Volume I Part 27 (1/2)

[Footnote 8: Dryden.]

Harleigh tried to smile, tried to rally, tried to divert the question; all in vain; Elinor became but more urgent, and more disordered. 'O Harleigh!' she cried, 'is it too much to ask this one mark of your confidence, for a creature who has cast her whole destiny at your feet?

Speak!--if you would not devote me to distraction! Speak!--if you would not consign me to immediate delirium!'

'And what,' cried he, trembling at her vehemence, 'would you have me say?'

'That it is not Elinor whom you despise--but another whom you love.'

'Elinor! are you mad?'

'No, Harleigh, no!--but I am wild with anguish to dive into the full depth of my disgrace; to learn whether it were inevitable, from the very nature of things,--from personal antipathy,--gloss it over as you will with esteem, regard, and professions;--or whether you had found that you, also, had a soul, before mine was laid open to you. No evasion--no delay!' continued she, with augmenting impetuosity; 'you have promised to grant my boon,--speak, Harleigh, speak!--was it my direful fate, or your insuperable antipathy?'

'It was surely not antipathy!' cried he, in a tone the most soothing; yet with a look affrighted, and unconscious, till he had spoken, of the inference to which his words might be liable.

'I thank you!' cried she, fervently, 'Harleigh, I thank you! This, at least, is n.o.ble; this is treating me with distinction, this is honouring me with trust. It abates the irritating tinglings of mortified pride; it persuades me I am the victim of misfortune, not of contempt.'

Suddenly, then, turning to Ellis, whose eyes, during the whole scene, had seemed rivetted to the floor, she expressively added, 'I ask not the object!'

Harleigh breathed hard, yet kept his face in an opposite direction, and endeavoured to look as if he did not understand her meaning. Ellis commanded her features to remain unmoved; but her complexion was not under the same controul: frequent blushes crossed her cheeks, which, though they died away almost as soon as they were born, vanished only to re-appear; evincing all the consciousness that she struggled to suppress.

A pause ensued, to Harleigh unspeakably painful, and to Ellis indescribably distressing; during which Elinor fell into a profound reverie, from which, after a few minutes, wildly starting, 'Harleigh,'

she cried, 'is your wedding-day fixed?'

'My wedding-day?' he repeated, with a forced smile, 'Must not my wedding itself be fixed first?'

'And it is not fixed?--Does it depend upon Ellis?'

He looked palpably disconcerted; while Ellis, hastily raising her head, exclaimed, 'Upon me, Madam? no, indeed! I am completely and every way out of the question.'

'Of you,' said Elinor, with severity, 'I mean not to make any enquiry!

You are an adept in the occult sciences; and such I venture not to encounter. But you, Harleigh, will you, also, practise disguise? and fall so in love with mystery, as to lose your n.o.bler nature, in a blind, infatuated admiration of the marvellous and obscure?'

Ellis resentfully reddened; but her cheeks were pale to those of Harleigh. Neither of them, however, spoke; and Elinor continued.

'I cannot, Harleigh, be deceived, and I will not be trifled with. When you came over to fetch me from France; when the fatal name of sister gave me a right to interrogate you, I frankly asked the state of your heart, and you unhesitatingly told me that it was wholly free. Since that period, whom have you seen, whom noticed, except Ellis! Ellis!

Ellis! From the first moment that you have beheld her, she has seemed the mistress of your destiny, the arbitress of your will. My boon, then, Harleigh, my boon! without a moment's further delay! Appease the raging ferment in my veins; clear away every surmize; and generously, honestly say 'tis Ellis!--or it is another, and not Ellis, I prefer to you!'

'Elinor! Elinor!' cried Harleigh, in a universal tremour, 'it is I that you will make mad!' while Ellis, not daring to draw upon herself, again, the rebuke which might follow a single declaiming word, rose, and turning from them both, stood facing the window.

'It is surely then Ellis! what you will not, Harleigh, avow, is precisely what you proclaim--it is surely Ellis!'

Ellis opened the window, and leant out her head; Harleigh, clapping his hand upon his crimsoned forehead, walked with hasty steps round the little apartment.

Losing now all self-command, and wringing her hands, in a transport of ungovernable anguish, 'Oh, Harleigh! Harleigh!' Elinor cried, 'to what a chimera you have given your heart! to an existence unintelligible, a character unfathomable, a creature of imagination, though visible! O, can you believe she will ever love you as Elinor loves? with the warmth, with the truth, with the tenderness, with the choice? can she show herself as disinterested? can she prove herself as devoted?--'

'She aims, Madam, at no rivalry!' said Ellis, gravely, and returning to her seat: while Harleigh, tortured between resentment and pity, stood still; without venturing to look up or reply.

'Rivalry?' repeated Elinor, with high disdain: 'No! upon what species of compet.i.tion could rivalry be formed, between Elinor, and a compound of cold caution, and selfish prudence? Oh, Harleigh! how is it you thus can love all you were wont to scorn? double dealing, false appearances, and lurking disguise! without a family she dare claim, without a story she dare tell, without a name she dare avow!'