The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 3 of 5)

'Alas, Madam, all choice, all taste, all obstacles sink before necessity! When I came over, I had expectations of immediate succour. I knew not that the friend I sought was herself ruined, as well as unhappy! I had hopes, too, of speedy intelligence that might have liberated me from all my difficulties…'

She stopt; Elinor exclaimed, 'From whence? – From abroad? – '

Juliet was silent; and Elinor, after a few passing sallies against secrets and mystery, sarcastically bid her consider, before she adopted this new scheme, that Harleigh never visited at Mrs Ireton's; having taken, in equal portions, a dose of aversion for the mother, and of contempt for the son.

Juliet calmly replied, that such a circumstance could be but an additional motive to seek the situation; and, hopeless, for the moment, of doing better, seriously begged that proper measures might be taken to accelerate the plan.

Elinor, now, from mingled wonder, satisfaction, and scorn, recovered all her wonted vivacity. 'You are really, and bona fide, contented, then,' she cried, 'to be shut up as completely from Harleigh, through his horrour of that woman's irascible temper, as if you were separated by bolts, bars, dungeons, towers, and bastilles? I applaud your taste, and wish you the full enjoyment of its fruits! Yet what materials you can be made of, to see the first of men at your feet, and voluntarily to fly him, to be trampled under by those of the most odious of women, I cannot divine! 'Tis an exuberance of apathy that surpasses my comprehension. And can He, the spirited Harleigh, love, adore, such a composition of ice, of snow, of marble?'

She could not, however, disguise the elation with which she looked forward, to depositing Juliet where information might constantly be procured of her visitors and her actions. They went together to the carriage; and Elinor conveyed her submissive and contemned, yet agonizingly envied rival, to Brighthelmstone.

In her usually unguarded manner, Elinor, by the way, communicated the various, but successless efforts by which she had endeavoured to gain intelligence whither Harleigh had rambled. 'If I pursued him,' she cried, 'with the vanity of hope; or with the meanness of flattery, he would do well to shun me; but the pure-minded Harleigh is capable of believing, that the moment is over for Elinor to desire to be his! And, to sustain at once and shew my principles, I never seek his sight, but in presence of her who has blasted even my wishes! Else, thus clamourously to invoke, thus pertinaciously to follow him, might, indeed, merit avoidance. But Elinor, now, would be as superiour to accepting, … as she is to forgetting him!'

'Yet his obdurate seclusion,' she continued, 'is the only mark I receive, that I escape his disdain. It shews me that he fears the event of a meeting. He does not, therefore, utterly deride the pusillanimity of my abortive attempt. O could I justify his good opinion! – All others, I doubt not, insult me by the most ludicrous suspicions; they are welcome. They judge me by their little-minded selves. But thou, O Harleigh! could I see thee once more! – in thy sight, thy loved sight, could I sink, at last, my sorrows and my disgrace to rest! to oblivion, to sleep eternal!' —

Vainly Juliet essayed to plead the cause of religion, and the duties of life; unanswered, unmarked, unheard, she talked but to the air. All that was uttered in return, began and ended alike with Harleigh, death, and annihilation.

CHAPTER LI

Juliet could not but be gratified by a circumstance so important to her reputation, with the Brinvilles, and with those among the inhabitants of Brighthelmstone to whom she was known, as that of being brought home by Miss Joddrel, after an adventure that must unavoidably raise curiosity, and that threatened to excite slander. For with however just a pride wronged innocence may disdain injurious aspersions, female fame, like the wife of Cæsar, ought never to be suspected.

The celerity of the motions of Elinor, nearly equalled the quickness of her ideas. Her lackey arrived the next morning, to help to convey Juliet, and her baggage, immediately to the dwelling of Mrs Ireton; with a note from his mistress, indicating that Mrs Ireton was already prepared to take her for a companion. 'An humble companion,' Elinor wrote, 'I need not add; I had nearly said a pitiful one; for who would voluntarily live with such an antidote to all the comforts of life, that has spirit, sense, or soul? O envied Ellis! how potent must be the passion, the infatuation, that can make Harleigh view such meanness as grace, and adore it as dignity! – O icy Ellis! – but the human heart would want strength to support such pre-eminent honour, were it bestowed upon a mind gifted for its appreciation!'

Then again, wishing her joy of her taste, she assured her that it was reciprocated; for Mrs Ireton was all impatience to display, to a new dependent, her fortune, her power, and her magnificence.

Juliet, with her answer of thanks for this service, wrote a few lines for Mrs Pierson, which she begged the messenger to deliver. They were to warn the imprudent, or deceived mother of the dangerous state of mind in which her daughter still continued; and to give her notice that Sir Lyell Sycamore, who could not be guarded against too carefully, was still in the neighbourhood.

With a mind revolting from a measure which, while prudence, if not necessity, dictated, choice and feeling opposed, she now quitted her mantua-maker's abode, to set out for her new destination; seeking to cheer herself that, at least, by this step, she should be secured from the licentious pursuit of Sir Lyell Sycamore; the envenomed shafts of calumny of the enraged Brinvilles; the perpetual terrour of debts; and the cruel apprehension of want.

She had not far to go; but the mortifications, for which she prepared herself, began by the very sight of the dwelling into which she was to enter. Mrs Ireton had taken the house of Mrs Howel: – that house in which Juliet had first, after her arrival in England, received consolation in her distresses; been melted by kindness; or animated by approbation. There, too, indeed, she had experienced the pain which she had felt the most severely; for there all the soothing consideration, so precious to her sorrows, had abruptly been broken off, to give place to an assault the most shocking upon her intentions, her probity, her character.

Here, too, she had suffered the cruel affront, and heartfelt grief, of seeing the ingenuous, amiable Lord Melbury forget what was due to the rights of hospitality; to his own character; and to the respect due to his sister: and here she had witnessed his sincere and candid repentance; here had been softened, touched, and penetrated by the impressive anguish of his humiliation.

These remembrances, and the various affecting and interesting ideas by which they were accompanied, gave a dejection to her thoughts, and a sadness to her air, that would have awakened an interest in her favour, in any one whose heart had been open to the feelings of others: but the person under whose protection she was now to place herself, was a stranger to every species of sensation that was not personal. And where the calls of self upon sensibility are unremitting, what must be the stock that will gift us, also, with supply sufficient for our fellow-creatures?

She found Mrs Ireton reclining upon a sofa; at the side of which, upon a green velvet cushion, lay a tiny old lap dog, whom a little boy, evidently too wanton to find pleasure but in mischief, was secretly tormenting, by displaying before him the breast bone of a chicken, which he had snatched from the platter of the animal; and which, the moment that he made it touch the mouth of the cur, he hid, with all its fat and its grease, in his own waistcoat pocket.

Near to these two almost equally indulged and spoilt animals, stood a nursery maid, with a duster and an hearth-broom in her hands, who was evidently incensed beyond her pittance of patience, from clearing away, repeatedly, their joint litter and dirt.

Scared, and keeping humbly aloof, near a window frame, stood, also, a little girl, of ten or twelve years of age, who, as Juliet afterwards heard from the angry nursery maid, was an orphan, that had been put to a charity school by Mrs Ireton, as her particular protegée; and who was now, for the eighth time, by the direction of her governess, come to solicit the arrears due from the very beginning of her school instruction.

Yet another trembler, though not one equally, at this moment, to be pitied, held the handle of the lock of the door; not having received intelligible orders to advance, or to depart. This was a young negro, who was the favourite, because the most submissive servant of Mrs Ireton; and whose trembling was simply from the fear that his lady might remark a grin which he could not repress, as he looked at the child and the dog.

Mrs Ireton herself, though her restless eye roved incessantly from object to object, in search of various food for her spleen, was ostensibly occupied in examining, and decrying, the goods of a Mercer; but when Juliet, finding herself unnoticed, was retreating, she called out, 'O, you are there, are you? I did not see you, I protest. But come this way, if you please. I can't possibly speak so far off.'

The authoritative tone in which this was uttered, joined to what Juliet observed of the general tyranny exercised around her, intimidated and shocked her; and she stood still, and nearly confounded.

Mrs Ireton, holding her hand above her eyes, as if to aid her sight, and stretching forward her head, said, 'Who is that? – pray who's there? – I imagined it had been a person I had sent for; but I must certainly be mistaken, as she does not come to me. Pray has any body here a spying glass? I really can't see so far off. I beg pardon for having such bad eyes! I hope you'll forgive it. Let me know, however, who it is, I beg.'

Juliet tried to speak, but felt so confused and disturbed what to answer, that she could not clearly articulate a word.

'You won't tell me, then?' continued Mrs Ireton, lowering her voice nearly to a whisper, 'or is it that I am not heard? Has any body got a speaking trumpet? or do you think my lungs so capacious and powerful, that they may take its place?'

Juliet, now, though most unwillingly, moved forward; and Mrs Ireton, surveying her, said, 'Yes, yes, I see who you are! I recollect you now, Mrs … Mrs … I forget your name, though, I protest. I can't recollect your name, I own. I'm quite ashamed, but I really cannot call it to mind. I must beg a little help. What is it? What is your name, Mrs … Mrs … Hay? – Mrs … What?'

Colouring and stammering, Juliet answered, that she had hoped Miss Joddrel would have saved her this explanation, by mentioning that she was called Miss Ellis.

'Called?' repeated Mrs Ireton; 'what do you mean by called? – who calls you? – What are you called for? – Why do you wait to be called? – And where are you called from?'

The entire silence of Juliet to these interrogatories, gave a moment to the mercer to ask for orders.

'You are in haste, Sir, are you?' said Mrs Ireton; 'I have your pardon to beg, too, have I? I am really very unfortunate this morning. However, pray take your things away, Sir, if it's so immensely troublesome to you to exhibit them. Only be so good as to acquaint your chief, whoever he may be, that you had not time to wait for me to make any purchase.'

The man offered the humblest apologies, which were all disdained; and self-defending excuses, which were all retorted; he was peremptorily ordered to be gone; with an assurance that he should answer for his disrespect to his master; who, she flattered herself, would give him a lesson of better behaviour, by the loss of his employment.

Harassed with apprehension of what she had to expect in this new residence, Juliet would silently have followed him.

'Stay, Ma'am, stay!' cried Mrs Ireton; 'give me leave to ask one question: – whither are you going, Mrs … what's your name?'

'I … I feared, Madam, that I had come too soon.'

'O, that's it, is it? I have not paid you sufficient attention, perhaps? – Nay it's very likely. I did not run up to receive you, I confess. I did not open my arms to embrace you, I own! It was very wrong of me, certainly. But I am apt to forget myself. I want a flapper prodigiously. I know nothing of life, – nothing of manners. Perhaps you will be so good as to become my monitress? 'Twill be vastly kind of you. And who knows but, in time, you may form me? How happy it will be if you can make something of me!'

The maid, now, tired of wiping up splash after splash, and rubbing out spot after spot; finding her work always renewed by the mischievous little boy, was sullenly walking to the other end of the room.

'O, you're departing too, are you?' said Mrs Ireton; 'and pray who dismissed you? whose commands have you for going? Inform me, I beg, who it is that is so kind as to take the trouble off my hands, of ordering my servants? I ought at least to make them my humble acknowledgements. There's nothing so frightful as ingratitude.'

The maid, not comprehending this irony, grumblingly answered, that she had wiped up the grease and the slops till her arms ached; for the little boy made more dirt and nastiness than the cur himself.

'The boy? – The cur? – What's all this?' cried Mrs Ireton; 'who, and what, is the woman talking of? The boy? Has the boy no name? – The cur? Have you no more respect for your lady's lap dog? – Grease too? – Nastiness! – you turn me sick! I am ready to faint! What horrible images you present to me! Has nobody any salts? any lavendar-water? How unfortunate it is to have such nerves, such sensations, when one lives with such mere speaking machines!'

She then cast around her eyes, with a look of silent, but pathetic appeal to the sensibility of all who were within sight, against this unheard of indignity; but her speech was soon restored, from mingled wrath and surprise, upon perceiving her favourite young negro nearly suffocating with stifled laughter, though thrusting both his knuckles into his capacious mouth, to prevent its loud explosion.

'So this amuses you, does it, Sir? You think it very comical? You are so kind as to be entertained, are you? How happy I am to give you so much pleasure! How proud I ought to be to afford you such diversion! I shall make it my business to shew my sense of my good fortune; and, to give you a proof, Sir, of my desire to contribute to your gaiety, to-morrow morning I will have you shipped back to the West Indies. And there, that your joy may be complete, I shall issue orders that you may be striped till you jump, and that you may jump, – you little black imp! – between every stripe!'

The foolish mirth of poor Mungo was now converted into the fearfulest dismay. He dropt upon his knees to implore forgiveness; but he was peremptorily ordered to depart, with an assurance that he should keep up his fine spirits upon bread and water for a fortnight.

If disgust, now, was painted upon every feature of the face of Juliet, at this mixture of forced derision with but too natural inhumanity, the feeling which excited that expression was by no means softened, by seeing Mrs Ireton turn next to the timid young orphan, imperiously saying, 'And you, Ma'am, what may you stand there for, with your hands before you? Have you nothing better to do with them? Can't you find out some way to make them more useful? or do you hold it more fitting to consider them as only ornamental? They are very pretty, to be sure. I say nothing to the contrary of that. But I should suppose you don't quite intend to reserve them for mere objects of admiration? You don't absolutely mean, I presume, to devote them to the painter's eye? or to destine them to the sculptor's chisel? I should think not, at least. I should imagine not. I beg you to set me right if I am wrong.'

The poor little girl, staring, and looking every way around to find some meaning for what she did not comprehend, could only utter a faint 'Ma'am!' in a tone of so much fear and distress, that Juliet, unable, silently, to witness oppression so wanton, came forward to say, 'The poor child, Ma'am, only wishes to understand your commands, that she may obey them.'

'O! they are not clear, I suppose? They are too abstruse, I imagine?' contemptuously replied Mrs Ireton. 'And you, who are kind enough to offer yourself for my companion; who think yourself sufficiently accomplished to amuse, – perhaps instruct me, – you, also, have not the wit to find out, what a little chit of an ordinary girl can do better with her hands, than to stand still, pulling her own fingers?'

Juliet, now, believing that she had discovered what was meant, kindly took the little girl by the arm, and pointed to the just overturned water-bason of the dog.

'But I don't know where to get a cloth, Ma'am?' said the child.

'A cloth? – In my wardrobe, to be sure!' cried Mrs Ireton; 'amongst my gowns, and caps, and hats. Where else should there be dirty cloths, and dusters, and dish-clouts? Do you know of any other place where they are likely to be found? Why don't you answer?'

'Ma'am?'

'You never heard, perhaps, of such a place as a kitchen? You don't know where it is? nor what it means? You have only heard talk of drawing-rooms, dressing-rooms, boudoirs? or, perhaps, sometimes, of a corridor, or a vestibule, or an anti-chamber? But nothing beyond! – A kitchen! – O, fie, fie!'

Juliet now hurried the little girl away, to demand a cloth of the house maid; but the moment that she returned with it, Mrs Ireton called out, 'And what would you do, now, Ma'am? Make yourself all dirt and filth, that you may go back to your school, to shew the delicate state of my house? To make your mistress, and all her brats, believe that I live in a pig-stie? Or to spread abroad that I have not servants enough to do my work, and that I seize upon you to supply their place? But I beg your pardon; perhaps that may be your way to shew your gratitude? To manifest your sense of my saving you from the work-house? to reward me for snatching you from beggary, and want, and starving?'

The poor little girl burst into tears, but courtsied, and quitted the room; while Mrs Ireton called after her, to desire that she would acquaint her governess, that she should certainly be paid the following week.

Juliet now stood in scarcely less dismay than she had been witnessing all around her; panic-struck to find herself in the power of a person whose character was so wantonly tyrannic and irascible.

The fortunate entrance of some company enabled her, for the present, to retreat; and to demand, of one of the servants, the way to her chamber.

CHAPTER LII

From the heightened disgust which she now conceived against her new patroness, Juliet severely repented the step that she had taken. And if her entrance into the family contributed so little to her contentment, her subsequent introduction into her office was still less calculated to exhilarate her spirits. Her baggage was scarcely deposited in a handsome chamber, of which the hangings, and decorations, as of every part of the mansion, were sumptuous for the spectator; but in which there was a dearth of almost every thing that constitutes comfort to the immediate dweller; ere she was summoned back, by a hasty order to the drawing-room.

Mrs Ireton, who was reading a news-paper, did not, for some time, raise her head; though a glance of her eye procured her the satisfaction of seeing that her call had been obeyed. Juliet, at first, stood modestly waiting for commands; but, receiving none, sat down, though at an humble distance; determined to abide by the consequences, be they what they might, of considering herself as, at least, above a common domestic.

This action shortened the term of neglect; Mrs Ireton, letting the news-paper fall, exclaimed, in a tone of affected alarm, 'Are you ill, Ma'am? Are you disordered? I hope you are not subject to fits?'

Juliet coldly answered No.

'I am very glad to hear it, indeed! Very happy, upon my word! I was afraid you were going to faint away! But I find that you are only delicate; only fatigued by descending the stairs. I ought, indeed, to have sent somebody to help you; somebody you could have leant upon as you came along. I was very stupid not to think of that. I hope you'll pardon me?'

Juliet looked down, but kept her place.

Mrs Ireton, a little nettled, was silent a few minutes, and then said, 'Pray, – if I may ask, – if it will not be too great a liberty to ask, – what have been your pursuits since I had the honour of accompanying you to London? How have you passed your time? I hope you have found something to amuse you?'

Juliet sighed a negative.

'You have been studying the fine arts, I am told. Painting? – Drawing? – Sculpture? – or what is it? – Something of that sort, I am informed. Pray what is it, Mrs Thing-a-mi? – I am always forgetting your name. Yet you have certainly a name; but I don't know how it is, I can never remember it. I believe I must beg you to write it down.'

Juliet again only sighed.

'Perhaps I am making a mistake as to your occupations? Very likely I may be quite in the wrong? Indeed I think I recollect, now, what it is you have been doing. Acting? – That's it. Is it not? Pray what stage did you come out upon first? Did you begin wearing your itinerant buskins in England, or abroad?'

'Where I began, Madam, I have ended; at Mrs Maple's.'

'And pray, have you kept that same face ever since I saw you in Grosvenor Square? or have you put it on again only now, to come back to me? I rather suppose you have made it last the whole time. It would be very expensive, I apprehend, to change it frequently: it can by no means be so costly to keep it only in repair. How do you put on your colours? I have heard of somebody who had learnt the art of enamelling their own skin: is that your method?'

Waiting vainly for an answer, she went on.

'Pray, if I may presume so far, how old are you? – But I beg pardon for so indiscreet a question. I did not reflect upon what I was saying. Very possibly your age may be indefinable. You may be a person of another century. A wandering Jewess. I never heard that the old Jew had a wife, or a mother, who partook of his longevity; but very likely I may now have the pleasure of seeing one of his family under my own roof? That red and white, that you lay on so happily, may just as well hide the wrinkles of two or three grand climacterics, as of only a poor single sixty or seventy years of age. However, these are secrets that I don't presume to enquire into. Every trade has its mystery.'

These splenetic witticisms producing no reply, Mrs Ireton, more categorically, demanded, 'Pray, Ma'am, pray Mrs What's-your-name, will you give me leave to ask what brings you to my house?'

'Miss Joddrel, Madam, informed me that you desired my attendance.'

'Yes; but with what view?'

Disconcerted by this interrogatory, Juliet stammered, but could devise no answer.

'To what end, what purpose, what intent, I say, may I owe the honour of your presence?'

The office pointed out by Elinor, of an humble companion, now died the cheeks of Juliet with shame; but resentment of the palpable desire to hear its mortifying acknowledgement, tied her tongue; and though each of the following interrogatories was succeeded by a pause that demanded a reply, she could not bring herself to utter a word.

'You are hardly come, I should imagine, without some motive: I may be mistaken, to be sure; but I should hardly imagine you would take the trouble to present yourself merely to afford me the pleasure of seeing you? – Not but that I ought to be extremely flattered by such a compliment. 'Twould be vastly amiable, certainly. A lady of your indescribable consequence! 'Twould be difficult to me to shew an adequate sense of so high an honour. I am distressed at the very thought of it. – But perhaps you may have some other design? – You may have the generosity to intend me some improvement? – You may come to favour me with some lessons of declamation? – Who knows but you may propose to make an actress of me? – Or perhaps to instruct me how to become an adept in your own favourite art of face-daubing?'

At least, thought Juliet, I need not give you any lessons in the art of ingeniously tormenting! There you are perfect!

'What! no answer yet? – Am I always so unfortunate as to hit upon improper subjects? – To ask questions that merit no reply? – I am quite confounded at my want of judgment! Excuse it, I entreat, and aid me out of this unprofitable labyrinth of conjecture, by telling me, at once, to what happy inspiration I am indebted for the pleasure of receiving you in my house?'