Various customers, though for small purchases, had, from time to time, interrupted, but not broken this narration. The Baronet respectfully made way for whoever came, but resumed his place the instant that it was vacated; spending the interval in selecting new pieces of ribbon; till, ere the history was finished, not a remnant of that article remained unsold. It was his purpose, he gallantly said, to present a top-knot, for a twelve-month to come, to every fair syren who, either by face, voice, shape, feature, complexion, size, air, or manner, should afford him so much pleasure as to remind him, however transiently, of the adorable haberdasher, whose taper fingers had put it into his possession.
Gabriella interrupted these compliments, to observe, with some anxiety, two strange men, who were sauntering up and down the street, and who, from time to time, peeped in at the window.
‘And how can they do any better?’ said the Baronet; ‘unless you invite them into your apartments? ’Tis precisely what I shall enact myself, if you turn me out of doors! Do you fancy you are to dart yourselves, you and your mischievous partner, into as many hearts as you can find spectators, and then bid your poor wounded gazers go lie down and bleed, in the kennel, like so many puppies; without allowing them even a lamenting yell, or friendly barking, to call themselves into notice before they give up the ghost? I pity the poor caitiffs with all my heart.
‘A fellow-feeling makes one wond’rous kind!’1
‘Let me, however, hope, that the seductive tale which I have been quaffing, has not intoxicated all my senses only to my own destruction! that my poor nerves have not been pierced and pinched; that my feelings have not been twitched and tweaked, and my senses scared and confounded, only to drag my own crazy folly into fuller view!’
He paused a few minutes, during which Gabriella began making out the account of her ribbons; and then, with a mild voice, but an arch brow, ‘Hear me,’ he resumed, ‘my dulcet frog! for such, you know, is your destined classification in this country; hear, and under your auspices let me proceed. If this fair marvellous Wanderer,—in her birth no longer an Incognita, yet an Incognita still in her history; will venture to put herself under my protection,—honourably I mean; so don’t frown! for nothing so spoils the forehead! Besides, who can look at you, and not mean honourably? With all your sweetness, there is a fire in your eye, that, if I harboured a naughty idea, only for a moment, would, I see plainly, consume me. Let us, however, talk the matter over with becoming seriousness. It may, perchance, be less difficult than you may imagine, to establish your fair journeywoman’s rights.’
‘O make the attempt, then,’ cried Gabriella; ‘exert yourself in so noble a trial!’
‘A little activity,’ he continued, ‘and a great deal of menacing, adroitly put in play, will now and then do wonders. A little money, too, dexterously handled, rarely does much harm. When Lord Denmeath sees all these at work, take my word for it, he will think twice, before he will let them operate upon the public. We like mighty well to reap the fruits of our address in the world; but we have a sagacious tendency to keeping our ways and means to ourselves. Lord Denmeath, after all, as a worldly man, does but his office, in putting to sleep his conscience for the better keeping awake his interest. This is simply in the ordinary course of things: but, when the blood that is youthful is not generous; when life is begun with the crafty hardness that years, experience, and disappointment have given to those who are ending it; when we see even striplings, who ought to be made up of wild romance, and credulous enthusiasm, meanly, basely, heartlessly, for a few pitiful thousands, suffer an orphan to be cheated, despoiled of her rank in life, and made an alien to her country, as well as to her family;—then it is, that I curse Vanity as an imp of darkness, and Pride as a demon of hell! When a boy like Lord Melbury, a young girl such as Lady Aurora—’
‘They are innocent, Sir Jaspar! they are noble! they are faultless!’ called out Juliet, eagerly returning to the shop; ‘they dream not of my claims; they have not the most distant idea that I have the honour to belong to their house. Innocent? they are meritorious! Conceiving me simply a helpless, unpatronized, and indigent Wanderer, they have treated me with a kindness, a consideration, an heavenly benevolence, that, towards a stranger so forlorn, could have been dictated only by the most angelic of natures!’
‘Astonishing! incredible!’ exclaimed Sir Jaspar. ‘What! do they not know your story? Have you made no appeal to their justice, their affections?’
‘You will cease, Sir, to wonder, and cease also, I hope, to question me, when I tell you that here, even here, I have not made my situation known! here, even here,—to the friend of my heart, the confidant of my life, the loved and honoured descendant of the house by which I have been preserved, and from which alone I hope for protection! Judge then, how powerful must be my motives for secresy! And she,—she submits to my silence! Too high-minded for distrust, too nobly mistress of herself for impatience; and conscious that even a wish, expressed, would to me have the force of a command, she waits my time! She knows the most dire and barbarous obstacles could alone lead me to reserve and concealment, where my softest consolation would be openness and sympathy!’
Gabriella could offer no answer but by wide extended arms, with which Juliet, gushing into tears, was fondly encircled; while the Baronet, touched, amazed, and enchanted, repeatedly wiped his eyes; when Gabriella, observing, again, at the window, one of the men of whom she had spoken, whispered Juliet to compose herself, or to retire.
There was not time: Riley, who had seen her, bounced into the shop.
‘Ah, ha, I have caught you at last, have I, Demoiselle?’ he cried, rubbing his hands with joy. ‘I could not devise where the deuce you had hidden yourself. I only knew you were in some shabby little bit of a shop in this street. And who do you think is my author for this intelligence?—Won’t you guess?—Why Surly! your old friend, Surly!’
Apprehensive of some attack similar to that which she had endured at Brighthelmstone, Juliet ventured not to speak, though she felt too anxious to withdraw: while Sir Jaspar, extremely curious, repeated, ‘Old Surly?’ in a tone that invited explanation.
‘The same, faith! He’s come over o’ purpose to hunt you out, Demoiselle.’
‘Me?’ cried Juliet, changing colour; ‘and why?—And who is he?’
‘Who is he? Well! that’s droll, faith! Why you have not forgotten your old crony, the pilot?’
Juliet looked down, to conceal the alarm with which she was seized.
‘Why, I’ll tell you how it all happened,’ continued Riley, mounting upon the counter, as he might have mounted upon his horse; ‘I’ll tell you how it all happened. About a month ago, in one of my rambles, I met Master Surly; and, for old acquaintance sake, I was prodigiously glad to see him: for I like, as a curiosity, to shew John Bull a Mounseer that i’n’t a milk-sop. So we talked over our voyage; but when I told him that I had met with the Demoiselle at Brighthelmstone; and that she had cast off her slough, and was grown a beauty; he aske............