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

'Ay, there, there, Albert, is the very point! If the soul were distinct from the body, why should not those who are recovered from drowning, suffocation, or other apparent death, be able to give some account of what passed in those periods when they seemed to be no more? And who has done it? No one, Harleigh! not a single renovated being, has explained away the doubts to which those suspensions of animation give rise.'

'And has any one explained, Elinor, why, though sometimes we have such wonders to relate of the scenes in which we have borne a part in our dreams, – we open our eyes, at other times, with no consciousness whatever, that we have, any way existed from the moment of closing them? The wants of refreshment and recruit of our corporeal machine, we all feel, and know; those of that part which is intellectual, – who is able to calculate? What, except the powers, can be more distinct than the exercises of the mind and of the body? Yet, though we see not the workings of what is intellectual; though they are known only by their effects, – does the student by the midnight oil require less rest from his mental fatigues, – whether he take it or not, – than the ploughman from his corporal labour? Is he not as wearied, as exhausted, after a day consigned to serious and unremitting study and reflection, as the labourer who has spent it in digging, paving, hewing, and sawing? Yet his body has been perfectly at peace; has not moved, has not made the smallest exertion.'

'And why, Harleigh? What is that, but because – '

'Hasten not, Elinor, thence, to your favourite conclusion, that soul and body, if wearied or rested together, are, therefore, one and the same thing: observation, and reflection, turned to other points of view, will shew you fresh reasons, and objects, every day, to disprove that identity: shew you, on one side, corporal force for supporting the bitterest grief of heart, with uninjured health; and, mental force, on the other side, for bearing the acutest bodily disorders with unimpaired intellectual vigour. How often do the most fragile machines, enwrap the stoutest minds? how often do the halest frames, encircle the feeblest intellects? All proves that the connexion between mind and body, however intimate, is not blended; – though where its limits begin, or where they end, – who can tell? But, who, also I repeat, can explain the phenomenon, by which, in the dead of the night, when we are completely insulated, and left in utter darkness, we firmly believe, nay, feel ourselves shone upon by the broad beams of day; and surrounded by society, with which we act, think, and reciprocate ideas?'

'Dreams, I must own, Albert, are strangely incomprehensible. How bodies can seem to appear, and voices to be heard, where all around is empty space, it is not easy to conceive!'

'Let this insolvable, and acknowledged difficulty, then, Elinor, in a circumstance which, though daily recurring, remains inexplicable, check any hardy decision of the cause why, after certain suspensions, the soul may resume its functions to our evident knowledge; yet why we can neither ascertain its departure, its continuance, nor its return, after others. Oh Elinor! mock not, but revere the impenetrable mystery of eternity! Ignorance is here our lot; presumption is our most useless infirmity. The mind and body after death must either be separate, or together. If together, as you assert, there is no proof attainable, that the soul partakes not of all the changes, all the dispersions, all the sufferings, and all the poor enjoyments, of what to us seems the lifeless, but which, in that case, is only the speechless carcase: if separate, as I believe, – whither goest thou, Oh soul! to what regions of bliss? – or what abysses of woe?'

'Harleigh, you electrify me! you convulse the whole train of my principles, my systems, my long cherished conviction!'

'Say, rather, Elinor, of your faith! – your faith in infidelity! Oh Elinor! why call you not, rather, upon faith to aid your belief? Faith, and revealed religion! The limited state of our positive perceptions, grants us no means for comparison, for judgment, or even for thought, but by analogy: ask yourself, then, Elinor, – What is there, even in immortality, more difficult of comprehension, than that indescribable daily occurrence, which all mankind equally, though unreflecting experience, of a total suspension of every species of living knowledge, of every faculty, of every sense, – called sleep? A suspension as big with matter for speculation and wonder, though its cessation is visible to us, as that last sleep, of which we view not the period.'

'Albert! – should you shake my creed, – shall I be better contented? or but yet more wretched?'

'Can Elinor think, – yet ask such a question? Can a prospect of a future state fail to offer a possibility of future happiness? Why wilfully reject a consolation that you have no means to disprove? What know you of this soul which you settle to be so easily annihilated? By what criterion do you judge it? You have none! save a general consciousness, that a something there is within us that mocks all search, yet that always is uppermost; that anticipates good or evil; that outruns all events; that feels the blow ere the flesh is touched; that expects the sound before the ear receives it; that, unseen, untraced, unknown, pervades, rules, animates all! that harbours thoughts, feelings, designs which no human force can controul; which no mortal, unaided by our own will, can discover; and which no aid whatever, either of our own or of others, can bring forward to any possible manifestation!'

'Alas, Harleigh! You shew me nonentity itself to be as doubtful as immortality! Of what wretched stuff are we composed! Which way must I now turn, —

'Lost and bewildered in my fruitless search,'13—

which way must I turn to develop truth? to comprehend my own existence! Oh Albert! – you almost make me wish to rest my perturbed mind where fools alone, I thought, found rest, or hypocrites have seemed to find it, – on Religion!'

'The feeling mind, dear Elinor, has no other serious serenity; no other hold from the black, cheerless, petrifying expectation of nullity. If, then, even a wish of light break through your dark despondence, read, study the Evangelists! – and truth will blaze upon you, with the means to find consolation.'

'Albert, I know now where I am! – You open to me possibilities that overwhelm me! My head seems bursting with fulness of struggling ideas!'

'Give them, Elinor, fair play, and they will soon, in return, give you tranquillity. Reflect only, – that that quality, that faculty, be its nature, its durability, and its purpose what they may, which the world at large agrees to call soul, has its universal comprehension from a something that is felt; not that is proved! Yet who, and where is the Atheist, the Deist, the Infidel of any description, gifted with the means to demonstrate, that, in quitting the body with the parting breath, it is necessarily extinct? that it may not, on the contrary, still BE, when speech and motion are no more? when our flesh is mingled with the dust, and our bones are dispersed by the winds? and BE, as while we yet exist, no part of our body, no single of our senses; never, while we seem to live, visible, yet never, when we seem to die, perishable? May it not, when, with its last sigh, it leaves the body, mingle with that vast expanse of air, which no instrument can completely analyse, and which our imperfect sight views but as empty space? May it not mount to upper regions, and enjoy purified bliss? May not all air be peopled with our departed friends, hovering around us, as sensible as we are unconscious? May not the uncumbered soul watch over those it loves? find again those it had lost? be received in the Heaven of Heavens, where it is destined, – not, Oh wretched idea! – to eternal sleep, inertness, annihilating dust; – but to life, to joy, to sweetest reminiscence, to tenderest re-unions, to grateful adoration to intelligence never ending! Oh! Elinor! keep for ever in mind, that if no mortal is gifted to prove that this is true, – neither is any one empowered to prove that it is false!'

'Oh delicious idea!' cried Elinor, rising: 'Oh image of perfection! Oh Albert! conquering Albert! I hope, – I hope; – my soul may be immortal! – Pray for me, Albert! Pray that I may dare offer up prayers for myself! – Send me your Christian divine to guide me on my way; and may your own heaven bless you, peerless Albert! for ever! – Adieu! adieu! adieu!' —

Fervently, then, clasping her hands, she sunk, with overpowering feelings, upon her knees.

Juliet came forward to support her; and Harleigh, deeply gratified, though full of commiseration, eagerly undertook the commission; and, echoing back her blessing, without daring to utter a word to Juliet, slowly quitted the spot.

CHAPTER LXXXVI

Elinor, for a considerable time, remained in the same posture, ruminating, in silent abstraction; yet giving, from time to time, emphatic, though involuntary utterance, to short and incoherent sentences. 'A spirit immortal! – ' 'Resurrection of the Dead! – ' 'A life to come! – ' 'Oh Albert! is there, then, a region where I may hope to see thee again!'

Suddenly, at length, seeming to recollect herself, 'Pardon,' she cried, 'Albert, my strangeness, – queerness, – oddity, – what will you call it? I am not the less, – O no! O no! penetrated by your impressive reasoning – Albert! – '

She lifted up her head, and, looking around, exclaimed, with an air of consternation, 'Is he gone?'

She arose, and with more firmness, said, 'He is right! I meant not, – and I ought not to see him any more; – though dearer to my eyes is his sight, than life or light! – '

Looking, then, earnestly forwards, as if seeking him, 'Farewell, Oh Albert!' she cried: 'We now, indeed, are parted for ever! To see thee again, would sink me into the lowest abyss of contempt, – and I would far rather bear thy hatred! – Yet hatred? – from that soul of humanity! – what violence must be put upon its nature! And how cruel to reverse such ineffable philanthropy! – No! – hate me not, my Albert! – It shall be my own care that thou shalt not despise me!'

Slowly she then walked away, followed silently by Juliet, who durst not address her. Anxiously she looked around, till, at some distance, she descried a horseman. It was Harleigh. She stopped, deeply moved, and seemed inwardly to bless him. But, when he was no longer in sight, she no longer restrained her anguish, and, casting herself upon the turf, groaned rather than wept, exclaiming, 'Must I live – yet behold thee no more! – Will neither sorrow, nor despair, nor even madness kill me? – Must nature, in her decrepitude, alone bring death to Elinor?'

Rising, then, and vainly trying again to descry the horse, 'All, all is gone!' she cried, 'and I dare not even die! – All, all is gone, from the lost, unhappy Elinor, but life and misery!'

Turning, then, with quickness to Juliet, while pride and shame dried her eyes, 'Ellis,' she said, 'let him not know I murmur! – Let not his last hearing of Elinor be disgrace! Tell him, on the contrary, that his friendship shall not be thrown away; nor his arguments be forgotten, or unavailing: no! I will weigh every opinion, every sentiment that has fallen from him, as if every word, unpolluted by human ignorance or informity, had dropt straight from heaven! I will meditate upon religion: I will humble myself to court resignation. I will fly hence, to avoid all temptation of ever seeing him more! – and to distract my wretchedness by new scenes. Oh Albert! – I will earn thy esteem by acquiescence in my lot, that here, – even here, – I may taste the paradise of alluring thee to include me in thy view of happiness hereafter!'

Her foreign servant, then, came in view, and she made a motion to him with her hand for her carriage. She awaited it in profound mental absorption, and, when it arrived, placed herself in it without speaking.

Juliet, full of tender pity, could no longer forbear saying, 'Adieu, Madam! and may peace re-visit your generous heart!'

Elinor, surprized and softened, looked at her with an expression of involuntary admiration, as she answered, 'I believe you to be good, Ellis! – I exonerate you from all delusory arts; and, internally, I never thought you guilty, – or I had never feared you! Fool! mad fool, that I have been, I am my own executioner! my distracting impatience to learn the depth of my danger, was what put you together! taught you to know, to appreciate one another! With my own precipitate hand, I have dug the gulph into which I am fallen! Your dignified patience, your noble modesty – Oh fatal Ellis! – presented a contrast that plunged a dagger into all my efforts! Rash, eager ideot! I conceived suspense to be my greatest bane! – Oh fool! eternal fool! – self-willed, and self-destroying! – for the single thrill of one poor moment's returning doubt – I would not suffer martyrdom!'

She wept, and hid her face within the carriage; but, holding out her hand to Juliet, 'Adieu, Ellis!' she cried, 'I struggle hardly not to wish you any ill; and I have never given you my malediction: yet Oh! – that you had never been born!' —

She snatched away her hand, and precipitately drew up all the blinds, to hide her emotion; but, presently, letting one of them down, called out, with resumed vivacity, and an air of gay defiance, 'Marry him, Ellis! – marry him at once! I have always felt that I should be less mad, if my honour called upon me for reason! – my honour and my pride!'

The groom demanded orders.

'Drive to the end of the world!' she answered, impatiently, 'so you ask me no questions!' and, forcibly adding, 'Farewell, too happy Ellis!' she again drew up all the blinds, and, in a minute, was out of sight.

Juliet deplored her fate with the sincerest concern; and ruminated upon her virtues, and attractive qualities, till their drawbacks diminished from her view, and left nothing but unaffected wonder, that Harleigh could resist them: 'twas a wonder, nevertheless, that every feeling of her heart, in defiance of every conflict, rose, imperiously, to separate from regret.

At the cottage, she found her recovered property, which she now concluded, – for her recollection was gone, – that she had dropt upon her entrance into the room occupied by Harleigh, before she had perceived that it was not empty.

Here, too, almost immediately afterwards, her messenger returned with a letter, which had remained more than a week at the post-office; whither it had been sent back by the farmer, who had refused to risk advancing the postage.

The letter was from Gabriella, and sad, but full of business. She had just received a hurrying summons from Mr de – , her husband, to join him at Teignmouth, in Devonshire; and, for family-reasons, which ought not to be resisted, to accompany him abroad. Mr de – had been brought by an accidental conveyance to Torbay; whence, through a peculiarly favourable opportunity, he was to sail to his place of destination. He charged her to use the utmost expedition; and, to spare the expence of a double journey, and the difficulties of a double passport, for and from London, he should procure permission to meet her at Teignmouth; where they might remain till their vessel should be ready; the town of Brixham, within Torbay, being filled with sailors, and unfit for female residence.

Gabriella owned, that she had nothing substantial, nor even rational, to oppose to this plan; though her heart would be left in the grave, the English grave of her adored child. She had relinquished, therefore, her shop, and paid the rent, and her debts; and obtained money for the journey by the sale of all her commodities. She then tenderly entreated, if no insurmountable obstacles forbid it, that Juliet would be of their party; and gave the direction of Mr de – at Teignmouth.

Not a moment could Juliet hesitate upon joining her friend; though whether or not she should accompany her abroad, she left for decision at their meeting. She greatly feared the delay in receiving the letter might make her arrive too late; but the experiment was well worth trial; and she reached the beautifully situated small town of Teignmouth the next morning.

She drove to the lodging of which Gabriella had given the direction; where she had the affliction to learn, that the lady whom she described, and her husband, had quitted Teignmouth the preceding evening for Torbay.

She instantly demanded fresh horses, for following them; but the postilion said, that he must return directly to Exeter, with his chaise; and enquired where she would alight. Where she might most speedily, she answered, find means to proceed.

The postilion drove her, then, to a large lodging-house; but the town was so full of company, as it was the season for bathing, that there was no chaise immediately ready; and she was obliged to take possession of a room, till some horses returned.

As soon as she had deposited her baggage, she resolved upon walking back to the late lodging of Gabriella, to seek some further information.

In re-passing a gallery, which led from her chamber to the stairs, she perceived, upon a band-box, left at the half-closed door of what appeared to be the capital apartment, the loved name of Lady Aurora Granville.

Joy, hope, fondness, and every pleasurable emotion, danced suddenly in her breast; and, chacing away, by surprize, all fearful caution, irresistibly impelled her to push open the door.

All possibility of concealment was, she knew, now at an end; and, with it, finished her long forbearance. How sweet to cast herself, at length, under so benign a protection! to build upon the unalterable sweetness of Lady Aurora for a consolatory reception, and openly to claim her support!

Filled with these delighting ideas, she gently entered the room. It was empty; but, the door to an inner apartment being open, she heard the soft voice of Lady Aurora giving directions to some servant.

While she hesitated whether, at once, to venture on, or to send in some message, a chambermaid, coming out with another band-box, shut the inner door.

The dress of Juliet was no longer such as to make her appearance in a capital apartment suspicious; and the chambermaid civily enquired whom she was pleased to want.

'Lady Aurora Granville,' she hesitatingly answered; adding that she would tap at her ladyship's door herself, and begging that the maid would not wait.

The maid, busy and active, hurried off. Quickly, then, though softly, Juliet stept forward; but at the door, trembling and full of fears, she stopt short; and the sight of pen, ink, and paper upon a table, determined her to commit her attempt to writing.

Seizing a sheet of paper, without sitting down, and in a hand scarcely legible, she began,

'Is Lady Aurora Granville still the same Lady Aurora, the kind, the benignant, the indulgent Lady Aurora, – ' when the sound of another voice, a voice more discordant, if possible, than that of Lady Aurora had been melodious, reached her ear from under the window: it was that of Mrs Howel.

As shaking now with terrour as before she had been trembling with hope, she rolled up her paper; and was hurrying it into her work-bag, which had been returned to her by Harleigh; when the chambermaid, re-entering the room, stared at her with some surprize, demanding whether she had seen her ladyship.

'No; … I believe … she is occupied,' Juliet, stammering, answered; and flew along the gallery back to her chamber.

That Lady Aurora should be under the care of Mrs Howel, who was the nearest female relation of Lord Denmeath, could give no surprize to Juliet; but the impulse which had urged her forward, had only painted to her a precious interview with Lady Aurora alone; for how venture to reveal herself in presence of so hard, so inimical a witness? The very idea, joined to the terrible apprehension of irritating Lord Denmeath, to aid some new attack from her legal persecutor; so damped her rising joy, so repressed her buoyant hopes, that, to avoid the insupportable repetition of injurious interrogatories, painful explanations, and insulting incredulity, she decided, if she could join Gabriella at Torbay, to accompany her to her purposed retreat; and there to await either intelligence of the Bishop, or an open summons from her own family.

She hastened, therefore, to the late lodging of Gabriella; where, upon a more minute investigation, she found, that a message had been left, in case a lady should call to enquire for Madame de – , to say, that the small vessel in which M. de – and herself were humanely to be received as passengers, was ready to sail; and to promise to write upon their landing; and to endeavour to fix upon some means of re-union. The lady, the lodging-people said, had lost all hope of her friend's arrival, but had left that message in case of accidents.

More eagerly than ever, Juliet now enquired for any kind of carriage; but the town was full, and every vehicle was engaged till the next morning.

The next morning opened with a new and cruel disappointment: the chambermaid came with excuses, that no chaise could be had, till towards evening, as the Honourable Mrs Howel had engaged all the horses, to carry herself and her people to Chudleigh-park.

Dreadful to the impatience of Juliet was such a loss of time; yet she shrunk from all appeal, upon her prior rights, with Mrs Howel.

Still, not to render impossible, before her departure, an interview, after which her heart was sighing, with Lady Aurora, she addressed to her a few lines.

'To the Right HonourableLady Aurora Granville.

'Brought hither in search of the friend of my earlier youth, what have been my perturbation, my hope, my fear, at the sound of the voice of her whom, proudly and fondly, it is my first wish to be permitted to love, and to claim as the friend of my future days! Ah, Lady Aurora! my inmost soul is touched and moved! – nevertheless, not to press upon the difficulties of your delicacy, nor to take advantage of the softness of your sensibility, I go hence without imploring your support or countenance. I quit again this loved land, scarcely known, though devoutly revered, to watch and wait, – far, far off! – for tidings of my future lot: I go to join the generous guardian of my orphan life, – till I know whether I may hope to be acknowledged by a brother! I go to dwell with my noble adopted sister, – till I learn whether I may be recalled, to be owned by one still nearer, – and who alone can be still dearer!'

She gave this paper sealed, for delivery, to the chambermaid; saying that she was going to take a long walk; and desiring, should there be any answer, that it might carefully be kept for her return.

This measure was to give Lady Aurora time to reflect, whether or not she should demand an explanation of the note; rather than to surprize the first eager impulse of her kindness.

She then bent her steps towards the sea-side; but, though it was still very early, there was so much company upon the sands, taking exercise before, or after bathing, that she soon turned another way; and, invited by the verdant freshness of the prospects, rambled on for a considerable time: at first, with no other design than to while away a few hours; but, afterwards, to give to those hours the pleasure ever new, ever instructive, of viewing and studying the works of nature; which, on this charming spot, now awfully noble, now elegantly simple; where the sea and the land, the one sublime in its sameness, the other, exhilarating in its variety, seem to be presented, as if in primeval lustre, to the admiring eye of a meditative being.

She clambered up various rocks, nearly to their summit, to enjoy, in one grand perspective, the stupendous expansion of the ocean, glittering with the brilliant rays of a bright and cloudless sky: dazzled, she descended to their base, to repose her sight upon the soft, yet lively tint of the green turf, and the rich, yet mild hue of the downy moss. Almost sinking, now, from the scorching beams of a nearly vertical sun, she looked round for some umbrageous retreat; but, refreshed the next moment, by salubrious sea-breezes, by the coolness of the rocks, or by the shade of the trees, she remained stationary, and charmed; a devoutly adoring spectatress of the lovely, yet magnificent scenery encircling her; so vast in its glory, so impressive in its details, of wild, varied nature, apparently in its original state.

When at length, she judged it to be right to return, upon coming within sight of the lodging-house, she saw a carriage at the door, into which some lady was mounting.