PERCIVAL VISITS LUCRETIA.
Having once ascertained the house in which Helen lived, it was no
difficult matter for St. John to learn the name of the guardian whom Beck
had supposed to be her mother. No common delight mingled with Percival's
amaze when in that name he recognized one borne by his own kinswoman.
Very little indeed of the family history was known to him. Neither his
father nor his mother ever willingly conversed of the fallen heiress,--it
was a subject which the children had felt to be proscribed; but in the
neighbourhood, Percival had of course heard some mention of Lucretia as
the haughty and accomplished Miss Clavering, who had, to the astonishment
of all, stooped to a mesalliance with her uncle's French librarian. That
her loss of the St. John property, the succession of Percival's father,
were unexpected by the villagers and squires around, and perhaps set down
to the caprice of Sir Miles, or to an intellect impaired by apoplectic
attacks, it was not likely that he should have heard. The rich have the
polish of their education, and the poor that instinctive tact, so
wonderful amongst the agricultural peasantry, to prevent such unmannerly
disclosures or unwelcome hints; and both by rich and poor, the Vernon St.
Johns were too popular and respected for wanton allusions to subjects
calculated to pain them. All, therefore, that Percival knew of his
relation was that she had resided from infancy with Sir Miles; that after
their uncle's death she had married an inferior in rank, of the name of
Dalibard, and settled abroad; that she was a person of peculiar manners,
and, he had heard somewhere, of rare gifts. He had been unable to learn
the name of the young lady staying with Madame Dalibard; he had learned
only that she went by some other name, and was not the daughter of the
lady who rented the house. Certainly it was possible that this last
might not be his kinswoman, after all. The name, though strange to
English ears, and not common in France, was no sufficient warrant for
Percival's high spirits at the thought that he had now won legitimate and
regular access to the house; still, it allowed him to call, it furnished
a fair excuse for a visit.
How long he was at his toilet that day, poor boy! How sedulously, with
comb and brush, he sought to smooth into straight precision that
luxuriant labyrinth of jetty curls, which had never cost him a thought
before! Gil Blas says that the toilet is a pleasure to the young, though
a labour to the old; Percival St. John's toilet was no pleasure to him
that anxious morning.
At last he tore himself, dissatisfied and desperate, from the glass,
caught his hat and his whip, threw himself on his horse, and rode, at
first very fast, and at last very slowly, to the old, decayed, shabby,
neglected house that lay hid, like the poverty of fallen pride, amidst
the trim villas and smart cottages of fair and flourishing Brompton.
The same servant who had opened the gate to Ardworth appeared to his
summons, and after eying him for some moments with a listless, stupid
stare, said: "You'll be after some mistake!" and turned away.
"Stop, stop!" cried Percival, trying to intrude himself through the gate;
but the servant blocked up the entrance sturdily. "It is no mistake at
all, my good lady. I have come to see Madame Dalibard, my--my relation!"
"Your relation!" and again the woman stared at Percival with a look
through the dull vacancy of which some distrust was dimly perceptible.
"Bide a bit there, and give us your name."
Percival gave his card to the servant with his sweetest and most
persuasive smile. She took it with one hand, and with the other turned
the key in the gate, leaving Percival outside. It was five minutes
before she returned; and she then, with the same prim, smileless
expression of countenance, opened the gate and motioned him to follow.
The kind-hearted boy sighed as he cast a glance at the desolate and
poverty-stricken appearance of the house, and thought within himself:
"Ah, pray Heaven she may be my relation; and then I shall have the right
to find her and that sweet girl a very different home!" The old woman
threw open the drawing-room door, and Percival was in the presence of his
deadliest foe! The armchair was turned towards the entrance, and from
amidst the coverings that hid the form, the remarkable countenance of
Madame Dalibard emerged, sharp and earnest, directly fronting the
intruder.
"So," she said slowly, and, as it were, devouring him with her keen,
steadfast eyes,--"so you are Percival St. John! Welcome! I did not know
that we should ever meet. I have not sought you, you seek me! Strange--
yes, strange--that the young and the rich should seek the suffering and
the poor!"
Surprised and embarrassed by this singular greeting, Percival halted
abruptly in the middle of the room; and there was something inexpressibly
winning in his shy, yet graceful confusion. It seemed, with silent
eloquence, to apologize and to deprecate. And when, in his silvery
voice, scarcely yet tuned to the fulness of manhood, he said feelingly,
"Forgive me, madam, but my mother is not in England," the excuse evinced
such delicacy of idea, so exquisite a sense of high breeding, that the
calm assurance of worldly ease could not have more attested the chivalry
of the native gentleman.
"I have nothing to forgive, Mr. St. John," said Lucretia, with a softened
manner. "Pardon me rather that my infirmities do not allow me to rise to
receive you. This seat,--here,--next to me. You have a strong likeness
to your father."
Percival received this last remark as a compliment, and bowed. Then, as
he lifted his ingenuous brow, he took for the first time a steady view of
his new-found relation. The peculiarities of Lucretia's countenance in
youth had naturally deepened with middle age. The contour, always too
sharp and pronounced, was now strong and bony as a man's; the line
between the eyebrows was hollowed into a furrow. The eye retained its
old uneasy, sinister, sidelong glance, or at rare moments (as when
Percival entered), its searching penetration and assured command; but the
eyelids themselves, red and injected, as with grief or vigil, gave
something haggard and wild, whether to glance or gaze. Despite the
paralysis of the frame, the face, though pale and thin, showed no bodily
decay. A vigour surpassing the strength of woman might still be seen in
the play of the bold muscles, the firmness of the contracted lips. What
physicians call "vitality," and trace at once (if experienced) on the
physiognomy as the prognostic of long life, undulated restlessly in every
aspect of the face, every movement of those thin, nervous hands, which,
contrasting the rest of that motionless form, never seemed to be at rest.
The teeth were still white and regular, as in youth; and when they shone
out in speaking, gave a strange, unnatural freshness to a face otherwise
so worn.
As Percival gazed, and, while gazing, saw those wandering eyes bent down,
and yet felt they watched him, a thrill almost of fear shot through his
heart. Nevertheless, so much more impressionable was he to charitable
and trustful than to suspicious and timid emotions that when Madame
Dalibard, suddenly looking up and shaking her head gently, said, "You see
but a sad wreck, young kinsman," all those instincts, which Nature itself
seemed to dictate for self-preservation, vanished into heavenly
tenderness and pity.
"Ah!" he said, rising, and pressing one of those deadly hands in both his
own, while tears rose to his eyes,--"Ah! since you call me kinsman, I
have all a kinsman's privileges. You must have the best advice, the most
skilful surgeons. Oh, you will recover; you must not despond."
Lucretia's lips moved uneasily. This kindness took her by surprise. She
turned desperately away from the human gleam that shot across the
sevenfold gloom of her soul. "Do not think of me," she said, with a
forced smile; "it is my peculiarity not to like allusion to myself,
though this time I provoked it. Speak to me of the old cedar-trees at
Laughton,--do they stand still? You are the master of Laughton now! It
is a noble heritage!"
Then St. John, thinking to please her, talked of the old manor-house,
described the improvements made by his father, spoke gayly of those which
he himself contemplated; and as he ran on, Lucretia's brow, a moment
ruffled, grew smooth and smoother, and the gloom settled back upon her
soul.
All at once she interrupted him. "How did you discover me? Was it
through Mr. Varney? I bade him not mention me: yet how else could you
learn?" As she spoke, there was an anxious trouble in her tone, which
increased while she observed that St. John looked confused.
"Why," he began hesitatingly, and brushing his hat with his hand, "why--
perhaps you may have heard from the--that is--I think there is a young
----. Ah, it is you, it is you! I see you once again!" And springing
up, he was at the side of Helen, who at that instant had entered the
room, and now, her eyes downcast, her cheeks blushing, her breast gently
heaving, heard, but answered not that passionate burst of joy.
Startled, Madame Dalibard (her hands firmly grasping the sides of her
chair) contemplated the two. She had heard nothing, guessed nothing of
their former meeting. All that had passed before between them was
unknown to her. Yet there was evidence unmistakable, conclusive: the son
of her despoiler loved the daughter of her rival; and--if the virgin
heart speaks by the outward sign--those downcast eyes, those blushing
cheeks, that heaving breast, told that he did not love in vain!
Before her lurid and murderous gaze, as if to defy her, the two
inheritors of a revenge unglutted by the grave stood, united mysteriously
together. Up, from the vast ocean of her hate, rose that poor isle of
love; there, unconscious of the horror around them, the victims found
their footing! How beautiful at that hour their youth; their very
ignorance of their own emotions; their innocent gladness; their sweet
trouble! The fell gazer drew a long breath of fiendlike complacency and
glee, and her hands opened wide, and then slowly closed, as if she felt
them in her grasp.