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

'I am ready! quite ready!' cried the pale Juliet, with energy; 'I do not sacrifice, I save myself by preserving my honoured guardian!'

This eagerness to rescue her revered benefactor, which made her feel gloriously, though transiently, the exaltation of willing martyrdom, soon subsided into the deepest grief, upon seeing Lady Aurora, shivering, speechless, and nearly lifeless, sink despondingly upon the ground.

Juliet, kneeling by her side, and pressing her nearly cold face to her bosom, bathed her cheeks, throat, and shoulders with fast falling tears; but felt incapable of changing her plan. Yet all her own anguish was almost intolerably embittered, by thus proving the fervour of an affection, in which almost all her wishes might have been concentrated, but that honour, conscience, and religion united to snatch her from its enjoyment.

The news that Lady Aurora was taken ill, spread quickly to Mrs Howel; and brought that lady to the apartment of Juliet in person. Lady Aurora was already recovered, and seated in the folding arms of Juliet, with whom her tears were bitterly, but silently mingling.

Mrs Howel, shocked and alarmed, summoned the female attendants to conduct her ladyship to her own apartment.

Lady Aurora would accept no aid save from Juliet; fondly leaning upon whose arm she reached a sofa in her bed-chamber; where she assumed, though with cruel struggles against her yielding nature, voice and courage to pronounce, 'My dear Mrs Howel, you have always been so singularly good to me, – you have always done me so much honour, that you must not, will not refuse to be kinder to me still, and to permit me to introduce to you … Miss Granville!.. For this young lady, Mrs Howel, is my sister!.. my very dear sister!'

Utterly confounded, Mrs Howel made a silent inclination of the head, with eyes superciliously cast down. The letter of Sir Jaspar Herrington had not failed to convince her that this was the real offspring of Lord Granville; whose existence had never been doubted in the world, but whose legitimacy had never been believed. Still, however, Mrs Howel, who was now, from her own hard conduct, become the young orphan's personal enemy, flattered herself that means might be found to prevent the publication of such a story; and determined to run no risk by appearing to give it credit; at the same time that, in her uncertainty of the event, she softened the austerity of her manner; and gave orders to the servants to shew every possible respect to a person who had the honour to be admitted to Lady Aurora Granville.

Juliet was in too desperate a state for any thought, or care, relative to Mrs Howel; and, having soothed Lady Aurora by promises of a speedy return, she hastened back to Ambroise.

She earnestly besought him, since her decision would be immutable, to make immediate enquiries whence they might embark with the greatest expedition.

Sadly, yet, so circumstanced, not unwillingly he agreed; and gave to her aching heart nearly the only joy of which it was susceptible, in the news that the Marchioness was already at the sea-side, awaiting the expected arrival of her darling daughter.

Ambroise had been entrusted, he said, by the commissary, with this cruel office, from his well known fidelity to the Marchioness and to the Bishop, which, where the alternative was so dreadful, would urge him, whatever might be his repugnance, to its faithful discharge. His orders had been to proceed straight to Salisbury, whence, under the name of Miss Ellis, he was to seek Juliet in every direction. And her various adventures had made so much noise in that neighbourhood, that she had been traced, with very little difficulty to Teignmouth.

Her terrible compliance being thus solemnly fixed, she left him to prepare for their departure the next morning, and returned to the afflicted Lady Aurora; by whose side she remained till midnight; struggling to sink her own sufferings, and to hide her shuddering disgust and horrour, in administering words of comfort, and exhibiting an example of fortitude, to her weeping sister.

But when, early the next morning, with the dire idea of leave-taking, she re-visited the gentle mourner, she found her nourishing a hope that her Juliet might yet be melted to a change of plan. 'Oh my sister!' she cried, 'my whole heart cannot thus have been opened to affection, to confidence, to fondest friendship, only to be broken by this dreadful separation! Our souls cannot have been knit together by ties of the sweetest trust, only to be rent for ever asunder! You will surely reflect before you destroy us both? for do you think you can now be a single victim?'

Dissolved with tenderness, yet agonized with grief, Juliet could but weep, and ejaculate half-pronounced blessings; while Lady Aurora, with renovating courage, said, 'Ah! think, sweet Juliet, think, if our father, – was he not ours alike? – had lived to know the proud day of receiving his long lost, and so accomplished daughter, such as I see her now! – would he not have said to me, 'Aurora! this is your sister! You are equally my children; love her, then, tenderly, and let there be but one heart between you!' – And will you, then, Juliet, deliver us both up to wretchedness? Must I see you no more? And only have seen you, now, to embitter all the rest of my life?'

'Oh resistless Aurora!' cried the miserable Juliet, 'rend not thus my heart! – Think for me, my Aurora; – Think, as well as feel for me, – and then – dispose of me as you will!' —

'I accept being the umpire, my Juliet! my tenderest sister! I accept it, and you are saved! – We are both saved! – for this would be a sacrifice beyond any call of duty!' – cried Lady Aurora, instantly reviving, not simply to serenity, but to felicity, to rapture. Her tears were dried up, her eyes shone with delight, and smiles the softest and most expressive dimpled her chin, and played about her cheeks and mouth, while, with a transport new to her serene temperament, she embraced the appalled Juliet. ''Tis now, indeed,' she continued, 'I feel I have a sister! 'Tis now I feel the force of kindred fondness! If you had not loved me with a sister's affection, you would not have listened to my solicitations; and if you had not listened, such a disappointment, and your loss together, – do you think I should have been strong enough to survive them?' But this enchantment lasted not long; she soon perceived it was without participation, and her joy vanished, 'like the baseless fabric of a vision.' Anguish sat upon the brow of Juliet; fits of shuddering horrour shook every limb; and her only answer to these tender endearments was by tears and embraces; while she strove to hide her altered and nearly distorted face upon Lady Aurora's shoulder.

'Speak to me, my sister!' cried Lady Aurora. 'Tell me that your pity for the good Bishop is not stronger than all your love for me? than all your value for your own security from barbarous brutality? than your trust in Providence, that will surely protect so pious and exemplary a person?'

'No, Heaven forbid!' answered Juliet; 'but, when Providence permits us to see a way, – when it opens a path to us by which evil may be avoided, by which duty may be exerted, – ought the difficulties of that way, the perils of that path, to make us recoil from the attempt? When the natural means are obvious, ought we to wait for some miracle?'

'Ah, my sister!' cried Lady Aurora, 'would you, then, still go? Have you yielded in mere transient compassion?'

'No, sweet Aurora, no! To ruin your peace would every way destroy Mine! Yet – what a fatality! to fear the very enjoyment of the family protection for which I have been sighing my whole life, lest I can enjoy it but by a crime! I abandon the post of honour, in leaving the benefactor, the supporter, the preserver of my orphan existence, to perpetual chains, if not to massacre! – Or I break the tender heart of the gentlest, purest, and most beloved of sisters!'

Lady Aurora, now, looked all consternation; and, after a disturbed pause, 'If you think it wrong,' she cried, 'not to sacrifice yourself, – Oh my sister! let not mere commiseration for my weakness lead you astray! We all know there is another world, in which we yet may meet again!'

'Angel! angel!' cried Juliet, pressing Lady Aurora to her bosom. 'You will aid me, then, to do right' by nobly supporting yourself, you will help to keep me from sinking? Religion will give you strength of mind to submit to our worldly separation, and all my sufferings will be endurable, while they open to me the hope of a final re-union with my angel sister!'

They now mutually sought to re-animate each other. Piety strengthened the fortitude of Juliet, and supplied its place to Lady Aurora; and, in soft pity to each other, each strove to look away from, and beyond, all present and actual evil; and to work up their minds, by religious hopes and reflections, to an enthusiastic foretaste of the joys of futurity.

CHAPTER XC

This tenderly touching intercourse was broken in upon by a summons to Ambroise, whom Juliet found waiting for her in the corridor; where he was beginning to recount to her, that he had met with a sea-officer, who had promised him a letter of recommendation for procuring a passport, if he could bring proof that he was a proper person for having one; when the Admiral issued abruptly from his apartment.

He took off his hat, though with a severe air, to Juliet, who, abashed, passed on to her chamber; but stopping and bluffly accosting Ambroise, 'Harkee!' he cried, 'my lad! a word with you! – Pray, what business have you with that girl? I have, I know, as good as promised to help you off; but let all be fair and above board. I don't pretend to have much taste for any person who would go out of old England when once he has got footing into it; thoff if I had had the misfortune to be born in France, there's no being sure that I might not have liked it myself; from knowing no better: for which reason I think nothing narrower than holding a man cheap for loving his country, be it ever so bad a one. Therefore, if you have a mind, my lad, as far as yourself goes, to sheer off; as you are neither a sailor nor a soldier, nor, moreover, a prisoner, I will lend you a hand and welcome. But no foul play! If there's any person of your acquaintance, that, after being born in old England, wants to go flaunting and jiggetting to outlandish countries, you'll do well to give her a hint to keep astern of me; for I shall never uphold a person who behaves o' that sort.'

Ambroise, in broken English, earnestly entreated him not to withdraw his promised protection; and Juliet, desirous to obtain his counsel for the execution of her perilous enterprize, ventured back, and joined to petition for instructions where she might embark most expeditiously; endeavouring to make her peace with him, by solemnly avowing, that necessity, not inclination, urged her to undertake this voyage; and claiming assistance, a second time, from his tried benevolence.

The words tried benevolence, and a second time, which inadvertently escaped her, from eagerness to interest his attention, struck him forcibly with ire. 'Avast!' he cried, 'none of your flummery! You think, belike, because you've got a pretty face, to make a fool of me? but that's sooner thought than done! You'll excuse me for speaking my mind a little plainly; for how the devil, asking your pardon for such a word, should I do any thing for you a second time, when I have never seen or thought of you, up to this moment, a first? Please to tell me that!'

Juliet, looking round, and seeing that no witnesses were by, gently enquired whether he had no remembrance of a poor voyager, whom he had had the charity to save, the preceding winter, from immediate destruction, by admitting into a boat?

'What! a swarthy minx? with a sooty sort of skin, and all over rags and jags? Yes, yes, I remember her well enough: I thank her! but I don't much advise her to come in my way! She turned out a mere impostor. She was probably French. I gave her a guinea, and paid for her place to town, and her entertainment. She took my guinea, and eat and drank; and then made off by some other way! and has never been heard of since. I described her at all the Dover stages and diligences; for I intended to give her a trifle more, to help her to find her friends, for fear of her falling into bad hands. But I could never get any tidings of her; she was a mere cheat. How did you come to know the jade?'

Juliet blushed violently, and, with some difficulty stammered out, 'Kind as you are, Sir, good and charitable, – you have not well judged that young person!' —

'By all that's sacred,' cried he, striking his cane upon the ground, 'if it were possible for a girl to be painted to such a pitch of nicety, I should swear you were that very mamselle yourself! – though, if you are, I should take it as a favour if you would tell me, how the devil it came into your head to let me pay for your stage-coach, when you never made use of your place? Where the fun of that was I can't make out!'

'I am but too sensible, Sir, that every thing seems against me!' said Juliet, in a melancholy tone; 'yet the time, probably, is not very far off, when I may be able sufficiently to explain myself, to cause you much regret, – so generous seems your nature; – should you refuse me your services in my very great distress!'

The Admiral now looked deeply perplexed, yet evidently touched. 'I should be loath, Madam,' he said, 'very loath, indeed, for the matter of that, there's something so agreeable in you, – to think you no better than you should be. Not that one ought to expect perfection; for a woman is but a woman; which a man, as her native superiour, ought always to keep in mind; however, don't take it amiss that I throw out that remark; for I don't mean it to dash you.'

Juliet, too much shocked to reply, cast up her eyes in silent appeal to heaven, and, entering her room, resolved to fold two guineas in a small packet, and to send them to the Admiral by Ambroise, for an immediate acquittal of her double pecuniary debt.

But the Admiral, struck by her manner, looked thoughtful, and dissatisfied with himself; and, again calling to Ambroise, said, 'Harkee, my lad! I should not be sorry to know who that young gentlewoman is? – I am afraid she thinks me rather unmannerly. And the truth is, I don't know that I have been over and above polite: which I take shame to myself for, I give you my word; for I am always devilish bad company with myself when I have misbehaved to a female; because why? She has no means to right herself. So I beg you to make my excuse to the gentlewoman. And please to tell her that, though I am no great friend to ceremony, I am very sorry if I have affronted her.'

Ambroise said, that he was sure the young lady would think no more of it, if his honour would but be kind enough to give the recommendatory letter.

'Why, with regard to that,' said the Admiral, after some deliberation, 'I would do her any service, whereby I might shew my good will; after having been rather over-rough, be her class what it may, considering she's a female; and, moreover, seems somewhat in jeopardy; if I were not so cursedly afraid of being put upon! You, that are but an outlandish man, – though I can't say but you've as good a look as another man; – a very honest look, if one might judge by the face; – which made me take to you, without much thinking what I was about, I can tell you! – '

Ambroise, bowing low, hoped that he would not repent his goodness.

'You, I say, being more in the use of being juggled, begging your pardon, from its being more the custom of foreign parts; can have no great notion, naturally, how little a British tar, – a person you don't know over-much about, I believe!' smiling, 'there not being a great many such, as I am told, off our own shores! – You, as I was remarking, can't be expected to have much notion how little a British tar relishes being over-reached. But the truth, Sir, is, we are set afloat upon the wide ocean, before we have well done with our slabbering bibs; which makes us the men we are! But, then, all we know of the world is only by bits and scraps; except, mayhap, what we can pick out of books. And that's no great matter; for the chief of a seaman's library is most commonly the history of cheats and rogues; so that we are always upon the look out, d'ye see, for fear of false colours.'

Ambroise began a warm protestation of his honesty.

'Not but that, let me tell you, Sir!' the Admiral went on, 'we have as many good scholars upon quarter-deck, counting such as could pay for their learning when they were younkers, as in any other calling. But this was not the case with myself, who owe nothing to birth nor favour; whereof I am proud to be thankful; for, from ten years old, when I was turned adrift by my family, I have had little or no schooling, – except by the buffets of the world.'

Then, after ruminating for some minutes, he told Ambroise that he should not be sorry to make his apologies to the gentlewoman himself; adding, 'For I could have sworn, when I first met her in the gallery, I had seen her some where before; though I could not make out how nor when. But if she's only that black madmysell washed white, I should like to have a little parley with her. She may possibly do me the service of helping me to find a friend; and if she does, I sha'n't be backward, God willing, to requite her. And harkee, my lad! I should be glad to know the gentlewoman's name. What's she called?'

'She's called Mademoiselle Juliette, Monsieur.'

'Juliet? – Are you sure of that?' cried the Admiral, starting. 'Juliet? – Are you very sure, Sir?'

'Oui, oui, Monsieur.'

'Harkee, sirrah! if you impose upon me, I'll trounce you within an inch of your life! Juliet, do you say? Are you sure it's Juliet?'

'Oui, Monsieur; Mademoiselle Juliette.'

'Why then, as I am a living man, and on this side t'other world, I must speak to her directly! Tell her so this instant.'

Ambroise tapped, and Juliet opened the door; but, when he would have spoken, the Admiral, taking him by the shoulders, and turning him round, bid him go about his business; and, entering the room, shut the door, and flung himself upon a chair.

Rising, however, almost at the same instant, though much agitated, he made sundry bows, but tried vainly to speak; while the astonished Juliet waited gravely for some explanation of so strange an intrusion.

'Madam,' he at length said, 'that Frenchman there, – who, it's like enough, don't know what he says, – pretends your name is Juliet?'

'Sir!' —

'If it be so, Ma'am, – you'll do me a remarkable piece of service, if you will be so complaisant as to let me know how you came by that name?'

Juliet now felt alarmed.

'It's rather making free, Ma'am, I confess, but I shall take it as a special favour, if you'll be pleased to tell me what part of the world you come from?'

'Sir, I – I – '

'If you think my inquisitiveness impertinent, Ma'am; which it's like enough you may, I shall beg leave to give you an item of my reason for it; and then it's odds but you'll make less scruple to give me the reply. Not that I mean to make conditions; for binding people down only hampers good will. But when you have heard me, you may be glad, perchance, to speak of your own accord; for I don't know, I give you my solemn word, but that at this very moment you are talking to one of your own kin!'

He fixed his eyes upon her, then, with great earnestness.

'My own kin? – What, Sir, do you mean?'

'I'll tell you out of hand, Ma'am, – if I may be so bold as to sit down; for whether we happen to be relations or no', there can be no law against our being friends.'

Juliet hastily presented him a chair, and scarcely breathed from eagerness to reciprocate the enquiry. She had never heard the Admiral mentioned but by his military title.

Seated now by her side, he looked at her for some instants, smilingly, though with glistening eyes; 'Madam,' he said, 'I had a sister whose name was Juliet! – and the name is dear to my soul for her sake! And it's no common name; so that I never hear it without being moved. She left a child, Ma'am, who for some unnatural reasons, that I sha'n't enter upon just now, was brought up in foreign parts. This child had her own sweet name; and her own sweet character, too, I make small doubt; as well as her own sweet face.' —

He stopt, and again more earnestly looked at Juliet; but, seeing her strongly affected, begged her pardon, and, brushing a tear from his eye, went on.

'When I came home from my last station in the East Indies, I crossed over the channel to see after her; a great proof of my good will, I can tell you! for no little thing would have carried me to that lawless place; and from the best land upon God's earth! but I got nothing for my pains, except a cursed bad piece of news, which turned me upside down; for I was told that she was married to a French monsieur! Upon which I swore, God willing, never to see her face to the longest day I had to live! And I came away with that resolution. However, a Christian is never so perfect himself, as not to look over a flaw in his neighbour. Wherefore, if I could get any item of the poor girl's repentance, I don't think, for my dear sister's sake, but I could still take her to my bosom, – yea, to my very heart of hearts!'

'Tell me, Sir,' cried Juliet, rising, with clasped hands, and eyes fast filling with tears; 'tell me, – for I have never heard it, – your name?'

'By all that's holy!' cried he, rising too, and trembling, 'you make my heart beat all over my body! – My name is Powel! In the name, then, of the Most High, – are you not my niece yourself?'

Juliet dropt at his feet; 'Oh heavenly Providence!' she ejaculated, 'you are then my poor mother's brother!' Speech now, for a considerable time, was denied to both; strong emotions, though of joy, nearly suffocated Juliet, while the Admiral sobbed over her as he pressed her in his arms.

'My girl!' he cried, when a little recovered, 'my sister's daughter! – daughter of the dearest of sisters! – I have found, then, at last, something appertaining to my poor sister! You shall be dear to my soul for her sake, whatever you may be for your own. And, moreover, as to what you may have done up to this time, whereof I don't mean to judge uncharitably, every one of us being but frail, I shall let it all pass by. So hold up your head, and take comfort, my girl, and don't be shy of your old uncle; for whatever may have slipt from him in a moment of choler, he'll protect you, God willing, to his last hour; and never come out with another unkind word upon what is past and gone.'

The heart of Juliet was too full to let her offer any immediate vindication: she could but pronounce, 'My uncle, when I can be explicit, – you will not – I hope, and trust, – have cause to blush for me!' —

'Why then you are a very good girl!' cried he, well pleased, 'an excellent girl, in the main, I make small doubt.' He then demanded, though not, he protested, to find fault with what was past; what had brought her over to her native land in such a ragged, mauled, and black condition; which had prevented the least guess of who she was; 'for if, when I saw you off the coast,' he continued, 'you had shewn yourself such as you are now, you have so strong a look of my dear sister, that I should have hailed you out of hand. Though when I saw you Here it never came into my head; because why? I believed you to be There. And yet, instinct is main powerful, whereof I am a proof; for I took a fancy to you, even when I thought you an old woman; and, which is worse, a French woman. Coming away from those shores gave me a good opinion of you at once.'

He then made many tender enquiries concerning the last illness, and the death of Mrs Powel, his mother; whom it was now, he said, one-and-twenty years since he had seen; as, upon his poor father's insolvency, he had been taken from the royal navy, and sent out, in the company's service, to the East Indies.

Juliet, after satisfying his filial solicitude, ventured to express her own, upon every circumstance of her mother's life, which had fallen to his knowledge.

The insolvency, the Admiral replied, had soon been succeeded by the death of his father; and then his poor mother and sister had been driven to a cheap country residence, in the neighbourhood of Melbury-Hall. There, before he set out for the East Indies, he had passed a few days to take leave; in which time Lord Granville, the Earl of Melbury's only son, who had met them, it seems, in their rural strolls, had got such a footing in their house, that he called in both morning and evening; and stayed sometimes for hours, without knowing how time went. Uneasy upon remarking this, he counselled his sister to keep out of the young nobleman's way; and advised his mother to change her house. They both promised so to do; but, for all that, before he set sail, he determined to wait upon his lordship himself; which he did accordingly; and made free to tell him, that he should take it but kind of his lordship, if he would not be quite so sweet upon his sister. His lordship made fair promises, with such a genteelness, that there was no help but to give him credit; and, this being done, he went off with an easy heart. He remained in the Company's service some time; during which, the letters of his mother brought him the sorrowful tidings of his sister's death; followed up, afterwards, by an account that, for her own health's sake, she was gone over to reside in France.