The Wanderer (Burney)/Volume 4/Chapter 67
CHAPTER LXVII.
Escape and immediate safety thus secured, her tender friendship for Gabriella superseding all fear, and leaving behind all solicitude, made Juliet nearly pronounce aloud, what internally she repeated without intermission, "I come to you, then, at last, my beloved Gabriella!" Cheerful, therefore, was her heart, in defiance of her various distresses: she was quitting Mrs. Ireton, to join Gabriella!—What could be the circumstances that could make such a change severe to Juliet? Juliet, who felt ill treatment more terribly than misfortune; and to whom kindness was more essential than prosperity?
Her journey was free from accident, and void of event. Absorbed in her own ruminations, she listened not to what was said, and scarcely saw by whom she was surrounded; though her fellow-travellers surveyed her with curiosity, and, from time to time, assailed her with questions.
Arrived at London, she put herself into a hackney-coach; and, almost before her fluttered spirits suffered her to perceive that she had left the inn-yard, she found herself in a haberdasher's shop, in Frith Street, Soho; and in the arms of her Gabriella.
It was long ere either of them could speak; their swelling hearts denied all verbal utterance to their big emotions; though tears of poignant grief at the numerous woes by which they had been separated, were mingled with feelings of the softest felicity at their re-union.
Yet vaguely only Juliet gave the history of her recent difficulties; the history which had preceded them, and upon which hung the mystery of her situation, still remained unrevealed.
Gabriella forbore any investigation, but her look shewed disappointment. Juliet perceived it, and changed colour. Tears gushed into her eyes, and her head dropt upon the neck of her friend. "Oh my Gabriella!" she cried, "if my silence wounds, or offends you,—it is at an end!"
Gabriella, instantly repressing every symptom of impatience, warmly protested that she would await, without a murmur, the moment of communication; well satisfied that it could be withheld from motives only that would render its anticipation dangerous, if not censurable.
With grateful tears, and tenderest embraces, Juliet expressed her thanks for this acquiescence.
Of Gabriella, the history was brief and gloomy. She had entered into business with as little comprehension of its attributes, as taste for its pursuit; her mind, therefore, bore no part in its details, though she sacrificed to them the whole of her time. Of her son alone she could speak or think. From her husband she reaped little consolation. Married before the Revolution, from a convent, and while yet a child; according to the general custom of her country, which rarely permits any choice even to the man; and to the female allows not even a negative; chance had not, as sometimes is kindly the case, played the part of election, in assorting the new married couple. Gabriella was generous, noble, and dignified: exalted in her opinions, and full of sensibility: Mr. * * * was many years older than herself, haughty and austere, though brave and honourable; but so cold in his nature, that he was neither struck with her virtues nor her graces, save in considering them as appendages to their mutual rank; nor much moved even by the death of his little son, but from repining that he had lost the heir to his illustrious name. He was now set off, incognito, to an appointed meeting with a part of his family, upon the continent.
Again a new scene of life opened to Juliet. The petty frauds, the over-reaching tricks, the plausible address, of the craft shop-keeper in retail, she had already witnessed: but the difficulties of honest trade she had neither seen nor imagined. The utter inexperience of Gabriella, joined to the delicacy of her probity, made her not more frequently the dupe of the artifices of those with whom she had to deal, than the victim of her own scruples. New to the mighty difference between buying and selling; to the necessity of having at hand more stores than may probably be wanted, for avoiding the risk of losing customers from having fewer; and to the usage of rating at an imaginary value whatever is in vogue, in order to repair the losses incurred from the failure of obtaining the intrinsic worth of what is old-fashioned or faulty;—new to all this, the wary shop-keeper's code, she was perpetually mistaken, or duped, through ignorance of ignorance, which leads to hazards, unsuspected to be hazards.
Repairs for the little shop were continually wanted, yet always unforeseen; taxes were claimed when she was least prepared to discharge them; and stores of merchandize accidentally injured, were obliged to be sold under prime cost, if not to be utterly thrown away.
Unpractised in every species of business, she had no criterion whence to calculate its chances, or be aware of its changes, either from varying seasons or varying modes; and to all her other intricacies, there was added a perpetual horrour of bankruptcy, from the difficulty of accelerating payment for what she sold, or of procrastinating it for what she bought.
Every embarrassment, however, at this period, was accommodated by Juliet; who had the exquisite satisfaction not only to bring to her beloved friend personal consolation, but solid and effectual comfort. The purse of Lord Melbury, which Juliet would only consider as the loan of Lady Aurora, was but little lightened by the small expences of the short journey from Brighthelmstone; and all that remained of its contents were instantly assigned to relieving the most painful of the distresses of Gabriella, those in which others were involved through her means.
Gabriella, with a grace familiar, if not peculiar, to her nation, of sharing, without the confusion of false pride, the offerings of tender friendship, or generous sympathy, accepted with noble frankness the assistance thus proposed; though Juliet again was obliged to hide her face from the enquiring eye, that seemed strangely to wonder whence this resource arose, and why its spring was concealed.
Juliet now became a partner in all the occupations and cares of her friend: together they prepared the shop for their customers every morning, and decked it out to attract passers bye; together they examined and re-arranged their goods every night; cast up their accounts, deposited sums for their creditors, and entered claims into their books for their debtors: together they sat in the shop, where one served and waited upon customers, and the other aided the household economy by the industry of her needle. Yet, laborious as might seem this existence to those who had known "other times," Juliet, by the side of Gabriella, thought every employment delightful; Gabriella, in the society of Juliet, felt every exertion lightened, and every sorrow softened.