You remember
The daughter of this lord?
Admiringly; my high-repented blames,
Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
All is whole;
Not one word more of the consumed time.
Let’s take the instant by the forward top,
For on our quick’st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.
SHAKSPEARE.
The succeeding night Oakley passed in the House of Commons, and was
surprised to find it impossible to fix his attention, as usual, to the
course of a long and interesting debate. Returning from thence after
day-break, he took his station at once where he could command from
a distance the entrance to the bazaar. He had, as might have been
expected from the earliness of the hour, some time to wait: but at
length he beheld a figure in black slowly, almost timidly, advancing:
a single glance sufficed to convince him it was the object of his
search. There was a hesitation in her step, and an embarrassment in
her deportment, caused by the narrow escape of being recognised,
experienced by her the day before, which seemed to call for support
and assistance; and, but that he felt unequal to command his feelings
sufficiently for a meeting in the open streets, he would have rushed
forward to offer her his protection. As she returned from the bazaar,
he followed at a distance, and traced her to her lodging, but hesitated
to enter after her.
Helen’s situation was now more than ever distressing. The day before
she had received, through a relation of old Dorothy’s in the city,
where, to prevent discovery, all her letters were sent, a communication
from Mr. Seaford, to state, that having been promoted to a better
living, he was obliged to give up her house, the last quarter for
which, paid in advance, was just out. This rendered it almost
indispensable for her to give up her present expensive lodging; but old
Dorothy’s state, crippled and helpless with rheumatism, seemed to make
the proposal of it for the present impossible; as even, had she been in
health, she was sure it was a point that would not have been carried
without a contest. Independent of the regard which long habit had made
her feel for the old woman, her protection was too necessary to the
respectability of her present situation to be lightly dispensed with.
The shopwoman, too, not having found the novelty of her last batch of
fancy articles so attractive as she had expected, had made a favour of
taking even those she had just finished, and had confined any further
orders to another bracelet similar to the broken one which she said had
been ordered by the gentleman who brought the lady’s to be repaired.
This bracelet, purchased by Lady Boreton at the bazaar, had been a
single experiment of the kind, attempted by Helen in her endeavour to
produce something new; and doubtful of success, she had sacrificed a
lock of her own hair to see whether it would answer. What was now to
be done? At first she thought of purchasing some hair as nearly as
possible of the same colour as her own, of which to make it; little
guessing that such a substitute would have made all the difference to
the person by whom it was ordered. Then again, the expense of such a
purchase was such as the present state of her funds could ill afford;
and she determined to sacrifice some more of her own beautiful locks.
As she loosed her long and luxuriant hair of matchless brown, a passing
feeling of pardonable vanity interposed to check her hand, but she had
almost subdued it with the reflection, “Is this a time for pride of
person?”--when at the moment the door opened, and Oakley once again
stood before her, unexpected and unushered.
Far different, however, was the first impression made upon him by
Helen’s appearance now and upon the last occasion, when that fine hair,
which now flowed unconfined, about to be sacrificed to her necessities,
had, dressed with consummate art, been to him offensively blended with
his adversary’s colours. Now the splendid robe of gala gaiety had been
exchanged for a simple dress of the deepest mourning.
It is said, that few are seen for the first time in mourning without
their beauty being apparently enhanced, and of this few Helen was not
one. Confinement and suffering had somewhat blanched her cheek, but
the more depressed and humiliated she appeared, the more unworthy did
Oakley think himself of her; and this feeling for the time overpowered
him. Helen, on her part, was for an instant kept silent by a mixture of
sensations which she would have been unable to analyse, and unwilling
at all to attribute to their true source. This it was that at first
imparted a tremulousness to her voice as she said: “I am sure you need
only be told, that this room is mine, and recollect that I am alone and
unprotected, to see at once the impropriety of this intrusion.”
“Forgive me one moment, and I will explain--but to see you thus
degraded--in a situation so unworthy of you--”
“Degraded,” said she, “I can never feel but by some fault of my own;
and however at variance my present situation may be with that in which
you last beheld me, it was then, not now, that I was misplaced. For
none can know better than you, that a forlorn and destitute orphan,
with no kindred claims of any kind, can best by her own exertions
escape reproach.”
“And it is my brutality,” exclaimed Oakley, “which has made you think
so but too justly--how you must hate me!”
“No, indeed,” said she, “such an idea is unjust, alike to all your
former kindness, and to my grateful sense of it. Neither of these is to
be effaced by an injury inflicted in a momentary burst of passion.”
As she said this, even these kind words failed of imparting that
consolation to Oakley which he derived from an object which
accidentally met his eye. Strange, and trivial, and apparently
unworthy of observation, at such a moment, was that from whence he,
nevertheless, imbibed comfort.
A volume of Byron’s works was open upon the table before him. Byron was
a genius peculiarly suited to excite admiration in a person of Oakley’s
disposition. He well remembered, during the days of his acquaintance
with Helen, that he had often repeated passages to her of that author,
with whom she was then unacquainted, as Mrs. Mordaunt’s secluded
mode of life had confined her reading principally to the standard
classics of the language, in all of which she was perfectly well read.
“Even, then, in her present embarrassments, she has remembered my
recommendations, and cultivated my tastes,” thought he; “this is not
the conduct of indifference or dislike.” So ingenious is a lover in
extracting encouragement from apparently the most unlikely sources! As
soon, therefore, as she had finished, he addressed her with somewhat
more of confidence: “Talk not of my services; they are nothing; but let
me hope----”
“Pardon me,” said Helen, interrupting him; “I have said that I did not
consider my present situation degrading; but I am not insensible to
its peculiar disadvantages; not the least of which is, that it lays
me painfully open to groundless suspicion. My character must remain
unblemished; ’tis all I have; and the continuance of this interview----”
“I see it,” said Oakley. “No, I will not again aggravate your
misfortunes; but say, at least, that you forgive me.”
“That I do, as freely as would that Christian spirit to whom the injury
was done. Had she even known your recent offence, she would still have
died as she did--almost her last breath murmuring a blessing on your
name. Her end was that of a person whose former errors, such as they
were, had, by separating her from this world, the better prepared her
for the next. And that I, her daughter, who so revered and adored her,
should be obliged to consider her.--But this is a subject on which I
cannot bear to think, much less to speak. As far as you were to blame,
most heartily do I forgive you. God bless you, Mr. Oakley!”
“I cannot leave you, even till a better opportunity of saying all I
wish, unless you will allow me again to restore what I consider as
your legal provision.”
“Do not ask this. I cannot quite forget as well as forgive, if I have
that constantly to remind me; and I would fain learn to think of you
with unmixed gratitude for all your kindness to the orphan girl. Any
other proof of my forgiveness----”
“There is one proof which I would, yet dare not ask. Oh, Helen! might
I but hope that you would allow me, by devoting my life to your
happiness, to insure my own--that you would, as mine, consent to share
with me that situation in the world which should be yours by right!
I hardly know what I am saying; but this I know, that I cannot live
without you. Helen, for God’s sake, look up--speak to me.”
When Oakley’s meaning first broke on Helen’s mind, the flash of
excitement, even before the words were uttered, dispelled all traces of
languor and suffering from her previously pale cheek. Her eye, for an
instant, glistened with a peculiar brightness till dimmed with tears;
when, hiding her face in her hands, and dropping it on the table, she
sobbed hysterically. The sudden revulsion had been too much for her
shattered spirits. While Oakley hung anxiously over her, she had time
to recover from this involuntary weakness, which she soon did so far as
to say: “No, no, no: I feel that this cannot, must not be.”
“Why? wherefore?” exclaimed Oakley, passionately: “who can dare to
object, if you allow me to hope?”
“No,” said Helen; “it is a connexion every way unworthy of you; and I
cannot allow that your generous nature, excited by the idea of injury
inflicted, and softened by pity, should give to a passing predilection,
an influence upon your fate which, in cooler moments, your judgment
would regret.”
“Believe me, Helen, you now wrong me for the first time.”
“Let me entreat you to hear me,” said she; “I have hardly powers for my
task, even if I may attempt it without interruption. If I have you to
contend against as well as myself, it will be impossible. I will not
deny that in the day-dreams of my solitude, the thought of this has
often occurred; but I have convinced myself of its impossibility.”
Oakley was again about to protest against such a conclusion; but the
imploring look with which she met his attempt silenced him, and he
listened with breathless attention, whilst she continued:--
“That your character has been no uninteresting one to me, I fear my
recent weakness has but too plainly shown; but the more I have thought,
(and I have had leisure for reflection,) the more convinced I have
become, that yours is a disposition which would be rendered peculiarly
unhappy by an unequal match.”
“But how unequal, except that I am every way unworthy of you?”
“Nay, is not my present situation open to misconstruction and reproach?
You, yourself, called it degradation; and though my own feelings would
not so acknowledge it, yet I cannot deny that it will be so considered
in the eyes of the world.”
“But there is not a man living that feels more contempt than I do for
the opinion of that knot of knaves and fools which calls itself the
world.”
“That it would not force you to bow before its worthless idol, I
can well believe; but prone as your nature is to distrust, even of
yourself, how can you answer that you could be proof against the
galling, though groundless taunts of the malicious?”
“But how can this affect you?”
“Simply thus; for I will not remind you that you cannot always command
yourself. Your regret for what once passed, is too sincere for that to
be necessary; but, for your happiness, it behoved you to have chosen
one already known and acknowledged by the world; and, must I add, one
of unblemished birth?”
Her voice faltered a little as she said this; but she continued:
“My present line of life is one that I have adopted from the purest
motives, and as the only way to extricate myself from difficulties;
but my reasons were of a nature which evaded explanation. How, then,
could you bear the thousand misinterpretations to which, should it be
known, it may expose me? Nay, are you even sure that you could always
steel your _own mind_ against suspicion?”
As Helen uttered these words, Oakley’s brow became suddenly clouded,
whilst hideous visions, like the confused creations of the nightmare,
crowded past him. But with an effort he succeeded in banishing them;
and answered emphatically: “Suspect you, Helen? No, by Heaven,
impossible!”
Having once allowed her to finish all her objections, he became more
earnest in his entreaties and protestations. It was not to be expected
that she should long resist herself as well as him. She had thought it
her duty to state why she feared for his happiness. Having done this,
I hope that the reader will not like her the less for having been too
much of a woman, and too little of a heroine to attempt more. Indeed,
she could not help flattering herself, from the proof of unbounded
confidence he had just given, that her influence over him would be such
as to overcome his constitutional failing. Upon one point, however, she
was resolute: that, till the expiration of her mourning, they should
meet no more. Nothing should be declared, nor ought it to be considered
by him in the light of an engagement.
“The home of my childhood being at present vacant, I will return there;
and shall now have no scruple in again accepting that which we used to
receive from my----from the person whose property you have inherited.”
As she said this, a noise as of one moving with difficulty,
accompanied with much groaning and coughing, was heard in the next
room. This was caused by Dorothy’s efforts to raise herself in
consequence of hearing a man’s voice. At length, in answer to her
repeated calls upon her name, Helen opened the door, whereupon the old
woman, seeing Oakley and Helen, screamed out--“A man in Miss Mordaunt’s
room! I ought to have known it would come to this, though I could never
have believed it of her.”
“This gentleman,” said Helen calmly, “is Mr. Oakley, Lord Rockington’s
heir.”
“So much the worse; he comes of a bad sort, and I doubt for a bad end.”
“You need not have feared suspicion,” said Oakley to Helen, smiling;
“such a duenna would have been a sufficient antidote to the doubts
even of a Spaniard: but I think her faithful apprehensions merit
confidence; and that she at least should be an exception to the silence
on the subject of our engagement which you prescribe.”
To this Helen consented, and Dorothy was quite satisfied upon hearing
that at the expiration of the mourning, she was to resign her anxious
care of her young mistress into the hands of a husband, in the person
of Mr. Oakley.
As soon as Helen was deprived of the delight of Oakley’s presence,
was relieved from the torrent of Dorothy’s questions, and had reason
to reflect on the change in her future fate, which the last two
hours had produced, she indulged fondly in unmixed anticipations of
happiness. The doubts of Oakley’s disposition, which had been formed
in the sadness of solitude, and which she thought it her duty to
state, had lost their influence when she had ceased to urge them; and
she now rather reproached herself with coldness and ingratitude in
having so distrustfully received the passionate declaration of the most
disinterested attachment.