The Wanderer Volume V Part 21

This toast being gaily drunk by every one, save the blushing Juliet, the Admiral sent out his grinning sailor, with a bottle of port, to repeat it with the postilions.

'Monsieur the Bishop,' continued the Admiral, 'there's one remark which I must beg leave to make, that I hope you won't think unchristian; though I confess it to be not over and above charitable; but I have always, in my heart, owed a grudge to my Lord Granville, though his lordship was my brother-in-law, for bringing up his daughter in foreign parts; whereby he risked the ruin of her morals both in body and soul.

Not that I would condemn a dead man, who cannot speak up in his own defence, for I hold nothing to be narrower than that; therefore, Mr Bishop, if you have any thing to offer in his behalf, it will look very well in you, as a parson, to make the most of it: and, moreover, give great satisfaction both to my niece, the Honourable Miss Granville, and to this young Lord, who is her half brother. And I, also, I hope, as a good Christian, shall sincerely take my share thereof.'

'An irresistible, or, rather, an unresisted disposition to procrastinate whatever was painful,' answered the Bishop, in French, 'was the origin and cause of all that you blame. Lord Granville always persuaded himself that the morrow would offer opportunity, or inspire courage, for a confession of his marriage that the day never presented, nor excited; and to avow his daughter while that was concealed, would have been a disgrace indelible to his deserving departed lady. This from year to year, kept Miss Granville abroad. With the most exalted sentiments, the nicest honour, and the quickest feelings, my n.o.ble, however irresolute friend, had an unfortunate indecision of character, that made him waste in weighing what should be done, the time and occasion of action. Could he have foreseen the innumerable hardships, the endless distresses, from which neither prudence nor innocence could guard the helpless offspring of an unacknowledged union, he would either, at once and n.o.bly, have conquered his early pa.s.sion; or courageously have sustained and avowed its object.'

'It must also be considered,' said Harleigh, while tears of filial tenderness rolled down the cheeks of Juliet, and started into the eyes of Lord Melbury, 'that, when my Lord Granville trusted his daughter to a foreign country, his own premature death was not less foreseen, than the political event in which her property and safety, in common with those of the natives, were involved. That event has not operated more wonderfully upon the fate and fortune, than upon the minds and characters of those individuals who have borne in it any share; and who, according to their temperaments and dispositions, have received its new doctrines as lessons, or as warnings. Its undistinguishing admirers, it has emanc.i.p.ated from all rule and order; while its unwilling, yet observant and suffering witnesses, have been formed by it to fort.i.tude, prudence, and philosophy; it has taught them to strengthen the mind with the body; it has animated the exercise of reason, the exertion of the faculties, activity in labour, resignation in endurance, and cheerfulness under every privation; it has formed, my Lord Melbury, in the school of refining adversity, your firm, yet tender sister! it has formed, n.o.ble Admiral, in the trials, perils, and hardships of a struggling existence, your courageous, though so gentle niece!--And for me, may I not hope that it has formed--'

He stopt; the penetrated Juliet cast upon him a look that supplicated silence. He obeyed its expression; and her mantling cheek, dimpling with grateful smiles, amply recompensed his forbearance.

'Gentlemen, both,' said the Admiral, 'I return you my hearty thanks for letting me into this insight of the case. And if I were to give you, in return, a little smattering of what pa.s.sed in my own mind in those days, I can't deny but I should have been tempted, often enough, to out with the whole business, if I had not been afraid of being jeer'd for my pains; a thing for which I had never much taste. Many and many a time I used to muse upon it, and say to myself, My sister was married; honourably married! And I,--for I was but a young man then to what I am now,--a mere boy; and I, says I to myself, am brother-in-law to a lord!

Yet I was too proud to publish it of my own accord, because of his being a lord! for, if I had, the whole ship's company, in those days, might have thought me little better than a puppy.'

The repast finished, the pleased and grateful guests separated. Harleigh set off post for London and his lawyer; and the Bishop and Lord Melbury, gladly accepted an invitation from the Admiral to his country-seat near Richmond, of which, with the greatest delight, he proclaimed his niece mistress.

But short, here, was her reign. Harleigh was speedily ready: and his cause, seconded by Lady Aurora and the Admiral, could not be pleaded in vain to Juliet; who, in giving her hand where she had given her whole heart; in partaking the name, the mansion, the fortune, and the fate of Harleigh; bestowed and enjoyed such rare felicity, that all she had endured seemed light, all she had performed appeared easy, and even every woe became dear to her remembrance, that gradually and progressively, though painfully and unsuspectedly, had contributed to so exquisite and heartfelt a union.

Her own happiness thus fixed, her first solicitude was for her guardian and preserver the Bishop; whom, with her sympathizing Harleigh, she attended to the Continent. There she was embraced and blessed by her honoured benefactress, the Marchioness; there, and not vainly, she strove to console her beloved Gabriella; and there, in the elegant society to which she had owed all her early enjoyments, she prevailed upon Harleigh to remain, till it became necessary to return to their home, to present, upon his birth, a new heir to the enchanted Admiral.

A rising family, then, put an end to foreign excursions; but the dearest delight of Harleigh was seeking to a.s.semble around his Juliet her first friends.

Lady Aurora had hardly any other home than that of her almost adored sister, till she was installed in one, with an equal and amiable partner, upon the same day that Lord Melbury obtained the willing hand of the lively, natural, and feeling Lady Barbara Frankland.

Sir Jaspar Herrington, to whom Juliet had such essential obligations, became, now that all false hopes or fanciful wishes were annihilated, her favourite guest. He still saw her with a tenderness which he secretly, though no longer banefully nourished; but transferred to her rapturously attentive children, the histories of his nocturnal intercourse with sylphs, fairies, and the destinies; while, ever awake to the wishes of Juliet, he rescued the simple Flora from impending destruction, by portioning her in marriage with an honest vigilant farmer.

Scarcely less welcome than the whimsical Baronet to Juliet, nor less happy under her roof, was the guileless and benevolent Mr Giles Arbe; who there enjoyed, unbroken by his restless, adroit, and worldly cousin, his innocent serenity.

Juliet sought, too, with her first power, the intuitively virtuous Dame Fairfield; whose incorrigible husband had briefly, with the man of the hut, paid the dread earthly penalty of increased and detected crimes.

Harleigh placed a considerable annuity upon the faithful, excellent Ambroise; to whose care, soon afterwards, he committed the meritorious widow, and her lovely little ones, by a marriage which ensured to them the protection and endearments of a kind husband, and an affectionate father.

Even Mr Tedman, when Harleigh paid him, with high interest, his three half-guineas, was invited to Harleigh Hall; where, with no small pride, he received thanks for the first liberality he had ever prevailed with himself to practise.

No one to whom Juliet had ever owed any good office, was by her forgotten, or by Harleigh neglected. They visited, with gifts and praise, every cottage in which the Wanderer had been harboured; and Harleigh bought of the young wood-cutters, at a high price, their dog Dash; who became his new master's inseparable companion in his garden, fields, and rides.

But Riley, whose spirit of tormenting, springing from bilious ill humour, operated in producing pain and mischief like the most confirmed malevolence; Ireton, whose unmeaning pursuits, futile changes, and careless insolence, were every where productive of disorder, save in his own unfeeling breast; and Selina, who, in presence of a higher or richer acquaintance, ventured not to bestow even a smile upon the person whom, in her closet, she treated, trusted, and caressed as her bosom friend; these, were excluded from the happy Hall, as persons of minds uncongenial to confidence; that basis of peace and cordiality in social intercourse.

But while, for these, simple non-admission was deemed a sufficient mark of disapprobation, the Admiral himself, when apprized of the adventures of his niece, insisted upon being the messenger of positive exile to three ladies, whom he nominated the three Furies; Mrs Howel, Mrs Ireton, and Mrs Maple; that he might give them, he said, a hint, as it behoved a good Christian to do, for their future amendment, of the reasons of their exclusion. All mankind, he affirmed, would behave better, if the good were not as cowardly as the bad are audacious.

To spare at least the pride, though he could not the softer feelings of Elinor, Harleigh thought it right to communicate to her himself, by letter, the news of his marriage. She received it with a consternation that cruelly opened her eyes to the false hopes which, however disclaimed and disowned, had still duped her wishes, and played upon her fancy, with visions that had brought Harleigh, ultimately, to her feet.

Despair, with its grimmest horrour, grasped her heart at this self-detection; but pride supported her spirit; and Time, the healer of woe, though the destroyer of life, moderated her pa.s.sions, in annihilating her expectations; and, when her better-qualities found opportunity for exertion, her excentricities, though always what were most conspicuous in her character, ceased to absorb her whole being. Yet in the anguish of her disappointment, 'Alas! alas!' she cried, 'must Elinor too,--must even Elinor!--like the element to which, with the common herd, she owes, chiefly, her support, find,--with that herd!--her own level?--find that she has strayed from the beaten road, only to discover that all others are pathless!'

Here, and thus felicitously, ended, with the acknowledgement of her name, and her family, the DIFFICULTIES of the WANDERER;--a being who had been cast upon herself; a female Robinson Crusoe, as unaided and unprotected, though in the midst of the world, as that imaginary hero in his uninhabited island; and reduced either to sink, through inanition, to nonent.i.ty, or to be rescued from famine and death by such resources as she could find, independently, in herself.

How mighty, thus circ.u.mstanced, are the DIFFICULTIES with which a FEMALE has to struggle! Her honour always in danger of being a.s.sailed, her delicacy of being offended, her strength of being exhausted, and her virtue of being calumniated!

Yet even DIFFICULTIES such as these are not insurmountable, where mental courage, operating through patience, prudence, and principle, supply physical force, combat disappointment, and keep the untamed spirits superiour to failure, and ever alive to hope.