifies every hope, only to inflict,
     with the greater severity, the shock that strikes me back to
     mystery and despondence--no, I will be gone! Her whom I cannot
     soften, I will at least forbear to persecute.

     'In this retreat, my only consolation for your happiness is in the
     friendship, so honourable for both, that you have formed with Lady
     Aurora Granville; my only reliance for your safety, is in the
     interest of Mrs Maple to detain you under her roof, for the
     improvement of Selina; and my only hope for myself, is, that when
     Elinor becomes reasonable, you will no longer let her exclusively
     occupy your humanity or your feeling.

     'ALBERT HARLEIGH.'

       *       *       *       *       *

The tone of remonstrance, if not of reproach, which was blended with the
serious attachment marked by Harleigh in this letter, deeply touched
Ellis; who was anxiously re-perusing it, when she received information,
through Selina, that Mr Harleigh had set out for London; whence he meant
to proceed to Bath, or, perhaps, to make the western tour.

The earnestness of Ireton that Selina should take some lessons upon the
harp, joined to the equal earnestness of Mrs Maple, to elude the
expensive professor at Brighthelmstone, confirmed the new orders that
Selina should begin a course of instruction with Ellis. The mistress and
the scholar were mutually well disposed, and Ellis was endeavouring to
give her pupil some idea of a beautiful Sonata, when Miss Arbe, entering
the house upon a morning visit, and catching the sound of a harp from
the dressing-room of Selina, so touched as Selina, she knew, could not
touch it, nimbly ran up stairs. Happy, then, to have surprised Miss
Ellis at the instrument, she would take no denial to hearing her play.

The elegance and feeling of her performance, engaged, alike, the ready
envy, and the unwilling admiration of Miss Arbe; who, a self-conceived
paragon in all the fine arts, thought superior merit in a _diletanti_ a
species of personal affront. She had already felt as an injury to her
theatrical fame, the praise which had reached her ears of Ellis as Lady
Townly; and a new rivalry seemed now to menace her supremacy as chief of
lady performers: but when she gathered, through Selina, who knew not
even of the existence of such an art as that of holding the tongue, that
they were now practising together, her supercilious air was changed into
one of rapture, and she was seized with a strong desire to profit, also,
from such striking talents. A profusion of compliments and civilities,
ended, therefore, in an earnest invitation to cultivate so charming an
acquaintance.

Mrs Maple, while this was passing, came uneasily into the room, meaning
to make a sign to Ellis to glide away unnoticed. But when she found that
Ellis was become the principal object with the fastidious Miss Arbe, and
heard this wish of intimacy, she was utterly confounded that another
person of consequence should countenance, and through her means, this
itinerant Incognita. Yet to obviate the mischief by an avowal similar to
that which she had been forced to make to Mrs Howel, she thought an
insupportable degradation; and Miss Arbe, with the politest declarations
that she should call again the next day, purposely to entitle herself to
a visit in return from Miss Ellis, was already gone, before Mrs Maple
had sufficiently recovered from her confusion, to devise any impediment
to the proposal.

All then that occurred to her, was her usually violent, but short
measure, of sending Ellis suddenly from the house, and excusing her
disappearance, by asserting that her own friends had summoned her away:
for Mrs Maple, like at least half the world, though delicate with
respect to her character for truth in public, had palliations always
ready for any breach of it, in favour of convenience, in private.

Ellis attempted not any opposition. The sufferings annexed to an asylum
thus perpetually embittered by reproach and suspicion, had long made her
languish to change it for almost any other; and her whole thoughts
turned once more upon a journey to London, and an interview with Lady
Aurora Granville.

Selina warmly protested that this separation should only augment her
attachment to her favourite; by whose side she stayed, prattling,
weeping, or practising the harp, till she was called away to Mrs Maple;
from whom, however, she soon returned, relating, with uplifted hands,
that all below was again in the utmost confusion, through a letter, just
arrived, from Mrs Howel, stating the following particulars. That upon
her communicating to Lord Denmeath the strange transaction, in which she
must forever blush to have been, however innocently, involved, his
lordship, very properly, had forbidden Lady Aurora to keep any sort of
correspondence with so palpable an adventurer. But the excess of grief
produced by this prohibition, had astonished and concerned both his
lordship and herself: and their joint alarm had been cruelly augmented,
by a letter from Mrs Greaves, the housekeeper, with intelligence that
Lord Melbury had been shut up nearly two hours with this suspicious
young woman, on the day that Mrs Howel had quitted Brighthelmstone;
during which time, his lordship had suffered no one to come into the
room, though she, Greaves, in accidentally passing by one of the
windows, saw his lordship demean himself so far as to be speaking to her
upon his knees. Lord Denmeath, treating this account as an impertinent
piece of scandal, requested to have it shewn to his nephew; but how
unspeakable was their consternation when Lord Melbury undauntedly
avowed, that the charge was true; and added, that he was glad of the
opportunity thus afforded him, to declare that Miss Ellis was the most
virtuous and dignified, as well as the most beautiful and amiable of her
sex: she had rejected, he said, a suit which he should always take shame
to himself for having made; and rejected it in a manner so impressive of
real purity, that he should for ever hold it his duty to do her honour
by every means in his power. The wrath expressed by Lord Denmeath, and
the tears shed by Lady Aurora, during this scene, were dreadful. Lord
Denmeath saw that there was no time to be lost in guarding against the
most eminent danger: he desired, therefore, that the young woman might
be induced, if possible, to quit the country without delay; and his
lordship was willing not only to pay for her voyage back, but to give
security that she should receive a very considerable sum of money, the
instant that he should be assured of her safe landing upon the
continent. Mrs Howel begged that Mrs Maple would endeavour to bring this
plan to bear; and, at all events, not lose sight of the young person,
till she should be, some how or other, secured from Lord Melbury. The
rest of the letter contained injunctions, that Mrs Maple would not let
this disgraceful affair transpire in the neighbourhood; with sundry
scornful admonitions, that she would herself be more guarded, in future,
whom she recommended to her friends.

Mrs Maple, now, peremptorily sent word to Ellis, that she must
immediately make up her mind to leaving the kingdom. But Ellis, without
hesitation, answered that she had no such design. Commands and menaces,
though amply employed, were fruitless to obtain any change in her
resolution. She was, therefore, positively ordered to seek for charity
in some other house.

Ellis, no longer wishing to stay, occupied her mind almost exclusively
with the thoughts of her young friends. The tender attachment shewn to
her by Lady Aurora, and the honourable testimony borne her by Lord
Melbury, cheered her spirits, and warmed her heart, with a trust in
their regard, that, defying the inflexibility of Mrs Howel, the
authority of Lord Denmeath, and the violence of Mrs Maple, filled her
with soft, consolatory ideas, that sweetened her night's rest, even in
her uncertainty where she should find, or where seek repose on the night
that would follow.

But this brighter side of her prospects, which soothed her on its first
view, lost its gay colouring upon farther examination: that Lady Aurora
should be forbidden to see, forbidden to write to her, was shocking to
her feelings, and blighting to her happiness: and even though the tender
nature, and strong partiality, of that youthful friend, might privately
yield to the pleadings of an oppressed and chosen favourite, Ellis,
while glowing with the hope that the interest which she had excited
would be lastingly cherished, revolted from every plan that was
clandestine.

Mrs Maple, who, in common with all those whose tempers are violent in
the same proportion that their judgment is feeble, had issued forth her
mandates, without examining whether they could be obeyed; and had
uttered her threats, without considering whether she could put them into
execution; no sooner learnt, from Selina, that Ellis was tranquilly
preparing to depart, than she repented the step which she had taken, and
passed the night in suggesting how it might be retrieved, to spare
herself the discredit, in the neighbourhood, of a breach with Mrs Howel.

The next morning, therefore, the willing Selina was instructed to
hasten to Ellis, with a message from Mrs Maple, graciously permitting
one more lesson upon the harp.

Destitute as Ellis felt, she would have resisted such a mockery of
benevolence, but from gratitude at the pleasure which it procured to
Selina.

Again, according to her promise, arrived Miss Arbe, and again hearing
the sound of the harp, tript lightly up stairs to the dressing-room of
Selina; where she paid her compliments immediately to Ellis, whom she
courteously solicited to take an airing with her to Brighthelmstone, and
thence to accompany her home for the day.

Anxious to strengthen her weak resources, by forming some new
connection, Ellis was listening to this proposal, when a footman brought
her a letter.

Concluding that it came from abroad, she received it with strong
emotion, and evident alarm; but no sooner had she looked at the
direction, than the brightest bloom glowed upon her cheeks, her eyes
were suffused with tears of pleasure, and she pressed, involuntarily, to
her heart, the writing of Lady Aurora Granville.

The little coronet seal, with the cypher A. G., had been observed not
alone by Miss Arbe, but by Mrs Maple, who, curiously, had followed the
footman into the room.

Miss Arbe, now, renewed her invitation with redoubled earnestness; and
Mrs Maple felt almost insane, from excess of wrath and embarrassment,
when, suddenly, and most unexpectedly, Ellis accepted the offer;
gratefully embracing Selina, and taking of herself a grave, but
respectful leave.

From the window Mrs Maple, then, saw this unknown Wanderer enter the
carriage first.

For some time, she remained almost stupified by so unlooked for an
event; and she could only quiet her conscience, for having been
accessary, though so unintentionally, to procuring this favour and
popularity for such an adventurer, by devoutly resolving, that no
entreaties, and no representation, should ever in future, dupe her out
of her own good sense, into other people's fantastical conceits of
charity.




CHAPTER XXII


It was not the design of Ellis to return any more to Lewes. The gross
treatment which she had experienced, and the daily menace of being
dismissed, were become utterly insupportable; and she determined, in a
letter from Brighthelmstone, to take a final leave of Mrs Maple.

From the high influence of Miss Arbe in what is called the polite world,
she hoped that to engage her favour, would almost secure prosperity to
her favourite wish and plan, of exchanging her helpless dependancy, for
an honourable, however fatiguing, exertion of the talents and
acquirements with which she had been endowed by her education; though
nothing short of the courage of distress could have stimulated her to
such an attempt.

As soon, therefore, as Miss Arbe renewed her eager invitations, Ellis
expressively said, 'Are you sure, Madam, that you will not repent your
goodness, when you know that I want, as well as that I value it?'

A carriage, which they just then met, stopt the chaise, and the voice of
Miss Bydel called out a lamentation, that she was obliged to go home,
because her brother wanted the coach; though she had earnest business at
Brighthelmstone, whither she entreated Miss Arbe to convey her. Miss
Arbe seemed much chagrined, both by the interruption and the intrusion,
yet was so obviously going that way, that she knew not how to form an
excuse; and Miss Bydel entered the chaise.

Extremely pleased by the sight of Ellis, 'What,' she cried, 'my sister
actress? Why this is what I did not expect indeed! I was told you would
go no where, Miss Ellis, but to Lady Aurora Granville, and the
Honourable Med: Howel. Pray is it true? I should not ask if it were a
secret, for I know nobody likes one's being curious; but as all the
servants must know it, it's not a thing to be kept long in the dark. And
I am told, too, since it's being found out that you are a young lady of
fashion, that it's the high talk that you've made a conquest of Lord
Melbury; and I can't but say but I should like to know if that's a
report that has got any foundation. Pray will you be so kind as to tell
me.'

Ellis assured her that it had not the least.

'Well, how people do like to make strange stories! One piece of
information, however, I should be really glad if you would give me; and
that is, whether you are come over to settle here, or only upon a visit
to Mrs Maple? And whether she has the care of your fortune, as a sort of
guardian; or whether it is all in your own hands?'

Ellis, disturbed by these most unseanable questions, answered, in a
dejected tone, that she was not happy enough to be able, at this moment,
to give any circumstantial account of herself.

Miss Arbe, who only imperfectly understood the speech which had been
made as the chaise was stopt, languished to hear it explained.
Privately, therefore, by arch winks, and encouraging taps, she urged on
the broad questions of Miss Bydel; though she was too expert an adept in
the rules, at least, of good breeding, not to hold back herself from
such interrogatories, as might level her elevated fame with that of the
gross and homely Miss Bydel; who to sordid friends owed a large fortune,
left her late in life, but neither education nor manners, that might
have taught her that its most hateful privilege is that of authorising
unfeeling liberties.

They had arrived, nevertheless, within half a mile of Brighthelmstone,
before any thing really explanatory had passed: Ellis, then, alarmed
with reflecting that, if again dragged to Lewes, she must again have to
quit it, with scarcely a chance of such another opportunity for
endeavouring to bring forward her project, conquered her reluctance to
opening upon her distress, and said, 'You little suspect, Miss Arbe, how
deep an obligation I owe to your kindness, in carrying me to day to
Brighthelmstone!'

'How so, Miss Ellis? How so, my dear?' cried Miss Bydel, before Miss
Arbe could answer.

'My situation,' she continued, 'which seems so pleasant, is perhaps
amongst the most painful that can be imagined. I feel myself, though in
my native country, like a helpless foreigner; unknown, unprotected, and
depending solely upon the benevolence of those by whom, accidentally, I
am seen, for kindness,--or even for support!--'

The amazement of the two ladies, at this declaration, was equally great,
though Miss Arbe, who never spoke and never acted, but through the
medium of what she believed the world would most approve to hear her
say, or to see her do, had no chance of manifesting her surprise as
promptly as Miss Bydel; who made her own judgment the sole arbitrator of
her speech and conduct, and who immediately called out, 'Well, nobody
shall ever try to persuade me I am in the wrong again! I said, the whole
time, there was certainly something quite out of the common way in this
young person. And it's plain I was right. For how, I said, can it be,
that, first of all, a young person is brought out as nothing, and then
is turned into a fine lady; when, all the time, nobody knows any thing
about her? But pray tell me this one thing, child; what was the first
motive of your going over the seas? And what might be the reason of your
coming back again in such an untowardly sort of manner? without any
money, or any one to be accountable for your character?'

Ellis made no answer. The obligations, however heavy of endurance, which
led her to bear similar, and still more offensive examinations from Mrs
Maple, existed not here; and the compulsion of debts of that nature,
could alone strengthen the patience, or harden the feelings of a
generous spirit, to sustain so rude and unfeeling an inquisition.

Miss Arbe, though anxious to understand, before she uttered even a word,
what sort of footing, independently of Mrs Maple, this young person was
upon in the world, failed not to remark, in her silence, a courage that
unavoidably spoke in her favour.

Ellis saw, but too plainly, how little she had to expect from
spontaneous pity, or liberality; and hesitated whether to plead more
humbly, or to relinquish at once her plan.

'You are still, then,' resumed Miss Bydel, 'at your secret-keeping, I
find, that we were told so much about at the beginning, before the
discovery of your being a lady of family and fashion; which came out so,
all of the sudden, at last, that I should never have believed a word of
it, but for knowing Mrs Maple to be so amazing particular as to those
points.--'

'And Mrs Howel!' here interrupted Miss Arbe, casting at Ellis, upon the
recollection of such a confirmation of her birth and connections, a look
of so much favour, that, again hoping for her aid, Ellis begged to
alight at Miss Matson's, the milliner.

Miss Arbe said that she would attend her thither with pleasure. 'And I,
my dear,' said Miss Bydel, 'will go in with you, too; for I want a few
odd matters for myself.'

Ellis, finding how little she was understood, was forced to add: 'It is
not for any purchases that I go to Miss Matson;--it is to lodge in her
house, till I can find some better asylum!--'

The first amazement of the two ladies sunk into nothing, when contrasted
with that which they experienced at this moment. That she should
acknowledge herself to be poor, was quite enough, be her other claims to
notice what they might, to excite immediate contempt in Miss Bydel:
while Miss Arbe, in that point, more liberal, but, in all that she
conceived to belong to fashion, a very slave, was embarrassed how to
treat her, till she could gain some information how she was likely to be
treated by the world: but neither of them had entertained the most
distant suspicion, that she was not settled under the roof, and the
patronage, of Mrs Maple. To hear, therefore, of her seeking a lodging,
and wanting an asylum, presented her in so new, so altered, and so
humiliated a point of view, that Miss Bydel herself was not immediately
able to speak; and the two ladies stared at each other, as if
reciprocally demanding how to behave.

Ellis perceived their dilemma, and again lost her hope.

'A lodging?' at length cried Miss Bydel. 'Well, I am less surprised than
any body else will be, for when things have an odd beginning, I always
expect them to have an odd end. But how comes it,--for that can be no
secret,--that you are looking out for a lodging? I should like to know
what all that means. Pray what may be the reason that Mrs Maple does not
find you a lodging herself? And who is to take care of you? Does she
lend you any of her own servants? These things, at least, can be no
secrets, or else I should not ask; but the servants must needs know
whether they are lent or not.'

Ellis made no reply; and still Miss Arbe held back.

'Well,' resumed Miss Bydel, 'I don't like to judge any body, but
certainly it is no good sign to be so close. Some things, however, must
be known whether people will or not: so I hope at least I may ask,
whether your friends are coming to you in your lodging?--and what you
intend to do there?--and how long you think to live there?--and what is
the true cause of your going there?--For there must certainly be some
reason.'

Ellis, who now found that she must either answer Miss Bydel or forego
her whole scheme, from the determined backwardness of Miss Arbe to take
any active part in her affairs, said, 'My past history, Madam, it would
be useless to hear--and impossible for me to relate: my present plan
must depend upon a charitable construction of my unavoidable,
indispensable silence; without which it would be madness to hope for
any favour, any recommendation, that may give the smallest chance of
success to my attempt.'

'And what is your attempt?' cried Miss Bydel; 'for if that's a secret
too, I can't find out how you're to do it.'

'On the contrary,' she answered, 'I am well aware that I must publish,
or relinquish it; and immediately I would make it known, if I dared hope
that I might appear qualified for the office I wish to undertake, in the
eyes of--'

She looked at Miss Arbe, but did not venture to proceed.

Miss Arbe, understanding, and feeling the compliment, yet uneasy to have
it equally understood by Miss Bydel, complacently broke her silence, by
saying, 'In whose eyes?--Lady Aurora Granville's?'

'Ah! Madam,--the condescending partiality of Lady Aurora, might
encourage every hope of the honour of her interest and zeal;--but she is
peculiarly situated;--and perhaps the weight that must be attached to a
recommendation of the sort which I require--'

She was going to say, might demand more experience than her ladyship's
extreme youth allowed to have yet fallen to her share; but she stopt.
She was aware that she stood upon dangerous ground. The vanity of Miss
Arbe was, at least, as glaring as her talents; and to celebrate even her
judgment in the fine arts, though it was the pride of her life, by an
insinuation that, at one-and-thirty she was not in the first budding
youth of fifteen, might offend, by an implication that added years
contributed to a superiority, which she wished to have considered as due
to brighter genius alone.

From what was said, Miss Arbe could not be without some suspicion of
what was held back; and she as little desired to hear, as Ellis could to
utter, a word that might derogate from the universal elevation and
distinction at which she aspired; she was perfectly ready, therefore, to
accept what would flatter, and to reject what would mortify her;
forgetting, in common with all vain characters, that to shrink from the
truth ourselves, saves one person only from hearing our defects.

'It is true,' said Miss Arbe, smiling, 'Lady Aurora cannot be supposed
to have much weight with the world, amiable as she is. The world is not
very easily led; and, certainly, only by those who acquire a certain
ascendance over it, by some qualifications not entirely of the most
common sort.--'

'But still I don't understand,' cried Miss Bydel, 'what it is Miss Ellis
means. What is it you want to be recommended about, child?--What is this
attempt you talk of?--Have you got your fortune with you?--or does Mrs
Maple keep it in her own hands?--or have not you got any left?--or
perhaps you've had none from the beginning?'

Ellis briefly explained, that her wish was to be placed in some family,
where there were children, as a governess.

Again, the two ladies were equally surprised, at the project of so
steady and elaborate an undertaking; and Miss Bydel broke forth into the
most abrupt enquiries, of how Mrs Maple came to agree to such a scheme;
whether it were approved of by Mrs Howel; and what Ellis could teach, or
do, if it took place.

Ellis, when compelled to speak, was compelled, also, to confess, that
she had not mentioned her design to either of those ladies.

Miss Bydel now, stiffly drawing up, declared that she could not help
taking the liberty to say, that for a young lady, who was under the care
of two persons of so much consideration and fortune, to resolve upon
disposing of herself, without consulting either of them, was a thing she
never should countenance; and which she was sure all the world would be
against.

These were alarming words for Miss Arbe, whose constant and predominant
thought, was ever upon public opinion. All, too, seemed, now, at an end,
that had led, or could lead, to conciliation, where there was so
peculiar a rivalry in talents; joined to a superiority of beauty,
visible even to her own eyes; for how, if the hours of Ellis were to be
consigned to the care and improvement of young ladies, could either time
or opportunity be found, to give, and in private, the musical
instructions, for the hope of which alone Miss Arbe had been so earnest
in her invitations, and so courteous in her manners?

Without offering, therefore, the smallest softening word to the bluff
questions, or gross censures of Miss Bydel, she was silent till they
entered Brighthelmstone; and then only spoke to order the postilion to
stop at Miss Matson's. There arrived, the two ladies let her alight
alone; Miss Bydel, with a proud nod, just uttering, 'Good bye!' and Miss
Arbe, with a forced smile, saying she was happy to have been of any use
to her.

Ellis remained so confounded, when thus unexpectedly abandoned, that she
stood still, a few minutes, at the door, unable to answer, or even to
understand, the civil inquiries of a young woman, from the shop, whether
she would not come in, to give her commands. When a little recovered,
she entered, and, in the meek tone of apprehension, asked whether she
could again hire, for a few nights, or a week, the little room in which
she had slept some time since.

Miss Matson, recollecting her voice, came now from the back parlour,
most courteously rejoicing at seeing her; and disguising her surprise,
that she should again enquire for so cheap and ordinary a little
lodging. For Miss Matson, and her family, had learnt, from various
reports, that she was the same young lady who had given so much pleasure
by her performance in the Provoked Husband; and who had, since, made a
long visit at the Honourable Mrs Howel's, near whose mansion was
situated the shop. But, whatever might be the motive of her return,
there could be none against her admission, since they knew her high
connections, and since, even now, she was set down at the shop by Miss
Arbe. The little room, therefore, was speedily prepared, and the first
use that Ellis made of it, was to write to Selina.

She desired leave to present her thanks to Mrs Maple, for the asylum
which had been afforded to her distress; without any hints at the
drawbacks to its comfort; and then briefly communicated her intention,
to pass the rest of the time of her suspence and difficulties, in
working at her needle; unless she could find means to place herself in
some respectable family, as a governess to its children. She finished
her letter by the warmest acknowledgments, for the kindness which she
had experienced from Selina.

The person who took this note was desired to apply to Mrs Fenn, for the
ready prepared baggage of Ellis.

This, which she thought a respect demanded by decency to Mrs Maple, was
her first action: she then opened, as a balm to her wounded feelings,
the letter of Lady Aurora Granville; but had the cruel disappointment to
find in it only these words:

     'Hate me not, sweet Miss Ellis--but I am forbidden to write to
     you!--forbidden to receive your letters!--

     'A. G.'

Deeply hurt, and deeply offended, Ellis, now, was filled with the
heaviest grief; though neither offended nor hurt by Lady Aurora, whose
trembling hand-writing she kissed a thousand times; with a perfect
conviction, that their sufferings were nearly reciprocal, from this
terrible prohibition.

Her little baggage soon arrived, with a letter from Selina, containing a
permission from Mrs Maple, that Ellis might immediately return to
Lewes, lest, which Mrs Howel would never forgive, she should meet with
Lord Melbury.

Ellis wrote a cold excuse, declaring her firm purpose to endeavour to
depend, henceforth, upon her own exertions.

And, to strengthen this resolution, she re-read a passage in one of her
letters from abroad, to which she had frequent recourse, when her
spirits felt unequal to her embarrassments.

     'Dans une position telle que la votre,--'

     'In your present lonely, unprotected, unexampled situation, many
     and severe may be your trials; let not any of them shake your
     constancy, nor break your silence: while all is secret, all may be
     safe; by a single surmise, all may be lost. But chiefly bear in
     mind, what has been the principle of your education, and what I
     wish to be that of your conduct and character through life: That
     where occasion calls for female exertion, mental strength must
     combat bodily weakness; and intellectual vigour must supply the
     inherent deficiencies of personal courage; and that those, only,
     are fitted for the vicissitudes of human fortune, who, whether
     female or male, learn to suffice to themselves. Be this the motto
     of your story.'




CHAPTER XXIII


The hope of self-dependence, ever cheering to an upright mind, sweetened
the rest of Ellis in her mean little apartment, though with no brighter
prospect than that of procuring a laborious support, through the means
of Miss Matson, should she fail to obtain a recommendation for the
superiour office of a governess.

The decision was yet pending, when a letter from Selina charged her, in
the name of Mrs Maple, to adopt, as yet, no positive measure, in order
to put an end to the further circulation of wonder, that a young lady
should go from under Mrs Maple's protection, to a poor little lodging,
without any attendant, and avowedly in search of a maintenance: and,
further, Selina was bid to add, that, if she would be manageable, she
might still persist in passing for a young gentlewoman; and Mrs Maple
would say that she was reduced to such straights by a bankruptcy in her
family; rather than shock all the ladies who had conversed with her as
Mrs Maple's guest, by telling the truth. Mrs Howel, too, with the
approbation of Lord Denmeath himself, to keep her out of the way of Lord
Melbury, would try to get her the place of an humble companion to some
sick old lady who would take up with her reading and singing, and ask no
questions.

Ellis, with utter contempt, was still perusing this letter, when she was
surprised by a visit from Miss Arbe and Miss Bydel.

Miss Arbe had just been calling upon Mrs Maple, by whom she had been
told the plan of Mrs Howel, and the plausible tale of its sudden
necessity. Finding Ellis still under a protection so respectable, the
wish of a little musical intercourse revived in Miss Arbe; and she
remarked to Miss Bydel, that it would be a real charity, to see what
could be done for an accomplished young woman of family, in
circumstances so lamentable.

The reception they met with from Ellis was extremely cold. The careless
air with which Miss Arbe had heard, without entering into her distress;
and the indifference with which she had suddenly dropt the invitations
that, the minute before, had been urgent nearly to persecution, had left
an impression of the littleness of her character upon the mind of Ellis,
that made her present civilities, though offered with a look that
implied an expectation of gratitude, received with the most distant
reserve. And still less was she disposed to welcome Miss Bydel, whose
behaviour, upon the same occasion, had been rude as well as unfeeling.

Neither of them, however, were rebuffed, though Miss Arbe was
disappointed, and Miss Bydel was amazed: but Miss Arbe had a point to
carry, and would not be put from her purpose; and Miss Bydel, though she
thought it but odd not to be made of more consequence, could not be hurt
from a feeling which she neither possessed nor understood,--delicacy.

'So I hear, Miss Ellis, you have met with misfortunes?' Miss Bydel
began: 'I am sorry for it, I assure you; though I am sure I don't know
who escapes. But I want to know how it all first began. Pray, my dear,
in what manner did you set out in life? A great deal of one's pity
depends upon what people are used to.'

'What most concerns me for poor Miss Ellis,' said Miss Arbe, 'is her
having no instrument. I can't think how she can live without one. Why
don't you hire a harp, Miss Ellis?'

Ellis quietly answered, that she was not very musically inclined.

'But you must not think how you are inclined,' said Miss Bydel, 'if you
are to go out for a companion, as Mrs Howel wants you to do; for I am
sure I don't know who you will get to take you, if you do. I have known
pretty many young women in that capacity, and not one among them ever
had such a thought. How should they? People do not pay them for that.'

'I only hope,' said Miss Arbe, 'that whoever has the good fortune to
obtain the society of Miss Ellis, will have a taste for music. 'Twill be
a thousand shames if her fine talents should be thrown away.'

Ellis, as she suspected not her design, was much surprised by this
return to fine speeches. Still, however, she sustained her own reserve,
for the difficulty of devising to what the change might be owing, made
her cast it upon mere caprice. To the enquiries, also, of Miss Bydel,
she was equally immoveable, as they evidently sprang from coarse and
general curiosity.

This distance, however, was not successful, either in stopping the
questions of Miss Bydel, or the compliments of Miss Arbe. Each followed
the bent of her humour, till Miss Arbe, at length, started an idea that
caught the attention of Ellis: this was, that instead of becoming an
humble companion, she should bring her musical acquirements into use, by
giving lessons to young ladies.

Ellis readily owned that such a plan would be best adapted to her
inclinations, if Mrs Howel and Mrs Maple could be prevailed upon to
exert their influence in procuring her some scholars.

'But a good word or two from Miss Arbe,' said Miss Bydel, 'would do more
for you, in that tuning way, than all their's put together. I should
like to know how it was you got this musical turn, Miss Ellis? Were your
own friends rich enough, my dear, before their bankruptcy, to give you
such an education themselves? or did it all come, as one may say, from a
sort of knack?'

Ellis earnestly asked whether she might hope for the powerful aid of
Miss Arbe to forward such a plan?

Miss Arbe, now, resumed all her dignity, as an acknowledged judge of the
fine arts, and a solicited patroness of their votaries. With smiles,
therefore, of ineffable affability, she promised Ellis her protection;
and glibly ran over the names of twenty or thirty families of
distinction, every one of which, she said, in the choice of instructors
to their children, was guided by her opinion.

'But then,' added she, with an air that now mingled authority with
condescension, 'you must have a better room than this, you know. The
house is well enough, and the milliner is fashionable: she is my own;
but this little hole will never do: you must take the drawing room. And
then you must buy immediately, or at least hire, a very fine instrument.
There is a delightful one at Strode's now: one I long for myself, and
then--' patting her shoulder, 'you must dress, too, a little ... like
other people, you know.'

'But how is she to do it,' said Miss Bydel, 'if she has got no money?'

Ellis, however ashamed, felt rather assisted than displeased by this
plump truth; but it produced no effect upon Miss Arbe, who lightly
replied, 'O, we must not be shabby. We must get things a little decent
about us. A few scholars of my recommending will soon set all that to
rights. Take my advice, Miss Ellis, and you won't find yourself vastly
to be pitied.'

'But what have you got to begin with?' said Miss Bydel. 'How much have
you in hand?'

'Nothing!' answered Ellis, precipitately: 'I lost my purse at Dover, and
I have been destitute ever since! Dependant wholly upon accidental
benevolence.'

Miss Bydel, now, was extremely gratified: this was the first time that
she had surprized from Ellis any account of herself, and she admitted
not a doubt that it would be followed by her whole history. 'That was
unlucky enough,' she said; 'and pray what money might you have in it?'

Ellis, strongly affected herself, though she had not affected her
auditors, by the retrospection of a misfortune which had been so
eventful to her of distress, said no more; till she saw some alarm upon
the countenance of Miss Arbe, at the idea of a _protegee_ really
pennyless; and then, fearing to forfeit her patronage, she mentioned the
twenty pounds which she owed to the generous kindness of Lady Aurora
Granville.

Miss Arbe now smiled more complacently than ever; and Miss Bydel,
straining wide open her large dull eyes, repeated, 'Twenty pounds? Good
me! has Lady Aurora given you twenty pounds?'

'The money,' said Ellis, blushing, 'I hope I may one day return: the
goodness surpasses all requital.'

'Well, if that is the case, we must all try to do something for you, my
dear. I did not know of any body's having begun. And I am never for
being the first in those sort of subscriptions; for I think them little
better than picking people's pockets. Besides that I entirely disapprove
bringing persons that are poor into habits of laziness. However, if Lady
Aurora has given so handsomely, one does not know how to refuse a
trifle. So, I tell you what; I'll pay you a month's hire of a harp.'

Ellis, deeply colouring, begged to decline this offer; but Miss Arbe,
with an air of self-approbation that said: I won't be excelled! cried,
'And I, Miss Ellis, will go to the music shop, and chuse your instrument
for you myself.'

Both the ladies, now, equally elated by internal applause, resolved to
set out instantly upon this errand; without regarding either refusal or
objection from Ellis. Yet Miss Bydel, upon finding that neither Mrs
Howel nor Mrs Maple had yet given any thing, would have retracted from
her intended benefaction, had not Miss Arbe dragged her away, positively
refusing to let her recant, from a conviction that no other method could
be started, by which her own contribution could so cheaply be
presented.

A very fine harp soon arrived, with a message from Miss Arbe, desiring
that she might find Miss Ellis wholly disengaged the next morning, when
she meant to come quite alone, and to settle every thing.

The total want of delicacy shewn in this transaction, made the wishes of
Ellis send back the instrument to Miss Bydel, and refuse the purposed
visit of Miss Arbe: but a little reflection taught her, that, in a
situation so defenceless, pride must give way to prudence; and nicer
feelings must submit to necessity. She sat down, therefore, to her harp,
resolved diligently to practise it as a business, which might lead her
to the self-dependence at which she so earnestly languished to arrive;
and of which she had only learnt the just appreciation, by her
helplessness to resist any species of indignity, while accepting an
unearned asylum.

Cheered, therefore, again, by this view of her new plan, she received
Miss Arbe, the next morning, with a gratitude the most flattering to
that lady, who voluntarily renewed her assurances of protection. 'Very
luckily for you,' she added, 'I shall stay here very late; for Papa says
that he can't afford to begin his winter this year before May or June.'

Then, sending for a large packet of music from her carriage, she
proposed trying the instrument; complacently saying, that she had chosen
the very best which could be procured, though Miss Bydel had vehemently
struggled to make her take a cheaper one. Miss Arbe, however, would not
indulge her parsimony. 'I can't bear,' she cried, 'any thing that is
mean.'

What Miss Arbe called trying the instrument, was selecting the most
difficult passages, from the most difficult music which she attempted to
play, and making Ellis teach her the fingering, the time, and the
expression, in a lesson which lasted the whole morning.

Miss Arbe, who aspired at passing for an adept in every accomplishment,
seized with great quickness whatever she began to learn; but her
ambition was so universal, and her pursuits were so numerous, that one
of them marred another; and while every thing was grasped at, nothing
was attained. Yet the general aim passed with herself for general
success; and because she had taken lessons in almost all the arts, she
concluded that of all the arts she was completely mistress.

This persuasion made her come forward, in the circles to which she
belonged, with a courage that she deemed to be the just attribute of
superiour merit; and her family and friends, not less complaisant, and
rarely less superficial, in their judgments than herself, sanctioned
her claims by their applause; and spread their opinions around, till,
hearing them reverberated, they believed them to be fame.

The present scheme for Ellis had another forcible consideration in its
favour with Miss Arbe; a consideration not often accustomed to be
treated with utter contempt, even by higher and wiser characters; the
convenience of her purse. Her various accomplishments had already
exhausted the scanty powers for extra-expences of her father; and it was
long since she had received any instructions through the ordinary means
of remuneration. But, ingenious in whatever could turn to her advantage,
she contrived to learn more when she ceased to recompense her masters,
than while the obligation between them and their pupil was reciprocated;
for she sought no acquaintance but amongst the scholars of the most
eminent professors, whether of music or painting: her visits were always
made at the moment which she knew to be dedicated to practising, or
drawing; and she regularly managed, by adroit questions, seasoned with
compliments, to attract the attention of the master to herself, for an
explanation of the difficulties which distressed her in her private
practice.

Compliments, however, were by no means the only payment that she
returned for such assistance: if a benefit were in question, she had not
an acquaintance upon whom she did not force tickets; if a composition
were to be published, she claimed subscriptions for it from all her
friends; if scholars were desired, not a parent had a child, not a
guardian had a ward, whom she did not endeavour to convince, that to
place his charge under such or such a professor, was the only method to
draw forth his talents. She scarcely entered a house in which she had
not some little scheme to effect; and seldom left it with her purpose
unfulfilled.

The artists, also, were universally her humble servants; for though they
could not, like the world at large, be the dupes of her unfounded
pretensions to skill, they were sure, upon all occasions, to find her so
active to serve and oblige them, so much more civil than those who had
money, and so much more social than those who had power, that, from
mingling gratitude with their personal interest, they suffered her
claims to superiour knowledge to pass uncanvassed; and while they
remarked that her influence supplied the place of wealth, they sought
her favour, they solicited her recommendation, they dedicated to her
their works. She charmed them by personal civilities; she won them by
attentions to their wives, sisters, or daughters; and her zeal in
return for their gratuitous services had no limit--except what might be
attached to her purse.

To pay for the instructions of Ellis by patronage, was no sooner decided
than effected. A young lady who had been educated abroad, who was
brought forth into the world by Mrs Maple, and protected by Mrs Howel,
and Lady Aurora Granville, was already an engaging object; but when she
was reduced to support herself by her own talents, through the
bankruptcy of her friends, she became equally interesting and
respectable; and, as such, touched for her misfortunes, yet charmed to
profit from her accomplishments, Lady Kendover, a leading _Diletante_ in
the highest circles, was the first to beg that Miss Arbe would arrange
the terms, and fix a day and hour, for Miss Ellis to attend Lady Barbara
Frankland, her ladyship's niece.

One pupil of this rank, thus readily offered, procured another before
the day was over; and, before the evening was finished, a third.

Miss Arbe, enchanted with her success, hastened to have the pleasure of
communicating it to Ellis, and of celebrating her own influence. The
gratitude of Ellis was, however, by no means unruffled, when Miss Arbe
insisted upon regulating the whole of her proceedings; and that with an
expence which, however moderate for any other situation, was for hers
alarming, if not ruinous. But Miss Arbe declared that she would not have
her recommendation disgraced by any meanness: she engaged, therefore, at
a high price, the best apartment in the house; she chose various
articles of attire, lest Ellis should choose them, she said, too
parsimoniously; and employed, in fitting her up, some trades-people who
were honoured, occasionally, by working for herself. In vain Ellis
represented the insufficiency of her little store for such expences.
Miss Arbe impatiently begged that they might not waste their time upon
such narrow considerations; and, seizing the harp, devoted the rest of
the visit to a long, though unacknowledged lesson; after which, in
hastily nodding an adieu, she repeated her high disdain of whatever was
wanting in spirit and generosity.

Mrs Maple, with mingled choler and amazement, soon learnt the wonderful
tidings, that the discarded Wanderer had hired the best drawing-room at
the famous milliner's, Miss Matson, and was elegantly, though simply
arrayed, and prepared and appointed to be received, in various houses of
fashion, as a favoured and distinguished professor.

The fear of some ultimate responsibility, for having introduced such an
imposter into high life, now urged Mrs Maple to work upon the curiosity
of Mrs Ireton, to offer the unknown traveller the post of her humble
companion: but Ellis retained a horrour of the disposition and manners
of Mrs Ireton, that made her decidedly refuse the proposition; and the
incenced Mrs Maple, and the imperious Mrs Howel, alike ashamed to
proclaim what they considered as their own dupery, were alike,
ultimately, reduced to leave the matter to take its course: Mrs Howel
finally comforting herself, that, in case of detection, she could cast
the whole disgrace upon Mrs Maple; who equally consoled herself by
deciding, in that case, to throw the whole blame upon Mr Harleigh.




CHAPTER XXIV


Thus equipped, and decided, the following week opened upon Ellis, with a
fair prospect of fulfilling the injunctions of her correspondent, by
learning to suffice to herself. This idea animated her with a courage
which, in some measure, divested her of the painful timidity, that, to
the inexperienced and modest, is often subversive of the use of the very
talents which it is their business and interest to display. Courage, not
only upon such occasions, but upon others of infinitely higher
importance, is more frequently than the looker on suspects, the effect
of secret reasoning, and cool calculation of consequences, than of
fearless temperament, or inborn bravery.

Her first essay exceeded her best expectations in its success; a success
the more important, as failure, there, might have fastened discredit
upon her whole enterprize, since her first pupil was Lady Barbara
Frankland.

Lady Kendover, the aunt of that young lady, to whom Miss Arbe, for the
honour of her own patronage, had adroitly dwelt upon the fortnight
passed at Mrs Howel's, and, in the society of Lady Aurora Granville, by
her _protegee_; received and treated her with distinguished
condescension, and even flattering kindness. For though her ladyship was
too high in rank, to share in the anxious tenaciousness of Mrs Howel,
for manifesting the superiour judgment with which she knew how to
select, and how to reject, persons qualified for her society; and though
yet less liable to be controlled by the futile fears of the opinion of a
neighbourhood, which awed Mrs Maple; still she was more a woman of
quality than a woman of the world; and the circle in which she moved,
was bounded by the hereditary habits, and imitative customs, which had
always limited the proceedings of her ladyship's, in common with those
of almost every other noble family, of patronizing those who had
already been elevated by patronage; and of lifting higher, by peculiar
favour, those who were already mounting by the favour of others. To go
further,--to draw forth talents from obscurity, to honour indigent
virtue, were exertions that demanded a character of a superiour species;
a character that had learnt to act for himself, by thinking for himself
and feeling for others.

The joy of Lady Barbara, a lively and lovely young creature, just
blooming into womanhood, in becoming the pupil of Ellis, was nearly
extatic. Lady Aurora Granville, with whom she was particularly
connected, had written to her in such rapture of the private play, that
she was wild to see the celebrated Lady Townly. And though she was not
quite simple, nor quite young enough, to believe that she should
literally behold that personage, her ideas were, unconsciously, so
bewildered, between the representation of nature and life, or nature and
life themselves, that she had a certain undefined pleasure in the
meeting which perplexed, yet bewitched her imagination. She regarded it
as the happiest possible event, to be brought into such close
intercourse, with a person whom she delighted herself with considering
as the first actress of the age. She looked at her; watched her;
listened to her; and prevailed upon Lady Kendover to engage that she
should every day take a lesson; during which her whole mind was directed
to imitating Miss Ellis in her manner of holding the harp; in the air of
her head as she turned from it to look at the musical notes; in her way
of curving, straightening, or elegantly spreading her fingers upon the
strings; and in the general bend of her person, upon which depended the
graceful effect of the whole. Not very singular, indeed, was Lady
Barbara, in regarding these as the principal points to be attained, in
acquiring the accomplishment of playing upon the harp; which, because it
shews beauty and grace to advantage, is often erroneously chosen for
exhibiting those who have neither; as if its powers extended to bestow
the charms which it only displays.

The admiration of Lady Barbara for her instructress, lost some boundary
of moderation every day; and Ellis, though ashamed of such excess of
partiality, felt fostered by its warmth, and returned it with sincerity.
Lady Barbara, who was gaily artless, and as full of kindness as of
vivacity, had the strong recommendation of being wholly natural; a
recommendation as rare in itself, as success is in its deviations.

Miss Arbe was all happy exultation, at a prosperity for which she repaid
herself, without scruple, by perpetual, though private lessons; and
Ellis, whose merit, while viewed with rivalry, she had sought to
depreciate, she was now foremost to praise. The swellings of envy and
jealousy gave way to triumph in her own discernment; and all severities
of hypercriticism subsided into the gentler vanity, and more humane
parade, of patronage.

Another happy circumstance signalized, also, this professional
commencement of Ellis; Miss Arbe secured to her the popular favour of
Sir Marmaduke Crawley, a travelled fine gentleman, just summoned from
Italy, to take possession of his title and estate; and to the
guardianship of two hoyden sisters, many years younger than himself. His
character of a connoisseur, and admirer of _les beaux arts_; a person of
so refined a conformation, as to desire to be thought rather to vegetate
than to live, when removed from the genial clime of the sole region of
the muses, and of taste, Italy; made his approbation as useful to her
fame, as the active influence of Miss Arbe was to her fortune. This
gentleman, upon hearing her perform to Lady Kendover, declared, with a
look of melancholy recollection, that The Ellis was more divine than any
thing that he had yet met with on this side the Alps. He requested Miss
Arbe, therefore, to place his sisters under her elegant tuition, if he
might hope that The Ellis could be prevailed upon to undertake two such
Vandals.

Born to a considerable fortune, though with a narrow capacity, Sir
Marmaduke had persuaded himself, that to make the tour of Europe, and to
become a connoisseur in all the arts, was the same thing; and, as he was
rich, and, therefore, able to make himself friends, civil, and therefore
never addicted to make enemies, no one felt tempted, either by sincerity
or severity, to undeceive him; and, as all he essentially wanted, for
the character to which he thought himself elevated, was 'spirit, taste,
and sense,' he uttered his opinions upon whatever he saw, or heard,
without the smallest suspicion, that the assiduity with which he
visited, or the wealth with which he purchased, works of art, included
not every requisite for their appreciation. Yet though, from never
provoking, he never encountered, that foe to the happy feelings of
inborn presumption, truth, he felt sometimes embarrassed, when suddenly
called upon to pronounce an opinion on any abtruse point of taste. He
was always, therefore, watchful to catch hints from the dashing Miss
Arbe, since to whatever she gave her fearless sanction, he saw fashion
attached.

Nothing could be more different than the reception given to Ellis by
Lady Kendover, and that which she experienced from the Miss Crawleys.
Without any superiority to their brother in understanding, they had a
decided inferiority in education and manners. They had been brought up
by a fond uncle, in the country, with every false indulgence which can
lead to idle ease and pleasure, for the passing moment; but which teems
with that weariness, that a dearth of all rational employment nurses up
for the listless and uncultured, when folly and ignorance out-live mere
thoughtless merriment. Accustomed to follow, in every thing, the
uncontrolled bent of their own humours, they felt fatigued by the very
word decorum; and thought themselves oppressed by any representation of
what was due to propriety. Their brother, on the contrary, taking the
opposite extreme, had neither care nor wish but what related to the
opinion of the _virtuosi_: because, though possessed of whatever could
give pecuniary, he was destitute of all that could inspire mental
independence.

'Oh ho! The Ellis!' cried Miss Crawley, mimicking her brother: 'you are
come to be our school-mistress, are you? Quick, quick, Di; put on your
dumpish face, and begin your task.'

'Be quiet, be quiet!' cried Miss Di; 'I shall like to learn of all
things. The Ellis shall make me The Crawley. Come, what's to be done,
The Ellis? Begin, begin!'

'And finish, finish!' cried the eldest: 'I can't bear to be long about
any thing: there's nothing so fogrum.'

Their brother, now, ventured, gently, to caution them not to make use of
the word fogrum, which, he assured them, was by no means received in
good company.

'O, I hate good company!' cried the eldest: 'It always makes me fall
asleep.'

'So do I,' cried the youngest; 'except when I take upon myself to wake
it. O! that's the delight of my life! to run wild upon a set of formals,
who think one brainless, only because one is not drowsy. Do you know any
fogrums of that sort, brother?'

The merriment that this question, which they meant to be personal,
occasioned, extremely confused Sir Marmaduke; and his evident
consciousness flung them into such immoderate laughter, that the new
mistress was forced to desist from all attempt at instruction, till it
subsided; which was not till their brother, shrugging his shoulders,
with shame and mortification, left the room.

Yawning, then, with exhausted spirits, they desired to be set to work.

Proficiency they had no chance, for they had no wish to make; but Ellis,
from this time, attended them twice a-week; and Sir Marmaduke was
gratified by the assurances of Miss Arbe, that all the world praised his
taste, for choosing them so accomplished an instructress.

The fourth scholar that the same patronage procured for Ellis, was a
little girl of eleven years of age, whose mother, Lady Arramede, the
nearly ruined widow of a gamester peer, sacrificed every comfort to
retain the equipage, and the establishment, that she had enjoyed during
the life of her luxurious lord. Her table, except when she had company,
was never quite sufficient for her family; her dress, except when she
visited, was always old, mended, and out of fashion; and the education
of her daughter, though destined to be of the first order, was
extracted, in common with her gala dinners, and gala ornaments, from
these daily savings. Ellis, therefore, from the very moderate price at
which Miss Arbe, for the purpose of obliging her own various friends,
had fixed her instructions, was a treasure to Lady Arramede; who had
never before so completely found, what she was always indefatigably
seeking, a professor not more cheap than fashionable.

On the part of the professor, the satisfaction was not quite mutual.
Lady Arramede, reduced by her great expences in public, to the most
miserable parsimony in private, joined, to a lofty desire of high
consideration in the world, a constant alarm lest her pecuniary
difficulties should be perceived. The low terms, therefore, upon which
Ellis taught, though the real inducement for her being employed, urged
the most arrogant reception of the young instructress, in the
apprehension that she might, else, suspect the motive to her admission;
and the instant that she entered the room, her little pupil was hurried
to the instrument, that she might not presume to imagine it possible,
that she could remain in the presence of her ladyship, even for a
moment, except to be professionally occupied.

Yet was she by no means more niggardly in bestowing favour, than
rapacious in seeking advantage. Her thoughts were constantly employed in
forming interrogatories for obtaining musical information, by which her
daughter might profit in the absence of the mistress; though she made
them without troubling herself to raise her eyes, except when she did
not comprehend the answer; and then, her look was of so haughty a
character, that she seemed rather to be demanding satisfaction than
explication.

The same address, also, accompanied her desire to hear the pieces, which
her daughter began learning, performed by the mistress: she never made
this request till the given hour was more than passed; and made it then
rather as if she were issuing a command, for the execution of some
acknowledged duty, than calling forth talents, or occupying time, upon
which she could only from courtesy have any claim.

Miss Brinville, the fifth pupil of Ellis, was a celebrated beauty, who
had wasted her bloom in a perpetual search of admiration; and lost her
prime, without suspecting that it was gone, in vain and ambitious
difficulties of choice. Yet her charms, however faded and changed,
still, by candle-light, or when adroitly shaded, through a becoming
skill in the arrangement of her head-dress, appeared nearly in their
first lustre; and in this view it was that they were always present to
herself; though, by the world, the altered complexion, sunk eyes, and
enlarged features, exhibited by day-light, or by common attire, were
all, except through impertinent retrospection, that were any more
noticed.

She was just arrived at Brighthelmstone, with her mother, upon a visit
to an acquaintance, whom that lady had engaged to invite them, with a
design of meeting Sir Lyell Sycamore, a splendid young baronet, with
whom Miss Brinville had lately danced at a private ball; where, as he
saw her for the first time, and saw her to every advantage which well
chosen attire, animated vanity, and propitious wax-light could give, he
had fallen desperately enamoured of her beauty; and had so vehemently
lamented having promised to join a party to Brighthelmstone, that both
the mother and the daughter concluded, that they had only to find a
decent pretence for following him, to secure the prostration of his
title and fortune at their feet. And though similar expectations, from
gentlemen of similar birth and estate, had already, at least fifty
times, been disappointed, they were just as sanguine, in the present
instance, as if, new to the world, and inexperienced in its ways, they
were now receiving their first lessons, upon the fallaciousness of
self-appreciation: so slight is the impression made, even where our
false judgment is self-detected, by wounds to our vanity! and so elastic
is the re-bound of that hope, which originates in our personal estimation
of our deserts!

The young Baronet, indeed, no sooner heard of the arrival at
Brighthelmstone of the fair one who had enchanted him, than, wild with
rapture, he devoted all his soul to expected extacies. But when, the
next morning, fine and frosty, though severely cold, he met her upon the
Steyn, her complexion and her features were so different to those yet
resting, in full beauty, upon his memory, that he looked at her with a
surprise mingled with a species of indignation, as at a caricature of
herself.

Miss Brinville, though too unconscious of her own double appearance to
develope what passed in his mind, was struck and mortified by his change
of manner. The bleak winds which blew sharply from the sea, giving
nearly its own blue-green hue to her skin, while all that it bestowed of
the carnation's more vivid glow, visited the feature which they least
become, but which seems always the favourite wintry hot-bed of the ruddy
tints; in completing what to the young Baronet seemed an entire
metamorphosis, drove him fairly from the field. The wondering heroine
was left in a consternation that usefully, however disagreeably, might
have whispered to her some of those cruel truths which are always
buzzing around faded beauties,--missing no ears but their own!--had she
not been hurried, by her mother, into a milliner's shop, to make some
preparations for a ball to which she was invited for the evening. There,
again, she saw the Baronet, to whose astonished sight she appeared with
all her first allurements. Again he danced with her, again was
captivated; and again the next morning recovered his liberty. Yet Miss
Brinville made no progress in self-perception: his changes were
attributed to caprice or fickleness; and her desire grew but more urgent
to fix her wavering conquest.

At the dinner at Lady Kendover's, where Miss Arbe brought forward the
talents and the plan of Ellis, such a spirit was raised, to procure
scholars amongst the young ladies of fashion then at Brighthelmstone;
and it seemed so youthful to become a pupil, that Miss Brinville feared,
if left out, she might be considered as too old to enter such lists. Yet
her total ignorance of music, and a native dull distaste to all the
arts, save the millinery, damped her wishes with want of resolution;
till an exclamation of Sir Lyell Sycamore's, that nothing added so much
grace to beauty as playing upon the harp, gave her sudden strength and
energy, to beg to be set down, by Miss Arbe, as one of the first
scholars for her _protegee_.

Ellis was received by her with civility, but treated with the utmost
coldness. The sight of beauty at its height, forced a self-comparison of
no exhilarating nature; and, much as she built upon informing Sir Lyell
of her lessons, she desired nothing less than shewing him from whom they
were received. To sit at the harp so as to justify the assertion of the
Baronet, became her principal study; and the glass before which she
tried her attitudes and motions, told her such flattering tales, that
she soon began to think the harp the sweetest instrument in the world,
and that to practise it was the most delicious of occupations.

Ellis was too sincere to aid this delusion. Of all her pupils, no one
was so utterly hopeless as Miss Brinville, whom she found equally
destitute of ear, taste, intelligence, and application. The same
direction twenty times repeated, was not better understood than the
first moment that it was uttered. Naturally dull, she comprehended
nothing that was not familiar to her; and habitually indolent, because
brought up to believe that beauty would supply every accomplishment, she
had no conception of energy, and not an idea of diligence.

Ellis, whose mind was ardent, and whose integrity was incorrupt, felt an
honourable anxiety to fulfil the duties of her new profession, though
she had entered upon them merely from motives of distress. She was
earnest, therefore, for the improvement of her pupils; and conceived the
laudable ambition, to merit what she might earn, by their advancement.
And though one amongst them, alone, manifested any genius; in all of
them, except Miss Brinville, she saw more of carelessness, or idleness,
than of positive, incapacity. But here, the darkness of all musical
apprehension was so impenetrable, that not a ray of instruction could
make way through it; and Ellis who, though she saw that to study her
looks at the instrument was her principal object, had still imagined
that to learn music came in for some share in taking lessons upon the
harp, finding it utterly vain to try to make her distinguish one note
from another, held her own probity called upon to avow her opinion;
since she saw herself the only one who could profit from its
concealment.

Gently, therefore, and in terms the most delicate that she could select,
she communicated her fears to Mrs Brinville, that the talents of Miss
Brinville were not of a musical cast.

Mrs Brinville, with a look that said, What infinite impertinence!
declared herself extremely obliged by this sincerity; and summoned her
daughter to the conference.

Miss Brinville, colouring with the deepest resentment, protested that
she was never so well pleased as in hearing plain truth; but each made
an inclination of her head, that intimated to Ellis that she might
hasten her departure: and the first news that reached her the next
morning was, that Miss Brinville had sent for a celebrated and expensive
professor, then accidentally at Brighthelmstone, to give her lessons
upon the harp.

Miss Arbe, from whom Ellis received this intelligence, was extremely
angry with her for the strange, and what she called unheard-of measure
that she had taken. 'What had you,' she cried, 'to do with their manner
of wasting their money? Every one chooses to throw it away according to
his own taste. If rich people have not that privilege, I don't see how
they are the better for not being poor.'

The sixth scholar whom Ellis undertook, was sister to Sir Lyell
Sycamore. She possessed a real genius for music, though it was so little
seconded by industry, that whatever she could not perform without labour
or time, she relinquished. Thus, though all she played was executed in a
truly fine style, nothing being practised, nothing was finished; and
though she could amuse herself, and charm her auditors, with almost
every favourite passage that she heard, she could not go through a
single piece; could play nothing by book; and hardly knew her notes.

Nevertheless, Ellis found her so far superiour, in musical capacity, to
every other pupil that had fallen to her charge, that she conceived a
strong desire to make her the fine player that her talents fitted her
for becoming.

Her utmost exertions, however, and warmest wishes, were insufficient for
this purpose. The genius with which Miss Sycamore was endowed for music,
was unallied to any soft harmonies of temper, or of character: she was
presumptuous, conceited, and gaily unfeeling. If Ellis pressed her to
more attention, she hummed an air, without looking at her; if she
remonstrated against her neglect, she suddenly stared at her, though
without speaking. She had a haughty indifference about learning; but it
was not from an indifference to excel; 'twas from a firm self-opinion,
that she excelled already. If she could not deny, that Ellis executed
whole pieces, in as masterly a manner as she could herself play only
chosen passages, she deemed that a mere mechanical part of the art,
which, as a professor, Ellis had been forced to study; and which she
herself, therefore, rather held cheap than respected.

Ellis, at first, seriously lamented this wayward spirit, which wasted
real talents; but all interest for her pupil soon subsided; and all
regret concentrated in having such a scholar to attend; for the manners
of Miss Sycamore had an excess of insolence, that rather demanded apathy
than philosophy to be supported, by those who were in any degree within
her power. Ellis was treated by her with a sort of sprightly defiance,
that sometimes seemed to arise from gay derision; at others, from
careless haughtiness. Miss Sycamore, who gave little attention to the
rumours of her history, saw her but either as a Wanderer, of blighted
fortune, and as such looked down upon her with contempt; or as an
indigent young woman of singular beauty, and as such, with far less
willingness, looked up to her with envy.

Twice a-week, also, Selina, with the connivance, though not with the
avowed consent of Mrs Maple, came from Lewes, to continue her musical
lessons, at the house of Lady Kendover, or of Miss Arramede.

Such was the set which the powerful influence of Miss Arbe procured for
the opening campaign of Ellis; and to this set its own celebrity soon
added another name. It was not, indeed, one which Miss Arbe would have
deigned to put upon her list; but Ellis, who had no pride to support in
her present undertaking, save the virtuous and right pride of owing
independence to her own industry, as readily accepted a preferred
scholar from the daughter of a common tradesman, as she had accepted the
daughter of an Earl, whom she taught at Lady Kendover's.

Mr Tedman, a grocer, who had raised a very large fortune, was now at
Brighthelmstone, with his only daughter and heiress, at whose desire he
called at Miss Matson's, to enquire for the famous music-teacher.

Ellis, hearing that he was an elderly man, conceived what might be his
business, and admitted him. Much surprised by her youthful appearance,
'Good now, my dear,' he cried, 'why to be sure it can't be you as
pretends to learn young misses music? and even misses of quality, as I
am told? It's more likely it's your mamma; put in case you've got one.'

When Ellis had set him right, he took five guineas from his purse, and
said, 'Well, then, my dear, come to my darter, and give her as much of
your tudeling as will come to this. And I think, by then, she'll be able
to twiddle over them wires by herself.'

The hours of attendance being then settled, he looked smirkingly in her
face, and added, 'Which of us two is to hold the stakes, you or I?'
shaking the five guineas between his hands. But when she assured him
that she had not the most distant desire to anticipate such an
appropriation, he assumed an air of generous affluence, and assuring
her, in return, that he was not afraid to trust her, counted two guineas
and a half a guinea, upon the table, and said, 'So if you please, my
dear, we'll split the difference.'

Ellis found the daughter yet more innately, though less obviously,
vulgar; and far more unpleasant, because uncivil, than the father. In a
constant struggle to hide the disproportion of her origin, and early
habits, with her present pretensions to fashion, she was tormented by an
incessant fear of betraying, that she was as little bred as born to the
riches which she now possessed. This made her always authoritative with
her domestics, or inferiours, to keep them in awe; pert with gentlemen,
by way of being genteel; and rude with ladies, to shew herself their
equal.

Mr Tedman conceived, immediately, a warm partiality for Ellis, whose
elegant manners, which, had he met with her in high life, would have
distanced him by their superiority, now attracted him irresistibly, in
viewing them but as good-nature. He called her his pretty tudeler, and
bid her make haste to earn her five guineas; significantly adding, that,
if his daughter were not finished before they were gone, he was rich
enough to make them ten.




CHAPTER XXV


With these seven pupils, Ellis, combating the various unpleasant
feelings that were occasionally excited, prosperously began her new
career.

Her spirits, from the fulness of her occupations, revived; and she soon
grew a stranger to the depression of that ruminating leisure, which is
wasted in regret, in repining, or in wavering meditation.

Miss Arbe reaped, also, the fruits of her successful manoeuvres, by
receiving long, and almost daily instructions, under the pretence of
trying different compositions; though never under the appellation of
lessons, nor with the smallest acknowledgement of any deficiency that
might require improvement; always, when they separated, exclaiming,
'What a delightful musical regale we have enjoyed this morning!'

So sincere, nevertheless, was the sense which Ellis entertained of the
essential obligations which she owed to Miss Arbe, that she suffered
this continual intrusion and fatigue without a murmur.

Miss Bydel, also, who was nearly as frequent in her visits as Miss Arbe,
claimed constantly, however vainly, in return for paying the month's
hire of the harp, the private history of the way of life, expences,
domestics, and apparent income, of every family to which that instrument
was the means of introduction. And but that these ladies had personal
engagements for their evenings, Ellis could not have found time to keep
herself in such practice as her new profession required; and her credit,
if not her scholars, might have been lost, through the selfishness of
the very patronesses by whom they had been obtained.

Another circumstance, also, somewhat disturbed, though she would not
suffer it to interrupt what she now deemed to be her professional study:
she no sooner touched her harp, than she heard a hurrying, though heavy
step, descend the stairs; and never opened her door, after playing or
singing, without perceiving a gentleman standing against it, in an
attitude of listening. He hastened away ashamed, upon her appearance;
yet did not the less fail to be in waiting at her next performance.
Displeased, and nearly alarmed by the continual repetition of this
curiosity, she complained of it to Miss Matson, desiring that she would
find means to put an end to so strange a liberty.

Miss Matson said, that the person in question, who was a gentleman of
very good character, though rather odd in his ways, had taken the little
room which Ellis had just relinquished: she was sure, however, that he
meant no harm, for he had often told her, as he passed through the shop,
that he ought to pay double for his lodging, for the sake of hearing the
harp, and the singing. Miss Matson remonstrated with him, nevertheless,
upon his indiscretion; in consequence of which, he became more
circumspect.

From Selina, whose communications continued to be as unabated in
openness, as her friendship was in fondness, Ellis had the heartfelt
satisfaction of receiving occasional intelligence, drawn from the
letters of Mrs Howel to Mrs Maple, of the inviolable attachment of Lady
Aurora Granville.

She heard, also, but nearly with indifference, that the two elder ladies
had been furious with indignation, at the prosperity of the scheme of
Miss Arbe, by which Ellis seemed to be naturalized at Brighthelmstone;
where she was highly considered, and both visited and invited, by all
who had elegance, sense, or taste to appreciate her merits.

Of Elinor nothing was positively known, though some indirect information
reached her aunt, that she had found means to return to the continent.

About three weeks passed thus, in the diligent and successful practice
of this new profession, when a morning concert was advertised at the New
Rooms, for a blind Welsh harper, who was travelling through the
principal towns of England.

All the scholars of Ellis having, upon this occasion, taken tickets of
Lady Kendover, who patronized the harper, Ellis meant to dedicate the
leisure thus left her to musical studies; but she was broken in upon by
Miss Bydel, who, possessing an odd ticket, and having, through some
accident, missed joining her party, desired Ellis would immediately get
ready to go with her to the concert. Ellis, not sorry to hear the
harper, consented.

The harper was in the midst of his last piece when they arrived. Miss
Bydel, deaf to a general buz of 'Hush!' at the loud voice with which,
upon entering the room, she said, 'Well, now I must look about for some
acquaintance,' straitly strutted on to the upper end of the apartment.
Ellis quietly glided after her, concluding it to be a matter of course
that they should keep together. Here, however, Miss Bydel comfortably
arranged herself, between Mrs Maple and Selina, telling them that,
having been too late for all her friends, and not liking to poke her way
alone, she had been forced to make the young music-mistress come along
with her, for company.

Ellis, though both abashed and provoked, felt herself too justly under
the protection of Miss Bydel, to submit to the mortification of turning
back, as if she had been an unauthorised intruder; though the averted
looks, and her consciousness of the yet more disdainful opinions of Mrs
Maple, left her no hope of countenance, but through the kindness of
Selina. She sought, therefore, the eyes of her young friend, and did not
seek them in vain; but great was her surprise to meet them not merely
unaccompanied by any expression of regard, but even of remembrance; and
to see them instantaneously withdrawn, to be fixed upon those of Lady
Barbara Frankland, which were wholly occupied by the blind harper.

Disappointed and disconcerted, she was now obliged to seat herself,
alone, upon a side form, and to strive to parry the awkwardness of her
situation, by an appearance of absorbed attention to the performance of
the harper.

A gentleman, who was lounging upon a seat at some distance, struck by
her beauty, and surprised by her lonely position, curiously loitered
towards her, and dropt, as if accidentally, upon the same form. He was
young, tall, handsome, and fashionable, but wore the air of a decided
libertine; and her modest mien, and evident embarrassment, rendered her
peculiarly attractive to a voluptuous man of pleasure. To discover,
therefore, whether that modesty were artificial, or the remains of such
original purity as he, and such as he, adore but to demolish, was his
immediate determination.

It was impossible for Ellis to escape seeing how completely she
engrossed his attention, sedulously as she sought to employ her own
another way. But, having advanced too far into the room, by following
Miss Bydel, to descend without being recognized by those whose good
opinion it was now her serious concern to preserve, all her scholars
being assembled upon this occasion; she resolved to sustain her credit,
by openly joining, or, at least, closely following, Miss Bydel, when the
concert should be over.

When the concert, however, was over, her difficulties were but
increased, for no one retired. Lady Kendover ordered tea for herself and
her party; and the rest of the assembly eagerly formed itself into
groups for a similar purpose. A mixt society is always jealous of its
rights of equality; and any measure taken by a person of superiour rank,
or superiour fortune to the herd, soon becomes general; not humbly, from
an imitative, but proudly, from a levelling spirit.

The little coteries thus every where arranging, made the forlorn
situation of Ellis yet more conspicuous. All now, but herself, were
either collected into setts to take tea, or dispersed for sauntering.
She felt, therefore, so awkward, that, hoping by a fair explanation, to
acquit herself to her scholars at their next lessons, she was rising to
return alone to her lodging, when the gentleman already mentioned,
planting himself abruptly before her, confidently enquired whether he
could be of any service in seeing her out.

She gravely pronounced a negative, and re-seated herself. He made no
attempt at conversation, but again took his place by her side.

In the hope of lessening, in some degree, her embarrassment, Ellis, once
more, sought the notice of Selina, whose behaviour appeared so
extraordinary, that she began to imagine herself mistaken in believing
that she had yet been seen; but when, again, she caught the eye of that
young lady, a low and respectful courtesy vainly solicited return, or
notice. The eye looked another way, without seeming to have heeded the
salutation.

She grew, now, seriously apprehensive, that some cruel calumny must have
injured her in the opinion of her affectionate young friend.

Her ruminations upon this unpleasant idea were interrupted, by the
approach of Mrs and Miss Brinville, who, scornfully passing her, stopt
before her lounging neighbour, to whom Mrs Brinville said, 'Do you take
nothing Sir Lyell? We are just going to make a little tea.'

Sir Lyell, looking negligently at Miss Brinville, and then, from her
faded beauty, casting a glance of comparison at the blooming prime of
the lovely unknown by his side, carelessly answered, that he took tea
but once in a day.

Miss Brinville, though by no means aware of the full effect of such a
contrast, had not failed to remark the direction of the wandering eye;
nor to feel the waste and inadequacy of her best smiles to draw it back.
She was compelled, however, to walk on, and Ellis now concluded that her
bold and troublesome neighbour must be Sir Lyell Sycamore, who, seldom
at home but to a given dinner, had never been present at any lesson of
his sister's.

The chagrin of being seen, and judged, so unfavourably, by a friend of
Lord Melbury, was a little softened, by the hope that he would soon
learn who she was from Miss Sycamore; and that accident, not choice, had
placed her thus alone in a public room.

Miss Brinville had not more keenly observed the admiring looks of Sir
Lyell, than the Baronet had remarked her own of haughty disdain, for the
same object. This confirmed his idea of the fragile character of his
solitary beauty; though, while it fixed his pursuit, it deterred him
from manifesting his design. His quietness, however, did not deceive
Ellis; the admiration conveyed by his eyes was so wholly unmixt with
respect, that, embarrassed and comfortless, she knew not which way to
turn her own.

Mr Tedman, soon after, perceiving her to be alone, and unserved, came,
with a good humoured smirk upon his countenance, to bring her a handful
of cakes. It was in vain that she declined them; he placed them, one by
one, till he had counted half a dozen, upon the form by her side,
saying, 'Don't be so coy, my dear, don't be so coy. Young girls have
appetites as well as old men, for I don't find that that tudeling does
much for one's stomach; and, I promise you, this cold February morning
has served me for as good a whet, as if I was an errand boy up to this
moment--put in case I ever was one before;--which, however, is neither
here nor there; though you may as well,' he added, lowering his voice,
and looking cautiously around, 'not mention my happening to drop that
word to my darter; for she has so many fine Misses coming to see her,
that she got acquainted with at the boarding-school, where I was
over-persuaded to put her--for I might have set up a good smart shop for
the money it cost me; but she had a prodigious hankering after being
teached dancing, and the like; and so now, when they come to see us, she
wants to pass for as fine a toss up as themselves! And, lauk adaisy! put
in case I was to let the cat out of the bag--.'

Steadily as Ellis endeavoured to avoid looking either to the right or to
the left, she could not escape observing the surprise and diversion,
which this visit and whisper afforded to Sir Lyell; yet the good humour
of Mr Tedman, and her conviction of the innocence of his kindness, made
it impossible for her to repulse him with anger.

Advancing, next, his mouth close to her ear, he said, 'I should have
been glad enough to have had you come and drink a cup of tea with I and
my darter; I can tell you that; only my darter's always in such a fuss
about what the quality will think of her; else, we are dull enough
together, only she and me; for, do what she will, the quality don't much
mind her. So she's rather a bit in the sulks, poor dear. And, at best,
she is but a so so hand at the agreeable. Though indeed, for the matter
of that, I am no rare one myself; except with my particulars;--put in
case I am then.'

He now, good-humouredly nodding, begged her not to spare the cakes, and
promising she should have more if she were hungry, returned to his
daughter.

Sir Lyell, with a scarcely stifled laugh, and in a tone the most
familiar, enquired whether she wished for any further refreshment.

Ellis, looking away from him, pronounced a repulsive negative.

An elderly gentleman, who was walking up and down the room, now bowed to
her. Not knowing him, she let his salutation pass apparently
disregarded; when, some of her cakes accidentally falling from the form,
he eagerly picked them up, saying, as he grasped them in his hand,
'Faith, Madam, you had better have eaten them at once. You had, faith!
Few things are mended by delay. We are all at our best at first. These
cakes are no more improved by being mottled with the dirt of the floor,
than a pretty woman is by being marked with the small pox. I know
nothing that i'n't the worse for a put-off, ... unless it be a quarrel.'

Ellis, then, through his voice and language, discovered her fellow
voyager, Mr Riley; though a considerable change in his appearance, from
his travelling garb, had prevented a more immediate recollection.

Additional disturbance now seized her, lest he should recur to the
suspicious circumstances of her voyage and arrival.

While he still stood before her, declaiming upon the squeezed cakes,
which he held in his hand, Mr Tedman, coming softly back, and gently
pushing him aside, produced, with a self-pleased countenance, a small
plate of bread and butter, saying, 'Look, here, my dear, I've brought
you a few nice slices; for I see the misfortune that befel my cakes, of
their falling down; and I resolved you should not be the worse for it.
But I advise you to eat this at once, for fear of accidents; only take
care,' with a smile, 'that you don't grease your pretty fingers.'

He did not smile singly; Sir Lyell more than bore him company, and Riley
laughed aloud saying,

''Twould be pity, indeed, if she did not take care of her pretty
fingers, 'twould, faith! when she can work them so cunningly. I can't
imagine how the lady could sit so patiently, to hear that old Welsh man
thrum the cords in that bang wang way, when she can touch them herself,
like a little Queen David, to put all one's feelings in a fever. I have
listened at her door, till I have tingled all over with heat, in the
midst of the hard frost. And, sometimes, I have sat upon the stairs, to
hear her, till I have been so bent double, and numbed, that my nose has
almost joined my toes, and you might have rolled me down to the
landing-place without uncurbing me. You might, faith!'

Ellis now further discovered, that Mr Riley was the listening new
lodger. Her apprehensions, however, of his recollection subsided, when
she found him wholly unsuspicious that he had ever seen her before; and
called to mind her own personal disguise at their former meeting.

Sir Lyell, piqued to see her monopolized by two such fogrums as he
thought Messieurs Riley and Tedman, was bending forward to address her
more freely himself, when Lady Barbara Frankland, suddenly perceiving
her, flew to take her hand, with the most cordial expressions of partial
and affectionate regard.

Sir Lyell Sycamore, after a moment of extreme surprise, combining this
condescension with what Riley had said of her performance, surmized that
his suspicious beauty must be the harp-mistress, who had been
recommended to him by Miss Arbe; who taught his sister; and whose
various accomplishments had been extolled to him by Lord Melbury. That
she should appear, and remain, thus strangely alone in public, marked
her, nevertheless, in his opinion, as, at least, an easy prey; though
her situation with regard to his sister, and a sense of decency with
regard to her known protectors, made him instantly change his demeanour,
and determine to desist from any obvious pursuit.

Lady Barbara had no sooner returned to her aunt, than Sir Marmaduke
Crawley, in the name of that lady, advanced with a request, that Miss
Ellis would be so obliging as to try the instrument of the Welsh harper.

Though this message was sent by Lady Kendover in terms of perfect
politeness, and delivered by Sir Marmaduke with the most scrupulous
courtesy, it caused Ellis extreme disturbance, from her unconquerable
repugnance to complying with her ladyship's desire; but, while she was
entreating him to soften her refusal, by the most respectful
expressions, his two sisters came hoydening up to her, charging him to
take no denial, and protesting that they would either drag The Ellis to
the harp, or the harp to The Ellis, if she stood dilly dallying any
longer. And then, each seizing her by an arm, without any regard to her
supplications, or to the shock which they inflicted upon the nerves of
their brother, they would have put their threat into immediate
execution, but for the weakness occasioned by their own immoderate
laughter at their merry gambols; which gave time for Lady Kendover to
perceive the embarrassment and the struggles of Ellis, and to suffer her
partial young admirer, Lady Barbara, to be the bearer of a civil
apology, and a recantation of the request.

To this commission of the well-bred aunt, the kind-hearted niece added a
positive insistance, that Ellis should join their party; to which she
rather drew than led her, seating her, almost forcibly, next to herself,
with exulting delight at rescuing her from the turbulent Miss Crawleys.

Lady Kendover, to whom the exact gradations of _etiquette_ were always
present, sought, by a look, to intimate to her niece, that while the
Hon. Miss Arramede was standing, this was not the place for Ellis: but
the niece, natural, inconsiderate, and zealous, understood not the hint;
and the timid embarrassment of Ellis shewed so total a freedom from all
obtrusive intentions, that her ladyship could not but forgive, however
little she had desired the junction; and, soon afterwards, encouragingly
led her to join both in the conversation and the breakfast.

Selina, now, ran to shake hands with her dear Ellis, expressing the
warmest pleasure at her sight. Ellis as much, though not as disagreeably
surprised by her notice now, as she had been by the more than neglect
which had preceded it, was hesitating what judgment to form of either,
when Miss Sycamore, from some distance, scornfully called out to her,
'Don't fail to stop at our house on your way back to your lodgings, Miss
Ellis, to look at my harp. I believe it's out of order.'

Lady Kendover, whose invariable politeness made her peculiarly sensible
of any failure of that quality in another, perceiving Ellis extremely
disconcerted, by the pointed malice of this humiliating command, at the
moment that she was bearing her part in superiour society, redoubled her
own civilities, by attentions as marked and public as they were
obliging; and, pleased by the modest gratitude with which they were
received, had again restored the serenity of Ellis; when a conversation,
unavoidably overheard, produced new disturbance.

Mr Riley, who had just recognized Ireton and Mrs Maple, was loud in his
satisfaction at again seeing two of his fellow-voyagers; and, in his
usually unceremonious manner, began discoursing upon their late dangers
and escape; notwithstanding all the efforts of Mrs Maple, who knew
nothing of his birth, situation in life, or fortune, to keep him at a
distance.

'And pray,' cried her, 'how does Miss Nelly do? She is a prodigious
clever girl; she is faith! I took to her mightily; though I did not much
like that twist she had got to the wrong side of my politics. I longed
prodigiously to give her a twitch back to the right. But how could you
think Ma'am, of taking over such a brisk, warm, young girl as that, at
the very instant when the new-fangled doctrines were beginning to
ferment in every corner of France? boiling over in one half of their
pates, to scald t'other half.'

Mrs Maple, however unwilling to hold a public conference with a person
of whom she had never seen the pedigree, nor the rent-roll, could still
less endure to let even a shadow of blame against herself pass
unanswered: she therefore angrily said, that she had travelled for
health, and not to trouble herself about politics.

'O, as to you, Ma'am, it's all one, at your years: but how you could
fancy a skittish young girl, like that, could be put into such a hot bed
of wild plants, and not shoot forth a few twigs herself, I can't make
out. You might as well send her to a dance, and tell her not to wag a
foot. And pray what's become of Mr Harleigh? I've no where seen his
fellow. He was the most of a manly gentleman that ever fell in my walk.
And your poor ailing mama, Squire Ireton? Has she got the better of her
squeamish fits? She was deuced bad aboard; and not much better ashore.
And that Demoiselle, the black-skinned girl, with the fine eyes and
nose? Where's she, too? Have you ever heard what became of her?'

Ellis, who every moment expected this question, had prepared herself to
listen to it with apparent unconcern: but Selina, tittering, and again
running up to her, and pinching her arm, asked whether it were not she,
that that droll man meant by the black-skinned girl?

'She was a good funny girl, faith!' continued Riley. 'I was prodigiously
diverted with her. Yet we did nothing but quarrel. Though I don't know
why. But I could never find out who she was. I believe the devil himself
could not have made her speak.'

The continual little laughs of Selina, whom no supplications of Ellis
could keep quiet, now attracted the notice of Lady Kendover; which so
palpably encreased the confusion of Ellis, that the attention of her
ladyship was soon transferred to herself.

'She was but an odd fish, I believe, after all,' Riley went on; 'for,
one day, when I was sauntering along Oxford Street, who should I meet
but the noble Admiral? the only one of our set I have seen, till this
moment, since I left Dover. And when we talked over our adventures, and
I asked him if he knew any thing of the Demoiselle, how do you think she
had served him? She's a comical hand, faith! Only guess!'

Ellis, now, apprehensive of some strange attack, involuntarily, looked
at him, with as much amazement and attention, as he began to excite in
all others who were near him; while Mrs Maple, personally alarmed,
demanded whether the Admiral had found out that any fraud had been
practised upon him by that person?

'Fraud? ay, fraud enough!' cried Riley. 'She choused him neatly out of
the hire of her place in the Diligence; besides that guinea that we all
saw him give her.'

Ellis now coloured deeply; and Ireton, heartily laughing, repeated the
word 'choused?' while Mrs Maple, off all guard, looked fiercely at
Ellis, and exclaimed, 'This is just what I have all along expected! And
who can tell who else may have been pilfered? I protest I don't think
myself safe yet.'

This hasty speech raised a lively curiosity in all around; for all
around had become listeners, from the loud voice of Riley; who now
related that the Admiral, having paid the full fare for bringing the
black-skinned girl to town, had called at the inn at which the stage
puts up in London, to enquire, deeming her a stranger, whether she were
safely arrived; and there he had been informed, that she had never made
use of her place.

Ellis had no time to dwell upon the cruel, but natural misconstruction,
from the change of her plan, which had thus lost her the good opinion of
the benevolent Admiral; the speech which followed from Mrs Maple was yet
more terrific. 'I have not the least doubt, then,' said that lady, in a
tone of mingled triumph and rage, 'that she put the money for her place
into her pocket, as well as the guinea, while she wheedled Mrs Ireton
into bringing her up to town gratis! for I was all along sure she was
an adventurer and an impostor; with her blacks, and her whites, and her
double face!'--

She stopt abruptly, recollecting the censure to which anger and
self-importance were leading her, of having introduced into society, a
creature of whom, from the origin of any knowledge of her, she had
conceived so ill an opinion.

But while the various changes of complexion, produced in Ellis by this
oration, were silently marked by Lady Kendover; and drew from Lady
Barbara the most affectionate enquiries whether she were indisposed; the
Miss Crawleys, who heard all that passed with their customary search of
mirth, whether flowing from the ridiculous, the singular, or the
mischievous, now clamourously demanded what Mrs Maple meant, by the
double face, the blacks, and the whites.

'Oh, no matter,' answered Mrs Maple, stammering; ''tis not a thing worth
talking of.'

'But the blacks--and the whites--and the double face?' cried Miss
Crawley.

'Ay, the double face, the blacks, and the whites?' cried Miss Di.

'The blacks,' said Mr Riley, 'I understand well enough; but I remember
nothing about the double face. Surely the Demoiselle could not
hodge-podge herself into one of the whites? What do you mean by all
that, Ma'am?'

'Pray ask me nothing about the matter,' replied Mrs Maple, impatiently.
'I am not at all accustomed to talk of people of that sort.'

'Why, how's all this?' cried Riley. 'Have any of you met with the
Demoiselle again?'

Mrs Maple would not deign to make any further reply.

He addressed himself to Ireton, who only laughed.

'Well, this is droll enough! it is, faith! I begin to think the
Demoiselle has appeared amongst you again. I wish you'd tell me, for I
should like to see her of all things, for old acquaintance sake. She was
but a dowdy piece of goods, to be sure; but she had fine eyes, and a
fine nose; and she amused me prodigiously, she was so devilish shy.'

'You believe, then,' said Ireton, excited, not checked, by the palpable
uneasiness of Ellis, 'that if you saw her again, you should know her?'

'Know the Demoiselle? ay, from an hundred, with her beautiful black
marks, and _insignia_ of the order of fisty cuffs.'

'Look for her, then, man! Look for her!'

'I shall want small compulsion for that, I promise you; but where am I
to look? Is she here?'

Ireton nodded.

'Nay, then, Master Ireton, since you bid me look, lend me, at least,
some sort of spectacles, that may help me to see through a mask; for I
am sure, if she be here, she must wear one.'

'Are you sure that, if you should see her without one, you should not
mistake her?'

'Yes, faith, am I!'

'What will you bet upon it?'

'What you will, Squire Ireton. A guinea to half a crown.'

Mrs Maple, alarmed now, for her own credit, desired Ireton to enquire
whether her carriage were ready; but Ireton, urged by an unmeaning love
of mischief, which, ordinarily, forms a large portion of the common cast
of no character, would not rest till he had engaged Riley in a wager,
that he could make him look his Demoiselle full in the face, without
recollecting her.

Riley said that he should examine every lady, now, one by one, and take
special note that she wore her own natural visage.

He began with the jocund Miss Crawleys, whose familiar gaiety, which
deemed nothing indecorous that afforded them sport, encouraged him, by
its flippant enjoyment, to proceed to others. But he no sooner advanced
to Ellis, than she turned from his investigation, in so much disorder,
that her kind young friend, Lady Barbara, enquired what was the matter.

She endeavoured to control her alarm, cheerfully answering, that she was
well; but Riley no sooner caught the sound of her voice, than, riotously
clapping his hands, he exclaimed, ''Tis the Demoiselle! Faith, 'tis the
Demoiselle herself! That's her voice! And those are her eyes! And
there's her nose! It's she, faith! And so here are the whites, and the
double face!'

A laugh from Ireton confirmed his suggestion, while the change of
countenance in Ellis, satisfied all who could see her, that some
discovery was made, or impending, which she earnestly wished concealed.

Mrs Maple, scarcely less disconcerted than herself, enquired again for
her carriage.

'Faith, this is droll enough! it is, faith!' cried Riley, when his first
transport of surprise subsided. 'So the Demoiselle is a Beauty, after
all! And the finest harp-player, to boot, on this side King David!'

Ellis, dreadfully distressed, silently bowed down her head.

'I should like to have a model of her face,' continued Riley; 'to find
out how it's done. What a fine fortune she may raise, if she will take
up a patent for beauty-making! I know many a dowager that would give
half she is worth for the secret. I should think you would not be sorry
yourself, Mrs Maple, to have a little touch of the art. It would not do
you much harm, I can tell you, Ma'am.'

The scornful looks of Mrs Maple alone announced that she heard him; and
the disturbed ones of Ellis made the same confession; but both were
equally mute.

'You'll pay for your sport, I can tell you, Master Ireton!' Riley
triumphantly went on; 'for I shall claim my wager. But pray, Demoiselle,
what's become of all those plaisters and patches, as well as of the
black coat over the skin? One could see nothing but eyes and nose. And
very handsome eyes and nose they are. I don't know that I ever saw
finer; I don't, faith! However, ladies, you need none of you despair of
turning out beauties, in the long run, if she'll lend you a hand; for
the ugliest Signora among you i'n't so frightful as poor Demoiselle was,
when we saw her first; with her bruises, and scars, and bandages.'

Overwhelmed with shame at this disgraceful, and, in public,
unanswereable attack, Ellis, utterly confounded, was painfully revolving
in her mind, what vindication she might venture to offer; and whether it
were better to speak at once, or afterwards, and individually; when, at
the intimation of these deceits and disguises, the whole party turned
towards her with alarmed and suspicious looks; and then abruptly arose
to depart; Lady Kendover, taking the hand of her young niece, who still
would have fondled Ellis, leading the way. Miss Arbe alone, of all the
society to which Ellis was known, personally fearing to lose her useful
mistress, ventured to whisper, 'Good morning, Miss Ellis: I'll call upon
you to-morrow.' While all others, with cast-up eyes and hands, hurried
off, as if contagion were in her vicinity.

Riley, claiming his wager, followed Ireton.

Petrified at her own situation, Ellis remained immovable, till she was
roused from her consternation, by a familiar offer, from Sir Lyell
Sycamore, to attend her home.

Fearful of fresh offence, she recovered from her dismay to rise; but,
when she saw that the bold Baronet was fixed to accompany her, the dread
of such an appearance to any one that she might meet, after the
disastrous scene in which she had been engaged, frightened her into
again sitting down.

Sir Lyell stood, or sauntered before her, meaning to mark her, to the
gentlemen who still lingered, observant and curious, in the room, as his
property; till Mr Tedman, coming back from an inner apartment, begged,
in the civilest manner, leave to pass, and carry a glass of white wine
negus to the young music-player, which he had saved out of a bowl that
he had been making for himself.

'Oh, by all manner of means, Sir!' cried Sir Lyell, sneeringly giving
way: 'pray don't let me mar your generosity!'

Ellis declined the negus, but, rejoicing in any safe and honest
protection, entreated that Mr Tedman would have the goodness to order
one of his servants to see her home.

Sir Lyell, sneeringly, and again placing himself before her, demanded to
play the part of the domestic; and Mr Tedman, extremely disconcerted, as
well as disappointed by the rejection of his negus, hung back ashamed.

Ellis, now, feeling a call for the most spirited exertion to rescue
herself from this impertinence, begged Mr Tedman to stop; and then,
addressing the young Baronet with dignity, said, 'If, as I believe, I
have the honour of speaking to Sir Lyell Sycamore, he will rather, I
trust, thank me, than be offended, that I take the liberty to assure
him, that he will gratify the sister of his friend,--gratify Lady Aurora
Granville,--by securing me from being molested.'

Had she named Lord Melbury, the ready suspicions of libertinism would
but have added to the familiarity of the Baronet's pursuit; but the
mention of Lady Aurora Granville startled him into respect, and he
involuntarily bowed, as he made way for her to proceed. She then eagerly
followed Mr Tedman out of the room; while Sir Lyell merely vented his
spleen, by joining some of his remaining companions, in a hearty laugh,
at the manners, the dress, the age, and the liberality of her chosen
esquire.




CHAPTER XXVI


The shock given to Ellis by this scene of apparent detection and
disgrace, prevented not Mr Tedman from exulting at a mark of preference,
which he considered as a letting down to what he called the quality. He
ordered his footman to see Miss safe to her lodging; and regretted that
he could not take her to it in his own coach, 'which I would certainly,
my dear, do,' he said, 'but for the particularity of my darter, who will
never consent to the most minimus thing in the world, but what she
thinks will be agreeable to the quality.'

Ellis passed the rest of the day in the most severe inquietude,
ruminating upon the ill effects that would probably result from an
attack which she had been so little able to parry. Vainly she expected
Miss Arbe, from whom alone she had any hope of support; and the
apprehension of being forsaken even by her professed patroness, made the
thought of appearing before Lady Kendover grow seriously formidable: but
all fears were trifling compared to the consternation with which they
terminated, when, the next day, while fancying that every sound would
prove the chaise of Miss Arbe, hour after hour passed, without any
carriage, any message; and, finally, the night closed in by the
reception of a note from the steward of Lady Kendover, to demand the
account of Miss Ellis, as Lady Barbara Frankland did not purpose to take
any more lessons.

The abruptness of this dismission, and the indelicacy of sending it
through a domestic, were not more offensive to the feelings of Ellis,
than the consequences to be expected from such a measure of hostility,
were menacing to her present plan of existence.

She was still deliberating in what manner to address some sort of
self-justification to Lady Kendover, when a similar note arrived from
the butler of Lady Arramede.

The indignant sensations which these testimonies of utter contempt
excited in Ellis, were embittered by every kind of perplexity. She had
not courage to present herself to any other of her scholars, while
uncertain whether she might not meet with treatment equally scornful;
and in this state of depression and panic, she rejoiced to receive a
visit, the following morning, even from Miss Bydel, as some mark of
female countenance and protection.

Yet the opening to this interview seemed not very propitious: Miss
Bydel, instead of ascending the stairs, as usual, seated herself with
Miss Matson, and sent for Ellis; who obeyed the call with extreme ill
will, conscious how little fit for a milliner's shop, was either what
she might be called upon to say, or what she might be constrained to
hear.

Miss Bydel failed not to take this opportunity of making sundry
enquiries into the manner in which Ellis passed her time; whom she saw;
whither she went; what sort of table she kept; and what allowance she
made for the trouble which she gave to the servants.

'Well, my dear,' she cried, 'this is but a bad affair, this business of
the day before yesterday. I have been to Mrs Maple, and I have worked
out the truth, at last; though nobody would believe the pains it cost me
before I could sift it to the bottom. However, the most extraordinary
part is, that when all came to all, she did not tell me who you were!
for she persists she don't so much as know it herself!'

The surprise of the milliners, and the disturbance of Ellis, were alike
unheeded by Miss Bydel, whose sole solicitude was to come to the point.

'Now the thing I principally want to know, my dear, is whether this is
true? for though I would not for ever so much doubt Mrs Maple's word,
this is such a prodigious old thing, that I can't give it the least
credit.'

Ellis, in much confusion, besought that she would have the goodness to
walk up stairs.

'No, no; we are very well here; only be so kind as to let me know why
you make such a secret of who you are? Every body asks me the question,
go where I will; and it's making me look no better than a fool; to think
I should be at such an expence as to hire a harp for a person I know
nothing of.'

Affrighted at the effect which this display of her poverty, and
detection of its mystery, might produce upon her hostess, Ellis was
again entreating for a _tete a tete_, when Mr Riley, descending from
his room to pass through the shop, exclaimed, 'Ah ha! the Demoiselle?
Why I had never the pleasure to meet you down here before, Ma'am?'

'Well, if this is not the gentleman who told us all those odd things
about you at the concert!' cried Miss Bydel: 'I should not be sorry to
speak a word or two to him myself. You were one of the passengers, I
think, Sir, who came over in the same boat with Mrs Maple? And glad
enough you must have been to have got back; though I suppose you were
only there upon business, Sir?'

'Not a whit, Madam! not a whit, faith! I never make bad better. I make
that a rule. I always state the worst, that is to say the truth, in my
own case as well as in my neighbour's.'

'Why then pray, Sir, if it's no secret,--what might be the reason of
your going over to such a place?'

'Curiosity, Madam! Neither more nor less. I was agog to know what those
famous Mounseers were about; and whether there were any Revolution
really going forward amongst them, or not. For I used often to think
they invented tales here in England, basking by their own fire-sides,
that had not an atom of truth in them. I thought so, faith! But I paid
for my scepticism! I was cast into prison, by Master Robertspierre, a
demon of an attorney, that now rules the roast in France, without
knowing what the devil it was for; while I was only gaping about me, to
see what sort of a figure Mounseer would make as a liberty boy! But I
shall be content to look after my own liberty in future! I shall, faith.
So one's never too old to learn; as you may find yourself, Madam, if
you'll take the trouble to cross the little canal, on a visit to Master
Robertspierre. He'll teach you gratis, I give you my word, if you have a
fancy to take a few lessons. He won't mind your age of a fig, any more
than he did mine; though I imagine you to be some years my senior.'

'I don't know what you may imagine, Sir,' said Miss Bydel; 'but you
can't know much of the matter, I think, if you have not seen my
register.'

'Nay, Ma'am, you may just as well be my junior, for any knowledge I have
about it. Women look old so much sooner than men, that there is no
judging by the exteriour.'

'Well, Sir, and if they do, I don't know any great right you have to
call them to account for it.'

'Bless me, Sir!' cried Miss Matson, 'if you knew Miss Ellis all this
time, why did you ask us all so many questions about her, as if you had
never seen her before in your life?'

'Why I never had! That's the very problem that wants solving! Though I
had spent a good seven or eight hours as near to her as I am to you, I
never had seen her before!'

'Oh! you mean because of her disguise, I take it, Sir?' said Miss Bydel;
'but I heard all that at the very first, from Miss Selina Joddrel; but
Miss Elinor told us it was only put on for escaping; so I thought no
more about it; for Mrs Maple assured us she was a young lady of family
and fashion, for else she would never, she said, have let her act with
us. And this we all believed easily enough, as Mrs Maple's own nieces
were such chief performers; so that who could have expected such a turn
all at once, as fell out the day before yesterday, of her proving to be
such a mere nothing?'

Ellis would now have retired, but Miss Bydel, holding her gown, desired
her to wait.

'Faith, Madam, as to her being a mere nothing,' said Riley, 'I don't
know that any of us are much better than nothing, when we sift ourselves
to our origin. What are you yourself, Ma'am, for one?'

'I, Sir? I'm descended from a gentleman's family, I assure you! I don't
know what you mean by such a question!'

'Why then you are descended from somebody who was rich without either
trouble or merit; for that's all that your gentleman is, as far as
belongs to birth. The man amongst your grand-dads who first got the
money, is the only one worth praising; and he, who was he? Why some one
who baked sugar, or brewed beer, better than his neighbours; or who
slashed and hewed his fellow-creatures with greater fury than they could
slash and hew him in return; or who culled the daintiest herbs for the
cure of gluttony; or filled his coffers with the best address, in
emptying those of the knaves and fools who had been set together by the
ears. Such, Ma'am, are the origins of your English gentlemen.'

'That, Sir, is as people take things. But the most particular part of
the affair here, is, that here is a person that we have got in the very
midst of us, without so much as knowing her name! for, would you believe
it, Miss Matson, they tell me she had no name at all, till I gave her
one? For I was the very first person that called her Miss Ellis! And so
here I have been a godmother, without going to a christening!'

Miss Matson expressed her surprise, with a look towards Ellis that
visibly marked a diminution of respect; while one of the young women,
who had fetched Ellis a chair, at the back of which she had been
courteously standing, now freely dropt into it herself.

'But pray, Sir, as we are upon the subject,' continued Miss Bydel, 'give
me leave to ask what you thought of this Miss we don't know who, at the
beginning.'

'Faith, Madam, I had less to do with her than any of them. The
Demoiselle and I did not hit it off together at all. I could never get
her to speak for the life of me. Ask what I would, she gave me no
answer. I was in a devil of an ill humour with her sometimes; but I hope
the Demoiselle will excuse that, I was so plaguy qualmish: for when a
man with an empty stomach can't eat but he turns sick, nor fast, but he
feels his bowels nipt with hunger, he is in no very good temper of mind
for being sociable. However, the Demoiselle must know but little of
human nature, if she fancies she can judge before breakfast what a man
may be after dinner.'

They were here broken in upon by the appearance of Mr Tedman, who,
gently opening the shop-door, and carefully closing it again before he
spoke or looked round, was beginning a whispering enquiry after the
young music-maker; when, perceiving her, he exclaimed, 'Mercy me, why,
where were my eyes? Why, my dear, I never hapt to light upon you in the
shop before! And I often pop in, to buy me a bit of ribbon for my
pig-tail; or some odd little matter or other. However, I have called
now, on purpose to have a little bit of chat with you, about that
consort of music that we was at the day before yesterday.'

Miss Bydel, in a low voice, enquired the name of this gentleman; and,
hearing that he was a man of large fortune, said to Ellis, 'Why you seem
to be intimate friends together, my dear! Pray, Sir, if one may ask such
a thing, how long may you and this young person have known one another?'

'How long, Ma'am? Why I'd never sate eyes upon Miss a fortnight ago! But
she's music-learner to my darter. And they tell me she's one of the
best, which I think like enough to be true, for she tudles upon them
wires the prettiest of any thing I ever heard.'

'And pray, Sir, if you have no objection to telling it, how might she
come to be recommended to you? for I never heard Miss Arbe mention
having the pleasure of your acquaintance.'

'Miss Arbe? I don't know that ever I heard the lady's name in my life,
Ma'am. Though, if she's one of the quality, my darter has, I make small
doubt, for she sets great store upon knowing the names of all the
quality; put in case she can light upon any body that can count them
over to her. But the way I heard of this music-miss was at the
book-shop, where my darter always makes me go to subscribe, that our
names, she says, may come out in print, with the rest of the gentry. And
there my darter was put upon buying one of those tudeling things
herself; for she heard say as a young lady was come over from France,
that learns all the quality. So that was enough for my darter; for
there's nothing the mode like coming from France. It makes any thing go
down. And 'twould be a remarkable cheap job, they said, for the young
lady was in such prodigious want of cash, as one Miss Bydel, her
particular friend, told us in the shop, that she'd jump at any price;
put in case she could but get paid. So, upon that--'

The narration was here interrupted by Sir Lyell Sycamore, who, having
caught a glimpse of Ellis through the glass-door, entered the shop with
a smile of admiration and pleasure; though, at sight of Mr Tedman, it
was changed into one of insolence and derision. With a careless swing of
his hat, and of his whole person, he negligently said, that he hoped she
had caught no cold at the concert; or at least none beyond what the
cakes, the bread and butter, or the negus, of her gallant and liberal
admirer, had been able to cure.

Mr Tedman, much affronted, mumbled the gilt head of his cane; Ellis
gravely looked another way, without deigning to make any answer; and
Riley exclaimed, 'O, faith, if you expect a reply from the Demoiselle,
except she's in a talking humour, you'll find yourself confoundedly out
in your reckoning! You will, faith! Unless you light upon something that
happens to hit her taste, you may sail from the north pole to the south,
and return home by a voyage round the world, before she'll have been
moved to squeeze out a syllable.'

The young Baronet, disdaining the plain appearance, and rough dialect
and manners of Riley, nearly as much as he despised the more civil
garrulity and meanness of Tedman, was turning scoffingly upon his heel,
when he overheard the latter say, in a low voice, to Ellis, 'Suppose we
two go up stairs to your room, to have our talk, my dear; for I don't
see what we get by staying down with the quality, only to be made game
of.'

Highly provoked, yet haughtily smiling, 'I see,' said the Baronet, 'for
whose interest I am to apply, if I wish for the honour of a private
audience!'

'Well, if you do,' said Mr Tedman, muttering between his teeth, 'it's
only a sign Miss knows I would not misbehave myself.'

Sir Lyell, now, not able to keep his countenance, went to the other end
of the shop; and pitched upon the prettiest and youngest of Miss
Matson's work-women, to ask some advice relative to his cravats.

Mr Tedman, in doubt whether this retreat were the effect of contempt, or
of being worsted, whispered to Ellis, 'One knows nothing of life, as one
may say, without coming among the quality! I should have thought, put in
case any body had asked me my opinion, that that gentleman was quite
behind hand as to his manners; for I'll warrant it would not be taken
well from me, if I was to behave so! but any thing goes down from the
quality, by way of politeness.'

'Sir Lyell Sycamore,' said Miss Bydel, who was as hard, though not as
bold as himself, 'if it won't be impertinent, I should be glad to know
how you first got acquainted with this young person? for I can't make
out how it is so many people happen to know her. Not that I mean in the
least to dive into any body's private affairs; but I have a particular
reason for what I ask; so I shall take it as a favour, Sir Lyell, if
you'll tell me.'

'Most willingly, Ma'am, upon condition you will be so kind as to tell
me, in return, whether this young lady is under your care?'

'Under my care, Sir Lyell? Don't you know who I am, then?'

A supercilious smile said No.

'Well, that's really odd enough! Did not you see me with Mrs Maple at
that blind harper's concert?'

'Faith, Madam,' cried Riley, 'when a man has but one pair of eyes, you
elderly ladies can't have much chance of getting a look, if a young lass
is by. The Demoiselle deserves a full pair to herself.'

'Why yes, Sir, that's true enough!' said Mr Tedman, simpering, 'the
young lady deserves a pair of eyes to herself! She's well enough to look
at, to be sure!'

'If she has your eyes to herself, Sir,' said Sir Lyell, contemptuously,
'she must be happy indeed!'

'She should have mine, if she would accept them, though I had an
hundred!' cried Riley.

Ellis, now, was only restrained from forcing her way up stairs, through
the apprehension of exciting fresh sneers, by an offered pursuit of Mr
Tedman.

'Don't mind them, my dear,' cried Miss Bydel; 'I'll soon set them right.
If you have any naughty thoughts, gentlemen, relative to this young
person, you must give me leave to inform you that you are mistaken; for
though I don't know who she is, nor where she comes from, nor even so
much as what is her name; except that I gave her myself, without in the
least meaning it; still you may take my word for it she is a person of
character; for Mrs Maple herself, though she confessed how the young
woman played upon her, with one contrivance after another, to ferret
herself into the house; declared, for positive, that she was quite too
particular about her acquaintances, to let her stay, if she had not been
a person of virtue. And, besides, Sir Lyell, my young Lord Melbury--'

At this name Ellis started and changed colour.

'My young Lord Melbury, Sir Lyell, as young lords will do, offered to
make her his mistress; and, I can give you my word for it, she
positively refused him. This his young lordship told to Mr Ireton, from
whom I had it; that is from Mrs Maple, which is the same thing. Is it
not true Mrs Ellis? or Mrs something else, I don't know what?'

The most forcible emotions were now painted upon the countenance of
Ellis, who, unable to endure any longer such offensive discourse,
disengaged herself from Miss Bydel, and, no longer heeding Mr Tedman,
hurried up stairs.

Sir Lyell Sycamore stared after her, for a few minutes, with mingled
surprise, curiosity, admiration, and pique; and then loitered out of the
shop.

Riley, shouting aloud, said the Demoiselle always amused him; and
followed.

Mr Tedman, not daring, after the insinuations of Sir Lyell, to attempt
pursuing the young _music-maker_, produced a paper-packet, consisting of
almonds, and raisins, and French plums; saying, 'I intended to pop these
nice things upon that young Miss's table, unbeknown to her, for a
surprise; for I did not like to come empty handed; for I know your young
housekeepers never afford themselves little dainties of this kind; so I
poked together all that was left, out of all the plates, after desert,
yesterday, when we happened to have a very handsome dinner, because of
company. So you'll be sure to give her the whole, Mrs Matson. Don't
leave 'em about, now! They are but tempting things.'

Miss Bydel remained last; unable to prevail upon herself to depart,
while she could suggest a single interrogatory for the gratification of
her curiosity.




CHAPTER XXVII


The retreat sought by Ellis, from a recital as offensive to her ear as
it was afflicting to her heart, was not long uninterrupted: Miss Arbe,
next, made her appearance. Gravely, but civilly, she lamented the
disturbance at the concert; paradingly assuring Ellis that she should
have called sooner, but that she had incessantly been occupied in
endeavours to serve her. She had conversed with every one of her
scholars; but nothing was yet quite decided, as to what would be the
result of that strange attack. Poor Mrs Maple, to whom, of course, she
had made her first visit, seemed herself in the utmost distress; one
moment repining, that she had suffered her charity to delude her into
countenancing a person so unknown; and another, vindicating herself
warmly from all possible imputation of indiscretion, by the most
positive affirmations of the unblemished reputation of Miss Ellis; and
these assertions, most fortunately, had, at length, determined Miss
Bydel to support her, for how else, as she justly asked, should she get
the money repaid that she had advanced for the harp?

'And Miss Bydel,' continued Miss Arbe, 'like all other old maids, is so
precise about those sort of particulars, that, though she has not the
smallest influence with any body of any consequence, as to any thing
else, she is always depended upon for that sort of thing. We must not,
therefore, shew her that we despise her, for she may be useful enough;
especially in letting you have the harp, you know, that we may still
enjoy a little music together. For I can make her do whatever I please
for the sake of my company.'

Ellis had long known that the civilities which she owed to Miss Arbe,
had their sole motive in selfishness; but the total carelessness of
giving them any other colour, became, now, so glaring, that she could
with difficulty conceal the decrease either of her respect or of her
gratitude.

Miss Arbe, however, was but little troubled with that species of
delicacy which is solicitous to watch, that it may spare the feelings of
others. She continued, therefore, what she had to offer, hurrying to
come to a conclusion, as she had not, she declared, three minutes to
stay.

If Lady Kendover, she said, could be brought over, every body would
follow; not excepting Lady Arramede, who was obliged to be so great a
niggard, in the midst of her splendid expences, that she would be quite
enchanted to renew her daughter's lessons, with so economical a
mistress, if once she could be satisfied that she would be sustained by
other persons of fashion. But Lady Kendover, who did not wait to be led,
protested that she could by no means place her niece again under the
tuition of Miss Ellis, till the concert-scene should be explained.

Miss Arbe then asked whether Ellis would give it any explanation.

Ellis dejectedly answered, that she could offer no other, than that
necessity had forced her to disguise herself, that she might make her
escape.

'Well but, then, people say,' cried Miss Arbe, 'now that your escape is
made, why don't you speak out? That's the cry every where.'

Ellis looked down, distressed, ashamed; and Miss Arbe declared that she
had not another moment at present, for discussion, but would call again,
to settle what should be done on Monday. Meantime, she had brought some
new music with her, which she wished to try; for the time was so
unaccountable, that she could not make out a bar of it.

Ellis heartily felicitated herself upon every occasion, by which she
could lessen obligations of which she now felt the full weight, and,
with the utmost alacrity, took her harp.

Miss Arbe here had so much to study, so many passages to pick out, and
such an eagerness to practise till she could conquer their difficulties,
that she soon forgot that she had not a moment to spare; and two hours
already had been consecrated to her improvement, when intelligence was
brought that Mr Tedman's carriage was come for Miss Ellis.

'You must not accept it for the world!' cried Miss Arbe. 'If, at the
moment people of distinction are shy of you, you are known to cultivate
amongst mechanics, and people of that sort, it's all over with you.
Persons of fashion can't possibly notice you again.'

She then added, that, after the scene of the preceding day, Miss Ellis
must make it a point to let the first house that she entered be that of
somebody of condition. She might go amongst trades-people as much as she
pleased, when once she was established amongst persons of rank; for
trades-people were so much the best paymasters, that nobody could be
angry if artists were partial to them; but they must by no means take
the lead; nor suppose that they were to have any hours but those that
would not suit other people. As she could not, therefore, re-commence
her career at Lady Kendover's, or at Lady Arramede's, she must try to
get received at Miss Sycamore's;--or, if that should be too difficult,
at the Miss Crawleys, who would object to nothing, as they cared for
nobody's opinion, and made it a rule to follow nobody's advice. And this
they took so little pains to hide from the world, that their countenance
would not be of the least service, but for their living with Sir
Marmaduke, who was scrupulosity itself. This being the case, joined to
their extreme youth, they had not yet been set down, as they must
necessarily be, in a few years, for persons of no weight, and rather
detrimental than advantageous to people of no consequence. At present,
therefore, Ellis might safely make her court to them, as she could
always drop them when they became dangerous, or of no use. And just now
she must snap at whoever and whatever could help to bring her again into
credit. And the Miss Crawleys, though each of them was as wilful as a
spoiled child, as full of tricks as a schoolboy, and of as boisterous
mirth as a dairy-maid, were yet sisters of a baronet, and born of a very
good family; and therefore they would be more serviceable to her than
that vulgar Miss Tedman, even though she were an angel.

Ellis listened in silent, and scarcely concealed disdain, to these
worldly precepts; yet Miss Tedman was so utterly disagreeable, and the
sneers of Sir Lyell Sycamore had added such repugnance to her distaste
of the civilities of Mr Tedman, that she did not attempt opposing the
dictatorial proceedings of Miss Arbe; who gave orders, that the coachman
should be told that Miss Ellis was indisposed, and sent her compliments,
but could not wait upon Miss Tedman till the next week.

She then again went on with her unacknowledged, but not less, to her
tutress, laborious lesson, till she was obliged to hasten to her
toilette, for her dinner-engagement; leaving Ellis in the utmost alarm
for her whole scheme; and tormented with a thousand fears, because
unable to fix upon any standard for the regulation of her conduct.

The next day was Sunday. Ellis had constantly on that day attended
divine worship, during the month which she had spent at Brighthelmstone;
and now, to a call stronger than usual for the consolation which it
might afford her, she joined an opinion, that to stay away, in her
present circumstances, might have an air of absconding, or of
culpability.

She was placed, as usual, in a pew, with some other decent strangers, by
a fee to the pew-opener; but she had the mortification to find, when the
service was over, that the dry clear frost, of the latter end of March,
which had enabled her to walk to the church, was broken up by a heavy
shower of rain. She had been amongst the first to hurry away, in the
hope of escaping unnoticed, by hastening down the hill, on which the
church is built, before the higher ranks of the congregation left their
pews; but, arrived at the porch, she was compelled to stop: she was
unprovided with an umbrella, and the rain was so violent that, without
one, she must have been wet through in a minute.

She would have made way back to the pew which she had quitted, to wait
for more moderate weather; but the whole congregation was coming forth,
and there was no re-passing.

She was the more sensibly vexed at being thus impeded, from finding
herself, almost immediately, joined by Sir Lyell Sycamore; whose
eagerness to speak to her by no means concealed his embarrassment in
what manner to address, or to think of her. He was making, various
offers of service; to find the pew-opener; to give her a seat to
herself; to fetch her a chaise from the nearest inn; or an umbrella from
his own carriage; when Mrs and Miss Brinville, who hurried from their
pew, the instant that they saw the Baronet depart, cast upon them looks
of such suspicious disdain, that he deemed it necessary, though he
smiled and appeared gratified by their undisguised pique, to walk on
with them to their carriage; whispering, however, to Ellis that he
should return to take her under his care.

Ellis, extremely shocked, could not endure to remain on the same spot,
as if awaiting his services; she glided, therefore, into a corner, close
to the door; hoping that the crowd, which incommoded, would at least
protect her from being seen: but she had not been stationed there a
moment, before she had the unwelcome surprise of hearing the words,
'Why, Mr Stubbs, if here is not Miss Ellis!' and finding that she had
placed herself between young Gooch, the farmer's son, and Mr Stubbs, the
old steward.

'Good now, Ma'am,' the young man cried, 'why I have never seen you since
that night of our all acting together in that play, when you out-topped
us all so to nothing! I never saw the like, not even at the real play.
And some of the judges said, you were not much short of what they be at
the grand London theatre itself. I suppose, Ma'am, you were pretty well
used to acting in France? for they say all the French are actors or
dancers, except just them that go to the wars. I should like to know,
Ma'am, whether they pop off them players and fidlers at the same rate
they do the rest? for, if they do, it's a wonder how they can get 'em to
go on acting and piping, and jiggetting about, and such like, if they
know they are so soon to have their heads off, all the same. You could
not get we English now to do so, just before being hanged, or shot. But
the French a'n't very thoughtful. They're always ready for a jig.'

'I am sorry I had no notice of seeing you here to day, Ma'am,' said Mr
Stubbs, 'for if I had, I would have brought my bit of paper with me,
that I've writ down my queries upon, about raising the rents in those
parts, and the price that land holds in general; and about a purchase
that I am advised to make.--'

'But I should like much to know, Ma'am,' resumed Gooch, 'whether it's a
truth, what I've been told at our club, that your commonest soldier in
France, when once he can bring proof he has killed you his dozen or so,
with his own hand, is made a general upon the spot? If that's the case,
to be sure it's no great wonder there's so much blood shed; for such
encouragement as that's enough to make soldiers of the very women and
children.'

'Why, I am told, the French have no great head,' said Mr Stubbs, 'except
for the wars; and that's what makes the land so cheap; for, I am told,
you may buy an estate, of a thousand or two acres, for an old song. And
that's the reason I am thinking of making a purchase. The only point is,
how to see the premises without the danger of crossing the seas; and how
to strike the bargain.'

Ellis, thus beset, was not sorry to be joined by Mr Scope, who, though
more formal and tedious than either of the others, was a gentleman,
spoke in a lower tone of voice, and attracted less attention.

'I am happy, Ma'am,' he said, 'to have met with you again; for I have
wished for some time to hold a little discourse with you, relative to
the rites practised abroad, as to that Goddess of Reason, that, as I am
credibly informed, has been set up by Mr Robert-Spierre. Now I should
wish to enquire, what good they expect to accrue by proclaiming, one
day, that there is no religion, and then, the next day, making a new one
by the figure of a woman. It is hardly to be supposed that such sort of
fickleness can serve to make a government respectable. And as to so many
females being called Goddesses of Reason,--for I am assured there are
some score of them,--one don't very well see what that means; the ladies
in general,--I speak without offence, as it's out of their line,--not
being particularly famous for their reason; at least not here; and I
should suppose they can hardly be much more so in that light nation. The
Pagans, it is true, though from what mode of thinking we are now at a
loss to discover, thought proper to have Reason represented by a female;
and that, perhaps, may be the cause of the French adopting the same
notion, on account of their ancient character for politeness; though I
cannot much commend their sagacity, taken in a political point of view,
in putting the female head, which is very well in its proper sphere,
upon coping, if I may use such an expression, with the male.'

This harangue, which Mr Stubbs and young Gooch, though too respectful to
interrupt, waited, impatiently, to hear finished, might have lasted
unbroken for half an hour, if Miss Bydel, in passing by with her
brother, to get to her carriage, had not called out, 'Bless me, Mr
Scope, what are you talking of there, with that young person? Have you
been asking her about that business at the blind harper's concert? I
should be glad to know, myself, Miss Ellis, as I call you, what you
intend to do next? Have any of your scholars let you go to them again?
And what says Miss Arbe to all this? Does she think you'll ever get the
better of it?'

Mr Bydel, here, begged his sister to invite Mr Scope to take a place in
the carriage.

Young Gooch, then, would have renewed his questions relative to the
generals, but that, upon pronouncing again her name, Mr Tedman, who,
with his daughter, was passing near the porch, to examine whether they
could arrive safely at their carriage, called out, 'Well, if you are not
here, too, my dear! Why how will you do to get home? You'll be draggled
up to your chin, if you walk; put in case you haven't got your umbrella,
and your pattens. But I suppose some of your quality friends will give
you a lift; for I see one of 'em just coming. It's Miss Ellis, the
music-maker, Ma'am,' added he, to Lady Arramede, who just then came out
with Miss Arramede; 'the young girl as teaches our darters the musics;
and she'll spoil all her things, poor thing, if somebody don't give her
a lift home.'

Lady Arramede, without moving a muscle of her face, or deigning to turn
towards either the object or the agent of this implied request, walked
on in silent contempt.

Mr Tedman, extremely offended, said, 'The quality always think they may
behave any how! and Lady Arrymud is not a bit to choose, from the worst
among them. And even my own darter,' he whispered, 'is just as bad as
the best; for she'd pout at me for a month to come, put in case I was to
ride you home in our coach, now that the quality's taken miff at you.'

During this whisper, which Ellis strove vainly to avoid hearing, and
which the familiar junction of young Gooch, who was related to Mr
Tedman, rendered more observable, she had the mortification of being
evidently seen, though no longer, as heretofore, courteously
acknowledged, by all her scholars and acquaintances. Miss Sycamore, the
hardiest, passed, staring disdainfully in her face; Mrs Maple, the most
cowardly, and who was accidentally at Brighthelmstone, pretended to have
hurt her foot, that she might look down: the Miss Crawleys screamed out,
'The Ellis! The Ellis! look, The Marmaduke, 'tis The Ellis!' Sir
Marmaduke, turning back to address Miss Arbe, said, with concern, 'Is it
possible, Madam, 'tis The Ellis, the elegant Ellis, that can join such
low company?' Miss Arbe shrugged her shoulders, crying, 'What can one do
with such people?' Lady Kendover's eyes kept carefully a
straight-forward direction; while Lady Barbara, whom she held by one
hand, incessantly kissed the other at Ellis, with ingenuous and
undisguised warmth of kindness; an action which was eagerly repeated by
Selina, who closely followed her ladyship.

Ireton, who brought up the rear, quitted the group, to approach Ellis,
and say, 'I am, positively, quite confounded, my dear Miss Ellis, at the
mischief my confounded giddiness has brought about. I had not an idea of
it, I assure you. I merely meant to play upon that confounded queer
fellow, Riley. He's so cursed troublesome, and so confounded free, that
I hate him horribly. That's all, I assure you.'

Ellis would make no answer, and he was forced to run after Selina.

The rain being, now, much abated, the congregation began to disperse,
and Mr Tedman was compelled to attend his daughter; but he recommended
the young music-maker to the care of his cousin Gooch; whose assistance
she was declining, when she was again joined by Sir Lyell Sycamore,
with a capacious umbrella, under which he begged to be her escort.

She decidedly refused his services; but he protested that, if she would
not let him walk by her side, he would follow her, like an Indian slave,
holding the umbrella over her head, as if she were an Indian queen.

Vexed and displeased, and preferring any other protection, she addressed
herself to old Mr Stubbs, who still stood under the porch, and begged
him to have the kindness to see her home.

Mr Stubbs, extremely flattered, complied. The other candidates vainly
opposed the decision: they found that her decree was irrevocable, and
that, when once it was pronounced, her silence was resolute. Mr Stubbs,
nevertheless, had by no means the enjoyment that he expected from this
distinction; for Ellis had as little inclination as she had spirit, to
exert herself for answering the numerous enquiries, relative to lands
and rents, which he poured into her ears.




CHAPTER XXVIII


Harassed and comfortless, Ellis passed the remainder of the day in
painful recollections and apprehensive forebodings; though utterly
unable, either by retrospection to avoid, or by anticipation to prepare
for the evils that she might have to encounter.

The next morning, Miss Arbe came to her usual appointment. Though glad,
in a situation so embarrassed, to see the only person whom she could
look upon as a guide, her opinion of Miss Arbe, already lowered during
that lady's last visit, had been so completely sunk, from her joining in
the cry raised at the church, that she received her with undisguised
coldness; and an open remonstrance against the cruel injustice of
ascribing to choice, circumstances the most accidental, and a position
as unavoidable, as it had been irksome and improper.

Miss Arbe, who came into the room with a gravely authoritative air,
denoting that she expected not simply a welcome, but the humblest
gratitude, for the condescension of her visit, was astonished by the
courage, and disconcerted by the truth of this exhortation. She was by
no means ignorant how unpleasantly Ellis might have been struck by her
behaviour at the church; but she thought her in a condition too forlorn
to feel, much less to express any resentment: and she meant, by entering
the chamber with an wholly uncustomary importance, to awe her from
hazarding any complaint. But the modesty of Ellis was a mixture of
dignity with humility; if she thought herself oppressed or insulted, the
former predominated; if she experienced consideration and kindness, she
was all meek gratitude in return.

But when, by the steadiness of her representation, Miss Arbe found her
own mistake, and saw what firmness could exist with indigence, what
spirit could break through difficulty, she disguised her surprise, and
changed, with alertness, the whole of her manner. She protested that
some other voice must have been taken for her's; declared that she had
always thought nobody so charming as Miss Ellis; railed against the
abominable world for its prejudices; warmly renewed her professions of
regard; and then rang the bell, to order her footman to bring up a
little parcel of music from her coach, which she was sure would delight
them both to try together.

Ellis suffered the music to be fetched; but, before she would play it,
entreated Miss Arbe to spare a few minutes to discourse upon her
affairs.

'What, Madam, am I now to do? 'Tis to your influence and exertions I am
indebted for the attempt which I have made, to procure that
self-dependance which I so earnestly covet. I shall always be most ready
to acknowledge this obligation; but, permit me to solicit your
directions, and, I hope, your aid, how I may try to allay the storm
which accident has so cruelly raised around me; but which misconception
alone can make dangerous or durable.'

'Very true, my dear Miss Ellis, if every body judged you as justly as I
do; but when people have enemies--'

'Enemies?' repeated Ellis, amazed, 'surely, Madam, you are not
serious?--Enemies? Can I possibly have any enemies? That, in a situation
so little known, and so unlikely to be understood, I may have failed to
create friends, I can easily, indeed, conceive,--but, offending no one,
distressed, yet not importunate, and seeking to obviate my difficulties
by my exertions; to supply my necessities by my labours,--surely I
cannot have been so strangely, so unaccountably unfortunate as to have
made myself any enemies?'

'Why you know, my dear Miss Ellis, how I blamed you, from the first, for
that nonsense of telling Miss Brinville that she had no ear for music:
what could it signify whether she had or not? She only wanted to learn
that she might say she learnt; and you had no business to teach, but
that you might be paid for teaching.'

'And is it possible, Madam, that I can have made her really my enemy,
merely by forbearing to take what I thought would be a dishonourable
advantage, of her ignorance of that defect?'

'Nay, she has certainly no great reason to be thankful, for she would
never have found it out; and I am sure nobody else would ever have told
it her! She is firmly persuaded that you only wanted to give Sir Lyell
Sycamore an ill opinion of her accomplishments; for she declares that
she has seen you unceasingly pursuing him, with all the wiles
imaginable. One time she surprised you sitting entirely aloof, at the
Welshman's benefit, till he joined you; another time, she caught you
waiting for him in the aisle of the church; and, in short--'

'Miss Arbe,' cried Ellis, interrupting her, with undisguised resentment,
'if Miss Brinville can be amused by inventing, as well as propagating,
premeditated motives for accidental occurrences, you must permit me to
decline being the auditress, if I cannot escape being the object of such
fictitious censure!'

Miss Arbe, somewhat ashamed, repeated her assurances of personal good
opinion; and then, with many pompous professions of regard and concern,
owned that there had been a discussion at Lady Kendover's, after
church-time on Sunday, which had concluded by a final decision, of her
ladyship's, that it was utterly impossible to admit a young woman, so
obscurely involved in strange circumstances, and so ready to fall into
low company, to so confidential a kind of intercourse, as that of giving
instructions to young persons of fashion. Every body else, of course,
would abide by her ladyship's decision, 'and therefore, my dear Miss
Ellis,' she continued, 'I am excessively sorry, but our plan is quite
overset. I am excessively sorry, I assure you; but what can be done?
However, I have not above three minutes to stay, so do let us try that
sweet adagio. I want vastly to conquer the horrid long bars of that
eternal cadenza.'

Ellis, for a few moments, stood almost stupified with amazement at so
selfish a proposition, at the very instant of announcing so ruinous a
sentence. But disdain soon supplied her with philosophy, and scorning to
make an appeal for a consideration so unfeelingly withheld, she calmly
went to her harp.

When Miss Arbe, however, rose to be gone, she begged some advice
relative both to the debts which she had contracted, and those which she
was entitled to claim; but Miss Arbe, looking at her watch, and hurrying
on her gloves, declared that she had not a second to lose. 'I shall see
you, however,' she cried, in quitting the chamber, 'as often as
possible: I can find a thousand pretences for coming to Miss Matson's,
without any body's knowing why; so we can still have our delightful
little musical meetings.'

The contempt inspired by this worldly patroness, so intent upon her own
advantage, so insensible to the distress of the person whom she affected
to protect, occupied the mind of Ellis only while she was present; the
door was no sooner shut, than she felt wholly engrossed by her own
situation, and her disappointment at large. This scheme, then, she
cried, is already at an end! this plan for self-dependence is already
abortive! And I have not my disappointment only to bear, it is
accompanied with disgrace, and exposes me to indignity!

Deeply hurt and strongly affected, how insufficient, she
exclaimed, is a FEMALE to herself! How utterly dependant upon
situation--connexions--circumstance! how nameless, how for ever
fresh-springing are her DIFFICULTIES, when she would owe her existence
to her own exertions! Her conduct is criticised, not scrutinized; her
character is censured, not examined; her labours are unhonoured, and her
qualifications are but lures to ill will! Calumny hovers over her head,
and slander follows her footsteps!

Here she checked herself; candour, the reigning feature of her mind,
repressed her murmurs. Involved as I am in darkness and obscurity, she
cried, ought I to expect milder judgment? No! I have no right to
complain. Appearances are against me; and to appearances are we not all
either victims or dupes?

She now turned her thoughts to what measures she must next pursue; but
felt no chance of equally satisfying herself in any other attempt. Music
was her favourite study, and in the practice of that elegant, grateful,
soul-soothing art, she found a softening to her cares, that momentarily,
at least, lulled them to something like forgetfulness. And though this
was a charm that could by no means extend to the dull and dry labour of
teaching, it was a profession so preferable to all others, in her taste,
that she bore patiently and cheerfully the minute, mechanical, and
ear-wearing toil, of giving lessons to the unapt, the stupid, the idle,
and the wilful; for such, unhappily are the epithets most ordinarily due
to beginners in all sciences and studies.

The necessity, however, of adopting some plan that should both be speedy
and vigorous, was soon alarmingly enforced by a visit from Miss Matson;
who civilly, but with evidently altered manners, told her that she had a
little account to settle with some tradesmen, and that she should take
it as a favour if her own account could be settled for her lodgings.

There are few attacks to which we are liable, that give a greater shock
to upright and unhackneyed minds, than a pecuniary demand which they
know to be just, yet cannot satisfy. Pride and shame assault them at
once. They are offended by a summons that seems to imply a doubt of
their integrity; while they blush at appearing to have incurred it, by
not having more scrupulously balanced their means with their expences.

She suffered, therefore, the most sensible mortification, from her
inability to discharge, without delay, a debt contracted with a
stranger, upon whose generosity she had no claim; upon whose forbearance
she had no tie.

Far from having this power, she had other bills to expect which she as
little could answer. The twenty pounds of Lady Aurora were already
nearly gone, in articles which did not admit of trust; and in the
current necessaries which her situation indispensably and daily
required. She feared that all the money which was due to her would be
insufficient to pay what she owed; or, at least, would be wholly
employed in that act of justice; which would leave her, therefore, in
the same utter indigence as when she began her late attempt.

Her look of consternation served but to stimulate the demands of Miss
Matson, which were now accompanied with allusions to the conversation
that had been held in the shop, between Miss Bydel and Mr Riley,
relative to her poverty and disguise, that were designedly offensive.

Ellis, with an air grave and commanding, desired to be left alone;
calmly saying that Miss Matson should very speedily be satisfied.

The impulse of her wishes was to have recourse to the deposit of
Harleigh, that her answer to this affront might be an immediate change
of lodging, as well as payment. But this was a thought that scarcely
out-lived the moment of its formation. Alas! she cried, he who alone
could serve me, whose generosity and benevolence would delight in aiding
me, has put it out of my power to accept his smallest assistance! Had my
friendship contented him, how essentially might I have been indebted to
his good offices!

She was here broken in upon by one of the young apprentices, who, with
many apologies, brought, from the several trades-people, all the little
bills which had been incurred through the directions of Miss Arbe.

However severely she was shocked, she could not be surprised. She wrote
immediately to communicate these demands to Miss Arbe, stating her
distress, and entreating that her late scholars might be urged to settle
their accounts with the utmost expedition. She felt her right to make
this application to Miss Arbe, whose advice, or rather insistance, had
impelled her into the measures which produced her present difficulties.
Her request, therefore, though urged with deference and respect, had a
tone which she was sure could not justly be disputed.

She wished earnestly to address a few words to Lady Kendover, of such a
nature as might speak in her favour to her scholars at large; but so
many obstacles were in the way, to her giving any satisfactory
explanation, that she was obliged to be contented with silent
acquiescence.

Miss Arbe sent word that she was engaged, and could not write. The rest
of the day was passed in great anxiety. But when the following, also,
wore away, without producing any reply, she wrote again, proposing, if
Miss Arbe had not time to attend to her request, to submit it to Miss
Bydel.

In about half an hour after she had sent this second note, Mr Giles Arbe
desired to be admitted, that he might deliver to her a message from his
cousin.

She recollected having heard, from Selina, that he was a very absent,
but worthy old man, and that he had the very best temper of any person
breathing.

She did not hesitate, therefore, to receive him; and his appearance
announced, at once, the latter quality, by a smile the most
inartificial, which was evidently the emanation of a kind heart, opening
to immediate good will at sight of a fellow-creature. It seemed the
visible index of a good and innocent mind; and his manners had the most
singular simplicity.

His cousin, he said, had desired him to acquaint her, that she could not
call, because she was particularly engaged; and could not write,
because, she was particularly hurried. 'And whenever I have a commission
from my cousin,' he continued, 'I always think it best to deliver it in
her own words, for two or three reasons; one of which is that my own
might not be half as good; for she is the most accomplished young lady
living, I am told; and my other reasons you'll do me a favour by not
asking me to mention.'

'I may, at least infer, then, Sir, that, when less hurried, and less
engaged, Miss Arbe means to have the goodness to come, or to write to
me?'

'I don't doubt it: those ladies that she don't like should see her with
you, can hardly keep watching her all day long.'

'What ladies, Sir?'

'O, I must not mention names!' returned he, smiling; 'my cousin charged
me not. My fair cousin likes very well to be obeyed. But, may be, so do
you, too? For they tell me it's not an uncommon thing among ladies. And
if that's the case, I shall find myself in a dilemma; for my cousin has
the best right; and yet, what have you done to me that I should deny you
what you ask me?'

Then looking earnestly, but with an air so innocent, that it was
impossible to give offence, in her face, he added, 'My cousin has often
told me a great many things about you; yet she never mentioned your
being so pretty! But may be she thought I might find it out.'

Ellis enquired whether he were acquainted with the nature of her
application to Miss Arbe.

He nodded an assent, but checking himself from confirming it, cried, 'My
cousin bid me say nothing; for she will have it that I always mention
things that should not be told; and that makes me very careful. So I
hope you won't be angry if you find me rather upon my guard.'

Ellis disclaimed all inquisitive designs, beyond desiring to know,
whether Miss Arbe meant that she should discuss her situation with him,
and receive his counsel how she should proceed.

'My cousin never asks my counsel,' he answered: 'she knows every thing
best herself. She is very clever, they tell me. She often recounts to me
how she surprises people. So does her papa. I believe they think I
should not discover it else. And I don't know but they are in the right,
for I am a very indifferent judge. But I can't make out, with that
gentle air of yours, and so pretty a face, how you can have made those
ladies take such a dislike to you?'

'A dislike, Sir?'

'Yes; Lady Arramede talks of you with prodigious contempt, and--'

Ellis colouring at this word, hung back, evidently declining to hear
another; but Mr Giles, not remarking this, went on. 'And Miss Brinville
can't endure you, neither. It's a curious thing to see what an angry
look comes over her features, when she talks of you. Do you know the
reason?'

'I flatter myself it is not to be known, Sir! Certainly I am innocent of
any design of offending her.'

'Why then perhaps she does not know what she has taken amiss, herself,
poor lady! She's only affronted, and can't tell why. It will happen so
sometimes, to those pretty ladies, when they begin going a little down
hill. And they can't help it. They don't know what to make of it
themselves, poor things! But we can see how it is better, we
lookers-on.'

He then seated himself upon an arm-chair, and, leaning back at his ease,
continued talking, but without looking at Ellis, or seeming to address
her.

'I always pity them, the moment I see them, those pretty creatures, even
when they are in their prime. I always think what they have got to go
through. After seeing every body admire them, to see nobody look at
them! And when they cast their eyes on a glass, to find themselves every
day changing,--and always for the worse! It is but hard upon them, I
really think, when they have done nothing to deserve it. It is but a
short time ago that that Miss Brinville was almost as pretty as this
young harp-player here.'--

'Sir!' cried Ellis, surprised.

'Ma'am?' cried he, starting, and looking round; and then, smiling at
himself, adding, 'I protest I did not think of your being so near me! I
had forgot that. But I hope you won't take it ill?'

'By no means,' she answered; and asked whether she might write a few
lines by him to Miss Arbe.

He willingly consented.

She then drew up an animated representation, to that lady, of the
irksome situation into which she was cast, from the evident distrust
manifested by Miss Matson; and the suspicious speed with which the other
bills had been delivered. She meant to send her small accounts
immediately to all her scholars, and entreated Miss Arbe to use her
interest in hastening their discharge.

When she raised her head to give this, with an apology, to Mr Giles, she
saw him unfolding some small papers, which he began very earnestly to
examine. Not to interrupt him, she took up some needle-work; but, upon
looking, soon after, at the chimney-piece, she missed the packet which
she had placed there, of her bills, and then with the utmost surprise,
perceived that it was in his hands.

She waited a few instants, in expectation that he would either put it
down, or make some excuse for his curiosity; but he seemed to think of
nothing less. He sorted and counted the bills, and began casting them
up.

'Have you then the goodness, Sir,' said Ellis, 'to prepare yourself for
acquainting Miss Arbe with the state of my affairs?'

He started again at this question, and looked a little scared; but,
after a minute's perplexity, he suddenly arose, and hastily refolding,
and placing them upon the chimney-piece, said, with a good deal of
confusion, 'I beg your pardon a thousand times! I don't well know how
this happened; but the chimney-piece looks so like my own,--and the
fire was so comfortable,--that I suppose I thought I was at home, and
took that parcel for one that the servant had put there for me. And I
was wondering to myself when I had ordered all those linens, and
muslins, and the like: I could not recollect one article of them.'

He then, after again begging her pardon, took leave.

While Ellis was ruminating whether this strange conduct were the effect
of absence, oddity, or curiosity, he abruptly returned, and said, 'I
protest I was going without my errand, at last! Did you bid me tell my
cousin that all those bills were paid?'

'All paid?--alas, no!--not one of them!'

'And why not? You should always pay your bills, my dear.'

Ellis looked at him in much perplexity, to see whether this were uttered
as a sneer, or as a remonstrance; but soon perceived, by the earnestness
of his countenance, that it was the latter; and then, with a sigh,
answered, 'You are undoubtedly right, Sir! I am the first to condemn all
that appears against me! But I made my late attempt with a persuasion
that I was as secure of repaying others, as of serving myself. I would
not, else, have run any risk, where I should not have been the sole
sufferer.'

'But what,' said he, staring, and shutting the door, and not seeming to
comprehend her, 'what is the reason that you can't pay your bills?'

'A very simple reason, Sir--I have not the power!'

'Not the power?--what, are you very poor, then?'

Ellis could not forbear smiling, but seeing him put his hand in his
pocket, hastened to answer, 'Yes, Sir,--but very proud, too! I am
sometimes, therefore, involved in the double distress, of being obliged
to refuse the very assistance I require.'

'But you would not refuse mine!'

'Without a moment's hesitation!'

'Would you, indeed? And from what motive?'

Again Ellis could scarcely keep her countenance, at a question so
unexpected, while she answered, 'From the customs, Sir, of the world, I
have been brought up to avoid all obligations with strangers.'

'How so? I don't at all see that. Have you not an obligation to that
linen draper, and hosier, and I don't know who, there, upon your
chimney-piece, if you take their things, and don't pay for them?'

Yet more struck with the sense of unbiassed equity manifested by this
question, than by the simplicity shewn by that which had preceded it,
Ellis felt her face suffused with shame, as she replied, 'I blush to
have incurred such a reprimand; but I hope to convince you, by the
exertions which I shall not a moment delay making, how little it is my
intention to practise any such injustice; and how wide it would be from
my approbation.'

She sat down, sensibly affected by the necessity of uttering this
vindication.

'Well, then,' said he, without observing her distress, 'won't it be more
honest to run in debt with an old bachelor, who has nobody but himself
to take care of, than with a set of poor people who, perhaps, have got
their houses full of children?'

The word honest, and the impossibility of disproving a charge of
injuring those by whom she had been served, so powerfully shocked her
feelings in arraigning her principles, that she could frame no answer.

Conceiving her silence to be assent, he returned to the chimney-piece,
and, taking the little packet of bills, prepared to put it into his
pocket-book; but, hastily, then, rising, she entreated him to restore it
without delay.

Her manner was so earnest that he did not dare contest her will, though
he looked nearly as angry as he was sorry. 'I meant,' he said, 'to have
given you the greatest pleasure in the world; that was what I meant. I
thought your debts made you so unhappy, that you would love me all your
life for getting them off your hands. I loved a person so myself, who
paid for some tops for me, when I was a boy, that I had bought for some
of my playmates; without recollecting that I had no money to pay for
them. However, I beg your pardon for my blunder, if you like your debts
better.'

He now bowed to her, with an air of concern, and, wishing her health and
happiness, retreated; but left her door wide open; and she heard him say
to the milliners, 'My dears, I've made a great mistake: I wanted to set
that pretty lady's heart at rest, by paying her bills; but she says she
had rather owe them; though she did not mention her reason. So I hope
the poor people are in no great hurry. However, whether they be or not,
don't let them torment her for the money, for she says she has none. So
'twould only be plaguing her for nothing. And I should be sorry for her,
for she looks as if she were very smart, besides being so pretty.'




CHAPTER XXIX


Ellis, for some minutes, hardly knew whether to be most provoked or
diverted by this singular visit. But all that approached to amusement
was short lived. The most distant apprehension that her probity could be
arraigned, was shocking; and she determined to dedicate the evening to
calculating all that she had either to pay or to receive; and sooner to
leave herself destitute of every means of support, but such as should
arise from day to day, than hazard incurring any suspicion injurious to
her integrity.

These estimates, which were easily drawn up, afforded her, at once, a
view of her ability to satisfy her creditors, and of the helpless
poverty in which she must then remain herself: her courage,
nevertheless, rose higher, from the conviction that her honour would be
cleared.

She was thus employed, when, late in the evening, Miss Arbe, full
dressed, and holding her watch in her hand, ran up stairs. 'I have but a
quarter of an hour,' she cried, 'to stay, so don't let us lose a moment.
I am just come from dining at Lady Kendover's, and I am going to an
assembly at the Sycamore's. But I thought I would just steal a few
minutes for our dear little lyre. You can give me your answer, you know,
as I am going down stairs. Come, quick, my dear Miss Ellis!--'Tis such a
delight to try our music together!'

'My answer, Madam?' cried Ellis, surprised: 'I had hoped for yours! and,
as you will, probably, meet all the ladies to whom you have had the
goodness to mention me, at Miss Sycamore's, I entreat--'

'I am so dreadfully hurried,' cried she, unrolling her music, 'that I
can't say a word of all that now. But we'll arrange it, and you can tell
me how you like our plan, you know, as I am putting up my music, and
going; but we can't possibly play the harp while I am drawing on my
gloves, and scampering down stairs.'

This logic, which she felt to be irrefutable, she uttered with the most
perfect self-complacency, while spreading her music, and placing herself
at the harp; but once there, she would neither say nor hear another
word; and it was equally in vain that Ellis desired an explanation of
the plan to which she alluded, or an answer to the petition which she
had written herself. Miss Arbe could listen to no sounds but those
produced by her own fingers; and could balance no interests, but those
upon which she was speculating, of the advantages which she should
herself reap from these continual, though unacknowledged lessons. And
Ellis found all her painful difficulties, how to extricate herself from
the distresses of penury, the horrour of creditors, and the fears of
want, treated but as minor considerations, when put in competition with
the importance of Miss Arbe's most trivial, and even stolen improvement.

She saw, however, no redress; displeasure was unnoticed, distaste was
unheeded; and she had no choice but to put aside every feeling, and give
her usual instructions; or to turn a professed protectress into a
dangerous and resentful enemy.

She sat down, therefore, to her business.

The quarter of an hour was scarcely passed, before Miss Arbe started up
to be gone; and, giving her music to Ellis to fold, while she drew on
her gloves, cried, 'Well, you can tell me, now, what I must say to Lady
Kendover. I hope you like my scheme?'

Ellis protested herself utterly ignorant what scheme she meant.

'Bless me,' she cried, 'did not my cousin tell you what I've been doing
for you? I've quite slaved in your service, I can assure you. I never
made such exertions in my life. Every body had agreed to give you up.
It's really shocking to see how people are governed by their prejudices!
But I brought them all round; for, after Lady Aurora's letter, they none
of them could tell what to resolve upon, till I gave them my advice.
That, indeed, is no unusual thing to happen to me. So few people know
what they had best do!'

This self-eulogium having elated her spirits, her haste to depart
sufficiently slackened, to give her time to make a farther demand,
whether her cousin had executed her commission.

Ellis knew not even that he had had any to execute.

'Well,' she cried, 'that old soul grows more provoking every day! I have
resolved a thousand times never to trust him again; only he is always at
hand, and that's so convenient, one does not know how to resist making
use of him. But he really torments me more than any thing existing. If
he had literally no sense, one should not be so angry; but, when it's
possible to make him listen, he understands what one says well enough:
and sometimes, which you will scarcely believe, he'll suddenly utter
something so keen and so neat, that you'd suppose him, all at once,
metamorphosed into a wit. But the fact is, he is so tiresomely absent,
that he never knows what he does, nor hears what one says. At breakfast,
he asks whether there is nothing more coming for dinner; at dinner, he
bids his servant get ready his night-cap and slippers, because he shall
eat no supper; if any body applies to him for a pinch of snuff, he
brings them an arm chair; if they ask him how he does, he fetches his
hat and cane, buttons his great coat up to his chin, and says he is
ready to attend them; if they enquire what it is o'clock, he thanks them
for their kindness, and runs over a list of all his aches and pains; and
the moment any body enters the room, the first word he commonly says to
them is Good-bye!'

Ellis earnestly begged to know what was meant by the letter of Lady
Aurora.

Miss Arbe again declared herself too much hurried to stay; and spent
more time in censuring Mr Giles, for not having spared her such a loss
of it, than would have been required for even a minute recital of the
business which he had forgotten. Ellis, however, at length learnt, that
Miss Arbe had had the address to hit upon a plan which conciliated all
interests, and to which she had prevailed upon Lady Kendover to consent.
'Her la'ship's name,' she continued, 'with my extensive influence, will
be quite enough to obtain that of every body else worth having at
Brighthelmstone. And she was vastly kind, indeed; for though she did it,
she said, with the extremest repugnance, which, to be sure, is natural
enough, not being able to imagine who or what she serves

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