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HELEN
By Maria Edgeworth
Tales And Novels
In Ten Volumes
With Engravings On Steel
Vol. X.
1857
CONTENTS
HELEN
VOLUME THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
VOLUME THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
VOLUME THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
HELEN
VOLUME THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
“There is Helen in the lime-walk,” said Mrs. Collingwood to her husband,
as she looked out of the window. The slight figure of a young person in
deep mourning appeared between the trees,--“How slowly she walks! She
looks very unhappy!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Collingwood, with a sigh, “she is young to know sorrow,
and to struggle with difficulties to which she is quite unsuited both
by nature and by education, difficulties which no one could ever have
foreseen. How changed are all her prospects!”
“Changed indeed!” said Mrs. Collingwood, “pretty young creature!--Do
you recollect how gay she was when first we came to Cecilhurst? and
even last year, when she had hopes of her uncle’s recovery, and when he
talked of taking her to London, how she enjoyed the thoughts of going
there! The world was bright before her then. How cruel of that uncle,
with all his fondness for her, never to think what was to become of her
the moment he was dead: to breed her up as an heiress, and leave her a
beggar!”
“But what is to be done, my dear?” said her husband.
“I am sure I do not know; I can only feel for her, you must think for
her.”
“Then I think I must tell her directly of the state in which her uncle’s
affairs are left, and that there is no provision for her.”
“Not yet, my dear,” said Mrs. Collingwood: “I don’t mean about there
being no provision for herself, that would not strike her, but her
uncle’s debts,--there is the point: she would feel dreadfully the
disgrace to his memory--she loved him so tenderly!”
“Yet it must be told,” said Mr. Collingwood, resolutely “and perhaps it
will be better now; she will feel it less, while her mind is absorbed by
grief for him.”
Helen was the only daughter of colonel and Lady Anne Stanley; her
parents had both died when she was too young to know her loss, nor had
she ever felt till now that she was an orphan, for she had been adopted
and brought up with the greatest tenderness by her uncle, Dean Stanley,
a man of genius, learning, and sincere piety, with the most affectionate
heart, and a highly cultivated understanding. But on one subject he
really had not common sense; in money matters he was inconceivably
imprudent and extravagant; extravagant from charity, from taste, from
habit. He possessed rich benefices in the church, and an ample private
fortune, and it was expected that his niece would be a great heiress--he
had often said so himself, and his fondness for her confirmed every one
in this belief. But the dean’s taste warred against his affection: his
too hospitable, magnificent establishment had exceeded his income; he
had too much indulged his passion for all the fine arts, of which he
was a liberal patron: he had collected a magnificent library, and had
lavished immense sums of money on architectural embellishments. Cursed
with too fine a taste, and with too soft a heart--a heart too well
knowing how to yield, never could he deny himself, much less any other
human being, any gratification which money could command; and soon the
necessary consequence was, that he had no money to command, his affairs
fell into embarrassment--his estate was sold; but, as he continued to
live with his accustomed hospitality and splendour, the world believed
him to be as rich as ever.
Some rise superior from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, but that
was not the case with Dean Stanley, not from want of elasticity of mind;
but perhaps because his ingenuity continually suggested resources, and
his sanguine character led him to plunge into speculations--they failed,
and in the anxiety and agitation which his embarrassments occasioned
him, he fell into bad health, his physicians ordered him to Italy.
Helen, his devoted nurse, the object upon which all his affections
centered, accompanied him to Florence. There his health and spirits
seemed at first, by the change of climate, to be renovated; but in Italy
he found fresh temptations to extravagance, his learning and his fancy
combined to lead him on from day to day to new expense, and he satisfied
his conscience by saying to himself that all the purchases which he now
made were only so much capital, which would, when sold in England,
bring more than their original price, and would, he flattered himself,
increase the fortune he intended for his niece. But one day, while he
was actually bargaining for an antique, he was seized with a fit of
apoplexy. From this fit he recovered, and was able to return to England
with his niece. Here he found his debts and difficulties had been
increasing; he was harassed with doubts as to the monied value of his
last-chosen chef-d’oeuvres; his mind preyed upon his weakened frame, he
was seized with another fit, lost his speech, and, after struggles the
most melancholy for Helen to see, conscious as she was that she could
do nothing for him--he expired--his eyes fixed on her face, and his
powerless hand held between both hers.
All was desolation and dismay at the deanery; Helen was removed to the
vicarage by the kindness of the good vicar and his wife, Mr. and Mrs.
Collingwood.
It was found that the dean, instead of leaving a large fortune, had
nothing to leave. All he had laid out at the deanery was sunk and
gone; his real property all sold; his imaginary wealth, his pictures,
statues--his whole collection, even his books, his immense library,
shrunk so much in value when estimated after his death, that the demands
of the creditors could not be nearly answered: as to any provision for
Miss Stanley, that was out of the question.
These were the circumstances which Mrs. Collingwood feared to reveal,
and which Mr. Collingwood thought should be told immediately to Helen;
but hitherto she had been so much absorbed in sorrow for the uncle she
had loved, that no one had ventured on the task.
Though Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood had not known her long (for they had but
lately come to the neighbourhood), they had the greatest sympathy for
her orphan state; and they had seen enough of her during her uncle’s
illness to make them warmly attached to her. Every body loved her that
knew her, rich or poor, for in her young prosperity, from her earliest
childhood, she had been always sweet-tempered and kind-hearted; for
though she had been bred up in the greatest luxury, educated as
heiress to a large fortune, taught every accomplishment, used to every
fashionable refinement, she was not spoiled--she was not in the least
selfish. Indeed, her uncle’s indulgence, excessive though it was, had
been always joined with so much affection, that it had early touched her
heart, and filled her whole soul with ardent gratitude.
It is said, that the ill men do, lives after them--the good is oft
interred with their bones. It was not so with Dean Stanley: the good he
had intended for Helen, his large fortune, was lost and gone; but the
real good he had done for his niece remained in full force, and to the
honour of his memory: the excellent education he had given her--it was
excellent not merely in the worldly meaning of the word, as regards
accomplishments and elegance of manners, but excellent in having given
her a firm sense of duty, as the great principle of action, and as the
guide of her naturally warm generous affections.
And now, when Helen returned from her walk, Mr. Collingwood, in the
gentlest and kindest manner he was able, informed her of the confusion
in her uncle’s affairs, the debts, the impossibility of paying the
creditors, the total loss of all fortune for herself.
Mrs. Collingwood had well foreseen the effect this intelligence would
have on Helen. At first, with fixed incredulous eyes, she could not
believe that her uncle could have been in any way to blame. Twice she
asked--“Are you sure--are you certain--is there no mistake?” And when
the conviction was forced upon her, still her mind did not take in any
part of the facts, as they regarded herself. Astonished and, shocked,
she could feel nothing but the disgrace that would fall upon the memory
of her beloved uncle.
Then she exclaimed--“One part of it is not true, I am certain:” and
hastily leaving the room, she returned immediately with a letter in
her hand, which, without speaking, she laid before Mr. Collingwood, who
wiped his spectacles quickly, and read.
It was addressed to the poor dean, and was from an old friend of his,
Colonel Munro, stating that he had been suddenly ordered to India,
and was obliged to return a sum of money which the dean had many years
before placed in his hands, to secure a provision for his niece, Miss
Stanley.
This letter had arrived when the dean was extremely ill. Helen had been
afraid to give it to him, and yet thought it right to do so. The moment
her uncle had read the letter, which he was still able to do, and to
comprehend, though he was unable to speak, he wrote on the back with
difficulty, in a sadly trembling hand, yet quite distinctly, these
words:--“That money is yours, Helen Stanley: no one has any claim
upon it. When I am gone consult Mr. Collingwood; consider him as your
guardian.”
Mr. Collingwood perceived that this provision had been made by the dean
for his niece before he had contracted his present debts--many years
before, when he had sold his paternal estate, and that knowing his own
disposition to extravagance, he had put this sum out of his own power.
“Right--all right, my dear Miss Stanley,” said the vicar; “I am very
glad--it is all justly yours.”
“No,” said Helen, “I shall never touch it: take it, my dear Mr.
Collingwood, take it, and pay all the debts before any one can
complain.”
Mr. Collingwood pressed her to him without speaking; but after a
moment’s recollection he replied:--“No, no, my dear child, I cannot let
you do this: as your guardian, I cannot allow such a young creature as
you are, in a moment of feeling, thus to give away your whole earthly
fortune--it must not be.”
“It must, indeed it must, my dear sir. Oh, pay everybody at
once--directly.”
“No, not directly, at all events,” said Mr. Collingwood--“certainly not
directly: the law allows a year.”
“But if the money is ready,” said Helen, “I cannot understand why the
debt should not be paid at once. Is there any law against paying people
immediately?”
Mr. Collingwood half smiled, and on the strength of that half smile
Helen concluded that he wholly yielded. “Yes, do,” cried she, “send this
money this instant to Mr. James, the solicitor: he knows all about it,
you say, and he will see everybody paid.”
“Stay, my dear Miss Stanley,” said the vicar, “I cannot consent to this,
and you should be thankful that I am steady. If I were at this minute
to consent, and to do what you desire--pay away your whole fortune,
you would repent, and reproach me with my folly before the end of the
year--before six months were over.”
“Never, never,” said Helen.
Mrs. Collingwood strongly took her husband’s side of the question. Helen
could have no idea, she said, how necessary money would be to her. It
was quite absurd to think of living upon air; could Miss Stanley think
she was to go on in this world without money?
Helen said she was not so absurd; she reminded Mrs. Collingwood that she
should still have what had been her mother’s fortune. Before Helen had
well got out the words, Mrs. Collingwood replied,
“That will never do, you will never be able to live upon that; the
interest of Lady Anne Stanley’s fortune, I know what it was, would just
do for pocket-money for you in the style of life for which you have been
educated. Some of your uncle’s great friends will of course invite you
presently, and then you will find what is requisite with that set of
people.”
“Some of my uncle’s friends perhaps will,” said Helen; “but I am not
obliged to go to great or fine people, and if I cannot afford it I will
not, for I can live independently on what I have, be it ever so little.”
Mrs. Collingwood allowed that if Helen were to live always in the
country in retirement, she might do upon her mother’s fortune.
“Wherever I live--whatever becomes of me, the debts must be paid--I will
do it myself;” and she took up a pen as she spoke--“I will write to Mr.
James by this day’s post.”
Surprised at her decision of manner and the firmness of one in general
so gentle, yielding, and retired, and feeling that he had no legal power
to resist, Mr. Collingwood at last gave way, so far as to agree that he
would in due time use this money in satisfying her uncle’s creditors;
_provided she lived for the next six months within her income_.
Helen smiled, as if that were a needless proviso.
“I warn you,” continued Mr. Collingwood, “that you will most probably
find before six months are over, that you will want some of this money
to pay debts of your own.”
“No, no, no,” cried she; “of that there is not the slightest chance.”
“And now, my dear child,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “now that Mr.
Collingwood has promised to do what you wish, will you do what we
wish? Will you promise to remain with us? to live here with us, for the
present at least; we will resign you whenever better friends may claim
you, but for the present will you try us?”
“Try!” in a transport of gratitude and affection she could only repeat
the words “Try! oh, my dear friends, how happy I am, an orphan, without
a relation, to have such a home.”
But though Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, childless as they were, felt real
happiness in having such a companion--such an adopted daughter, yet they
were sure that some of Dean Stanley’s great friends and acquaintance in
high life would ask his niece to spend the spring in town, or the summer
in the country with them; and post after post came letters of condolence
to Miss Stanley from all these personages of high degree, professing
the greatest regard for their dear amiable friend’s memory, and for Miss
Stanley, his and their dear Helen; and these polite and kind expressions
were probably sincere at the moment, but none of these dear friends
seemed to think of taking any trouble on her account, or to be in the
least disturbed by the idea of never seeing their dear Helen again in
the course of their lives.
Helen, quite touched by what was said of her uncle, thought only of him;
but when she showed the letters to Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, they marked
the oversight, and looked significantly as they read, folded the letters
up and returned them to Helen in silence. Afterwards between themselves,
they indulged in certain comments.
“Lady C---- does not invite her, for she has too many daughters, and
they are too ugly, and Helen is too beautiful,” said Mrs. Collingwood.
“Lady L---- has too many sons,” said Mr. Collingwood, “and they are too
poor, and Helen is not an heiress now.”
“But old Lady Margaret Dawe, who has neither sons nor daughters, what
stands in the way there? Oh! her delicate health--delicate health is
a blessing to some people--excuses them always from doing anything for
anybody.”
Then came many, who hoped, in general, to see Miss Stanley as soon as
possible; and some who were “very anxious indeed” to have their dear
Helen with them; but when or where never specified--and a general
invitation, as every body knows, means nothing but “Good morning to
you.”
Mrs. Coldstream ends with, “I forbear to say more at present,” without
giving any reason.
“And here is the dean’s dear duchess, always in the greatest haste, with
‘You know my heart,’ in a parenthesis, ‘ever and ever most sincerely and
affec’--yours.’”
“And the Davenants,” continued Mrs. Collingwood, “who were such near
neighbours, and who were so kind to the dean at Florence; they have not
even written!”
“But they are at Florence still,” said Mr. Collingwood, “they can hardly
have heard of the poor dean’s death.”
The Davenants were the great people of this part of the country; their
place, Cecilhurst, was close to the deanery and to the vicarage, but
they were not known to the Collingwoods, who had come to Cecilhurst
during the dean’s absence abroad.
“And here is Mrs. Wilmot too,” continued Mrs. Collingwood, “wondering
as usual, at everybody else, wondering that Lady Barker has not invited
Miss Stanley to Castleport; and it never enters into Mrs. Wilmot’s head
that she might invite her to Wilmot’s fort. And this is friendship, as
the world goes!”
“And as it has been ever since the beginning of the world and will be
to the end,” replied Mr. Collingwood. “Only I thought in Dean Stanley’s
case--however, I am glad his niece does not see it as we do.”
No--with all Helen’s natural quickness of sensibility, she suspected
nothing, saw nothing in each excuse but what was perfectly reasonable
and kind; she was sure that her uncle’s friends could not mean to
neglect her. In short, she had an undoubting belief in those she loved,
and she loved all those who she thought had loved her uncle, or who
had ever shown her kindness. Helen had never yet experienced neglect or
detected insincerity, and nothing in her own true and warm heart could
suggest the possibility of double-dealing, or even of coldness in
friendship. She had yet to learn that--
“No after-friendship e’er can raze
Th’ endearments of our early days,
And ne’er the heart such fondness prove,
As when it first began to love;
Ere lovely nature is expelled,
And friendship is romantic held.
But prudence comes with hundred eyes,
The veil is rent, the vision flies,
The dear illusions will not last,
The era of enchantment’s past:
The wild romance of life is done,
The real history begun!”
CHAPTER II.
Some time after this, Mr. Collingwood, rising from the breakfast-table,
threw down the day’s paper, saying there was nothing in it; Mrs.
Collingwood glancing her eye over it exclaimed--
“Do you call this nothing? Helen, hear this!
“Marriage in high life--At the ambassador’s chapel, Paris, on the 16th
instant, General Clarendon to Lady Cecilia Davenant, only daughter of
Earl and Countess Davenant.”
“Married! absolutely married!” exclaimed Helen: “I knew it was to
be, but so soon I did not expect. Ambassador’s chapel--where did
you say?--Paris? No, that must be a mistake, they are all at
Florence--settled there, I thought their letters said.”
Mrs. Collingwood pointed to the paragraph, and Helen saw it was
certainly Paris--there could be no mistake. Here was a full account of
the marriage, and a list of all “the fashionables who attended the fair
bride to the hymeneal altar. Her father gave her away.”
“Then certainly it is so,” said Helen; and she came to the joyful
conclusion that they must all be on their way home:--“Dear Lady Davenant
coming to Cecilhurst again!”
Lady Cecilia, “the fair bride,” had been Helen’s most intimate friend;
they had been when children much together, for the deanery was so close
to Cecilhurst, that the shrubbery opened into the park. “But is it not
rather extraordinary, my dear. Helen,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “that
you should see this account of your dear Lady Cecilia’s marriage in the
public papers only, without having heard of it from any of your friends
themselves--not one letter, not one line from any of them?”
A cloud came over Helen’s face, but it passed quickly, and she was sure
they had written--something had delayed their letters. She was certain
Lady Davenant or Lady Cecilia had written; or, if they had not, it was
because they could not possibly, in such a hurry, such agitation as they
must have been in. At all events, whether they had written or not, she
was certain they could not mean anything unkind; she could not change
her opinion of her friend for a letter more or less. “Indeed!” said Mrs.
Collingwood, “how long is it since you have seen them?”
“About two years; just two years it is since I parted from them at
Florence.”
“And you have corresponded with Lady Cecilia constantly ever since?”
asked Mrs. Collingwood.
“Not constantly.”
“Not constantly--oh!” said Mrs. Collingwood, in a prolonged and somewhat
sarcastic tone.
“Not constantly--so much the better,” said her husband: “a constant
correspondence is always a great burthen, and moreover, sometimes a
great evil, between young ladies especially--I hate the sight of ladies’
long cross-barred letters.”
Helen said that Lady Cecilia’s letters were never cross-barred, always
short and far between.
“You seem wonderfully fond of Lady Cecilia,” said Mrs. Collingwood.
“Not wonderfully,” replied Helen, “but very fond, and no wonder, we were
bred up together. And”--continued she, after a little pause, “and
if Lady Cecilia had not been so generous as she is, she might have
been--she must have been, jealous of the partiality, the fondness, which
her mother always showed me.”
“But was not Lady Davenant’s heart large enough to hold two?” asked Mrs.
Collingwood. “Was not she fond of her daughter?”
“Yes, as far as she knew her, but she did not know Lady Cecilia.”
“Not know her own daughter!” Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood both at once
exclaimed, “How could that possibly be?”
“Very easily,” Helen said, “because she saw so little of her.”
“Was not Lady Cecilia educated at home?”
“Yes, but still Lady Cecilia, when a child, was all day long with her
governess, and at Cecilhurst the governess’s apartments were quite out
of the way, in one of the wings at the end of a long corridor, with a
separate staircase; she might as well have been in another house.”
“Bad arrangement,” said Mr. Collingwood, speaking to himself as he stood
on the hearth. “Bad arrangement which separates mother and daughter.”
“At that time,” continued Helen, “there was always a great deal of
company at Cecilhurst. Lord Davenant was one of the ministers then. I
believe--I know he saw a great many political people, and Lady Davenant
was forced to be always with them talking.”
“Talking! yes, yes!” said Mr. Collingwood, “I understand it all--Lady
Davenant is a great politician, and female politicians, with their heads
full of the affairs of Europe, cannot have time to think of the affairs
of their families.”
“What is the matter, my dear Helen?” said Mrs. Collingwood, taking her
hand. Helen had tears in her eyes and looked unhappy.
“I have done very wrong,” said she; “I have said something that has
given you a bad, a false opinion of one for whom I have the greatest
admiration and love--of Lady Davenant. I am excessively sorry; I have
done very wrong.”
“Not the least, my dear child; you told us nothing but what everybody
knows--that she is a great politician; you told us no more.”
“But I should have told you more, and what nobody knows better than I
do,” cried Helen, “that Lady Davenant is a great deal more, and a great
deal better than a politician. I was too young to judge, you may think,
but young as I was, I could see and feel, and children can and do often
see a great deal into character, and I assure you Lady Davenant’s is a
sort of deep, high character, that you would admire.”
Mrs. Collingwood observed with surprise, that Helen spoke of her with
even more enthusiasm than of her dear Lady Cecilia. “Yes, because she is
a person more likely to excite enthusiasm.”
“You did not feel afraid of her, then?”
“I do not say that,” replied Helen; “yet it was not fear exactly, it was
more a sort of awe, but still I liked it. It is so delightful to have
something to look up to. I love Lady Davenant all the better, even for
that awe I felt of her.”
“And I like you all the better for everything you feel, think, and say
about your friends,” cried Mrs. Collingwood; “but let us see what they
will do; when I see whether they can write, and what they write to you,
I will tell you more of my mind--if any letters come.”
“If!--” Helen repeated, but would say no more--and there it rested, or
at least stopped. By common consent the subject was not recurred to
for several days. Every morning at post-time Helen’s colour rose with
expectation, and then faded with disappointment; still, with the same
confiding look, she said, “I am sure it is not their fault.”
“Time will show,” said Mrs. Collingwood.
At length, one morning when she came down to breakfast, “Triumph, my
dear Helen!” cried Mrs. Collingwood, holding up two large letters,
all scribbled over with “Try this place and try that, mis-sent to
Cross-keys--Over moor, and heaven knows where--and--no matter.”
Helen seized the packets and tore them open; one was from Paris, written
immediately after the news of Dean Stanley’s death; it contained two
letters, one from Lady Davenant, the other from Lady Cecilia--“written,
only think!” cried she, “how kind!--the very day before her marriage;
signed ‘Cecilia Davenant, for the last time,’--and Lady Davenant,
too--to think of me in all their happiness.”
She opened the other letters, written since their arrival in England,
she read eagerly on,--then stopped, and her looks changed.
“Lady Davenant is not coming to Cecilhurst. Lord Davenant is to be
sent ambassador to Petersburgh, and Lady Davenant will go along
with him!--Oh! there is an end of everything, I shall never see her
again!--Stay--she is to be first with Lady Cecilia at Clarendon Park,
wherever that is, for some time--she does not know how long--she
hopes to see me there--oh! how kind, how delightful!” Helen put Lady
Davenant’s letter proudly into Mrs. Collingwood’s hand, and eagerly
opened Lady Cecilia’s.
“So like herself! so like Cecilia,” cried she. Mrs. Collingwood read and
acknowledged that nothing could be kinder, for here was an invitation,
not vague or general, but particular, and pressing as heart could wish
or heart could make it. “We shall be at Clarendon Park on Thursday, and
shall expect you, dearest Helen, on Monday, just time, the general says,
for an answer; so write and say where horses shall meet you,” &c. &c.
“Upon my word, this is being in earnest, when it comes to horses
meeting,” cried Mr. Collingwood. “Of course you will go directly?”
Helen was in great agitation.
“Write--write--my dear, directly,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “for the
post-boy waits.”
And before she had written many lines the cross-post boy sent up word
that he could wait no longer.
Helen wrote she scarcely knew what, but in short an acceptance, signed,
sealed, delivered, and then she took breath. Off cantered the boy with
the letters bagged, and scarcely was he out of sight, when Helen saw
under the table the cover of the packet, in which were some lines
that had not yet been read. They were in Lady Cecilia’s handwriting--a
postscript.
“I forgot, dear Helen, the thing that is most essential, (you remember
our friend Dumont’s definition of _une betîse: c’est d’oublier la chose
essentielle;_) I forgot to tell you that the general declares he will
not hear of a mere _visit_ from you. He bids me tell you that it must be
‘till death or marriage.’ So, my dear friend, you must make up your mind
in short to live with us till you find a General Clarendon of your own.
To this postscript no reply--silence gives consent.”
“If I had seen this!” said Helen, as she laid it before Mr. and Mrs.
Collingwood, “I ought to have answered, but, indeed, I never saw it;”
she sprang forward instantly to ring the bell, exclaiming, “It is time
yet--stop the boy--‘silence gives consent.’ I must write. I cannot
leave you, my dear friends, in this way. I did not see that postscript,
believe me I did not.”
They believed her, they thanked her, but they would not let her ring
the bell; they said she had better not bind herself in any way either
to themselves or to Lady Cecilia. Accept of the present invitation she
must--she must go to see her friend on her marriage; she must take leave
of her dear Lady Davenant before her departure.
“They are older friends than we are,” said Mr. Collingwood, “they have
the first claim upon you; but let us think of it as only a visit now. As
to a residence for life, that you can best judge of for yourself after
you have been some time at Clarendon Park; if you do not like to remain
there, you know how gladly we shall welcome you here again, my child;
or, if you decide to live with those you have known so long and loved so
much, we cannot be offended at your choice.”
This generous kindness, this freedom from jealous susceptibility,
touched Helen’s heart, and increased her agitation. She could not bear
the thoughts of either the reality or appearance of neglecting these
kind good people, the moment she had other prospects, and frequently
in all the hurry of her preparations, she repeated, “It will only be a
visit at Clarendon Park. I will return to you, I shall write to you, my
dear Mrs. Collingwood, at all events, constantly.”
When Mr. Collingwood gave her his parting blessing he reminded her of
his warning about her fortune. Mrs. Collingwood reminded her of her
promise to write. The carriage drove from the door. Helen’s heart was
full of the friends she was leaving, but by degrees the agitation of
the parting subsided, her tears ceased, her heart grew lighter, and the
hopes of seeing her friends at Clarendon Park arose bright in her mind,
and her thoughts all turned upon Cecilia, and Lady Davenant.
CHAPTER III.
Helen looked eagerly out of the carriage-window for the first view of
Clarendon Park. It satisfied--it surpassed her expectations. It was a
fine, aristocratic place:--ancestral trees, and a vast expanse of park;
herds of deer, yellow and dark, or spotted, their heads appearing in the
distance just above the fern, or grazing near, startled as the carriage
passed. Through the long approach, she caught various views of the
house, partly gothic, partly of modern architecture; it seemed of great
extent and magnificence.
All delightful so far; but now for her own reception. Her breath grew
quick and quicker as she came near and nearer to the house. Some one was
standing on the steps. Was it General Clarendon? No; only a servant. The
carriage stopped, more servants appeared, and as Helen got out, a very
sublime-looking personage informed her, that “Lady Cecilia and the
General were out riding--only in the park--would be in immediately.”
And as she crossed the great hall, the same sublime person informed
her that there would be still an hour before dinner-time, and inquired
whether she would be pleased to be shown to her own apartment, or to
the library? Helen felt chilled and disappointed, because this was not
exactly the way she had expected things would be upon her arrival. She
had pictured to herself Cecilia running to meet her in the hall.
Without answering the groom of the chambers, she asked, “Is Lady
Davenant out too?”
“No; her ladyship is in the library.”
“To the library then.”
And through the antechamber she passed rapidly, impatient of a momentary
stop of her conductor to open the folding-doors, while a man, with a
letter-box in hand, equally impatient, begged that Lady Davenant might
be told, “The General’s express was waiting.”
Lady Davenant was sealing letters in great haste for this express, but
when the door opened, and she saw Helen, she threw wax and letter from
her, and pushing aside the sofa-table, came forward to receive her with
open arms.
All was in an instant happy in Helen’s heart; but there was the man
of the letter-box; he must be attended to. “Beg your pardon, Helen, my
dear--one moment. Letters of consequence--must not be delayed.”
By the time the letters were finished, before they were gone, Lady
Cecilia came in. The same as ever, with affectionate delight in her
eyes--her beautiful eyes. The same, yes, the same Cecilia as ever; yet
different: less of a girl, less lively, but more happy. The moment
she had embraced her, Lady Cecilia turned quick to present General
Clarendon, thinking he had followed, but he had stopped in the hall.
“Send off the letters,” were the first words of his which Helen heard.
The tone commanding, the voice remarkably gentlemanlike. An instant
afterwards he came in. A fine figure, a handsome man; in the prime
of life; with a high-born, high-bred military air. English
decidedly--proudly English. Something of the old school--composed
self-possession, with voluntary deference to others--rather distant.
Helen felt that his manner of welcoming her to Clarendon Park was
perfectly polite, yet she would have liked it better had it been less
polite--more cordial. Lady Cecilia, whose eyes were anxiously upon her,
drew her arm within hers, and hurried her out of the room. She stopped
at the foot of the stairs, gathered up the folds of her riding-dress,
and turning suddenly to Helen, said,--
“Helen, my dear, you must not think _that_”----
“Think what?” said Helen.
“Think _that_--for which you are now blushing. Oh, you know what I mean!
Helen, your thoughts are just as legible in your face, as they always
were to me. His manner is reserved--cold, may be--but not his heart.
Understand this, pray--once for all. Do you? will you, dearest Helen?”
“I do, I will,” cried Helen; and every minute she felt that she better
understood and was more perfectly pleased with her friend. Lady Cecilia
showed her through the apartment destined for her, which she had taken
the greatest pleasure in arranging; everything there was not only most
comfortable, but particularly to her taste; and some little delicate
proofs of affection, recollections of childhood, were there;--keepsakes,
early drawings, nonsensical things, not worth preserving, but still
preserved.
“Look how near we are together,” said Cecilia, opening a door into her
own dressing-room. “You may shut this up whenever you please, but I hope
you will never please to do so. You see how I leave you your own free
will, as friends usually do, with a proviso, a hope at least, that
you are never to use it on any account--like the child’s half guinea
pocket-money, never to be changed.” Her playful tone relieved, as she
intended it should, Helen’s too keen emotion; and this too was felt with
the quickness with which every touch of kindness ever was felt by her.
Helen pressed her friend’s hand, and smiled without speaking.
They were to be some time alone before the commencement of bridal
visits, and an expected succession of troops of friends. This was a time
of peculiar enjoyment to Helen: she had leisure to grow happy in the
feeling of reviving hopes from old associations.
She did not forget her promise to write to Mrs. Collingwood; nor
afterwards (to her credit be it here marked)--even when the house was
full of company, and when, by amusement or by feeling, she was most
pressed for time--did she ever omit to write to those excellent friends.
Those who best know the difficulty will best appreciate this proof of
the reality of her gratitude.
As Lady Cecilia was a great deal with her husband riding or walking,
Helen had opportunities of being much alone with Lady Davenant, who now
gave her a privilege that she had enjoyed in former times at Cecilhurst,
that of entering her apartment in the morning at all hours without fear
of being considered an intruder.
The first morning, however, on seeing her ladyship immersed in papers
with a brow of care, deeply intent, Helen paused on the threshold, “I am
afraid I interrupt--I am afraid I disturb you.”
“Come in, Helen, come in,” cried Lady Davenant, looking up, and the
face of care was cleared, and there was a radiance of
pleasure--“Interrupt--yes: disturb--no. Often in your little life,
Helen, you have interrupted--never disturbed me. From the time you were
a child till this moment, never did I see you come into my room without
pleasure.”
Then sweeping away heaps of papers, she made room for Helen on the sofa
beside her.
“Now tell me how things are with you--somewhat I have heard reported of
my friend the dean’s affairs--tell me all.”
Helen told all as briefly as possible; she hurried on through her
uncle’s affairs with a tremulous voice, and before she could come to a
conclusion Lady Davenant exclaimed,
“I foresaw it long since: with all my friend’s virtues, all his
talents--but we will not go back upon the painful past. You, my
dear Helen, have done just what I should have expected from
you,--right;--right, too, the condition Mr. Collingwood has made--very
right. And now to the next point:--where are you to live, Helen? or
rather with whom?”
Helen was not quite sure yet, she said she had not quite determined.
“Am I to understand that your doubt lies between the Collingwoods and my
daughter?”
“Yes; Cecilia most kindly invited me, but I do not know General
Clarendon yet, and he does not know me yet. Cecilia might wish most
sincerely that I should live with her, and I am convinced she does; but
her husband must be considered.”
“True,” said Lady Davenant--“true; a husband is certainly a thing _to
be cared for_--in Scottish phrase, and General Clarendon is no doubt
a person to be considered,--but it seems that I am not a person to be
considered in your arrangements.”
Even the altered, dry, and almost acrid tone in which Lady Davenant
spoke, and the expression of disappointment in her countenance--were,
as marks of strong affection, deeply gratifying to Helen. Lady Davenant
went on.
“Was not Cecilhurst always a home to you, Helen Stanley?”
“Yes, yes,--always a most happy home!”
“Then why is not Cecilhurst to be your home?”
“My dear Lady Davenant! how kind!--how very, very kind of you to wish
it--but I never thought of----”
“And why did you not think of it, Helen?’”
“I mean--I thought you were going to Russia.”
“And have you settled, my dear Helen,” said Lady Davenant, smiling,
“have you settled that I am never to come back from Russia? Do not
you know that you are--that you ever were--you ever will be to me a
daughter?” and drawing Helen fondly towards her, she added, “as my own
very dear--I must not say dearest child,--must not, because as I well
remember once--little creature as you were then---you whispered to me,
‘Never call me dearest,’--generous-hearted child!” And tears started
into her eyes as she spoke; but at that moment came a knock at the door.
“A packet from Lord Davenant, by Mr. Mapletofft, my lady.” Helen rose
to leave the room, but Lady Davenant laid a detaining hand upon her,
saying, “You will not be in my way in the least;” and she opened her
packet, adding, that while she read, Helen might amuse herself “with
arranging the books on that table, or in looking over the letters in
that portfolio.”
Helen had hitherto seen Lady Davenant only with the eyes of very early
youth; but now, after an absence of two years--a great space in her
existence, it seemed as if she looked upon her with new eyes, and every
hour made fresh discoveries in her character. Contrary to what too often
happens when we again see and judge of those whom we have early
known, Lady Davenant’s character and abilities, instead of sinking and
diminishing, appeared to rise and enlarge, to expand and be ennobled
to Helen’s view. Strong lights and shades there were, but these only
excited and fixed her attention. Even her defects--those inequalities
of temper of which she had already had some example, were interesting as
evidences of the power and warmth of her affections.
The books on the table were those which Lady Davenant had had in her
travelling carriage. They gave Helen an idea of the range and variety
of the reader’s mind. Some of them were presentation copies, as they
are called, from several of the first authors of our own, and foreign
countries; some with dedications to Lady Davenant; others with
inscriptions expressing respect or propitiating favour, or anxious for
judgment.
The portfolio contained letters whose very signatures would have driven
the first of modern autograph collectors distracted with joy--whose
meanest scrap would make a scrap-book the envy of the world.
But among the letters in this portfolio, there were none of those
nauseous notes of compliment, none of those epistles adulatory,
degrading to those who write, and equally degrading to those to
whom they are written: letters which are, however cleverly turned,
inexpressibly wearisome to all but the parties concerned.
After opening and looking at the signature of several of these letters,
Helen sat in a delightful _embarras de richesse_. To read them all--all
at once, was impossible; with which to begin, she could not determine.
One after another was laid aside as too good to be read first, and
after glancing at the contents of each, she began to deal them round
alphabetically till she was struck by a passage in one of them--she
looked to the signature, it was unknown to fame--she read the whole,
it was striking and interesting. There were several letters in the same
hand, and Helen was surprised to find them arranged according to their
dates, in Lady Davenant’s own writing--preserved with those of persons
of illustrious reputation! These she read on without further hesitation.
There was no sort of affectation in them--quite easy and natural, “real
feeling, and genius,” certainly genius, she thought!--and there seemed
something romantic and uncommon in the character of the writer. They
were signed Granville Beauclerc!
Who could he be, this Granville Beauclerc? She read on till Lady
Davenant, having finished her packet, rang a silver handbell, as was
her custom, to summon her page. At the first tingle of the bell Helen
started, and Lady Davenant asked, “Whose letter, my dear, has so
completely abstracted you?”
Carlos, the page, came in at this instant, and after a quick glance
at the handwriting of the letters, Lady Davenant gave her orders in
Portuguese to Carlos, and then returning to Helen, took no further
notice of the letters, but went on just where she had left off. “Helen,
I remember when you were about nine years old, timid as you usually
were, your coming forward, bold as a little lion, to attack me in
Cecilia’s defence; I forget the particulars, but I recollect that you
said I was unjust, and that I did not know Cecilia, and there you
were right; so, to reward you, you shall see that now I do her perfect
justice, and that I am as fond of her as your heart can wish. I really
never did know Cecilia till I saw her heartily in love; I had imagined
her incapable of real love; I thought the desire of pleasing universally
had been her ruling passion--the ruling passion that, of a little mind
and a cold heart; but I did her wrong. In another more material point,
too, I was mistaken.”
Lady Davenant paused and looked earnestly at Helen, whose eyes said,
“I am glad,” and yet she was not quite certain she knew to what she
alluded.
“Cecilia righted herself, and won my good opinion, by the openness with
which she treated me from the very commencement of her attachment to
General Clarendon.” Lady Davenant again paused to reflect, and played
for some moments with the tablets in her hand.
“Some one says that we are apt to flatter ourselves that we leave our
faults when our faults leave us, from change of situation, age, and so
forth; and perhaps it does not signify much which it is, if the faults
are fairly gone, and if there be no danger of their returning: all
our former misunderstandings arose on Cecilia’s part from cowardice of
character; on mine from--no matter what--no matter which of us was most
wrong.”
“True, true,” cried Helen eagerly; and anxious to prevent recurrence
to painful recollections, she went on to ask rapidly several questions
about Cecilia’s marriage.
Lady Davenant smiled, and promised that she should have the whole
history of the marriage in true gossip detail.
“When I wrote to you, I gave you some general ideas on the subject, but
there are little things which could not well be written, even to so safe
a young friend as you are, for what is written remains, and often for
those by whom it was never intended to be seen; the _dessoux des cartes_
can seldom be either safely or satisfactorily shown on paper, so give me
my embroidery-frame, I never can tell well without having something to
do with my hands.”
And as Helen set the embroidery-frame, Lady Davenant searched for some
skeins of silk and silk winders.
“Take these, my dear, and wind this silk for me, for I must have my
hearer comfortably established, not like the agonised listener in the
‘_World_’ leaning against a table, with the corner running into him all
the time.”
CHAPTER IV.
“I must go back,” continued Lady Davenant, “quite to the dark ages,
the time when I knew nothing of my daughter’s character but by the
accidental lights which you afforded me. I will take up my story before
the reformation, in the middle ages, when you and your dear uncle left
us at Florence; about two years ago, when Cecilia was in the height
of her conquests, about the time when a certain Colonel D’Aubiguy
flourished, you remember him?”
Helen answered “Yes,” in rather a constrained voice, which caused Lady
Davenant to look up, and on seeing that look of inquiry, Helen coloured,
though she would have given the world not to be so foolish. The affair
was Cecilia’s, and Helen only wished not to have it recurred to, and yet
she had now, by colouring, done the very thing to fix Lady Davenant’s
attention, and as the look was prolonged, she coloured more and more.
“I see I was wrong,” said Lady Davenant; “I had thought Colonel
D’Aubigny’s ecstasy about that miniature of you was only a feint; but I
see he really was an admirer of yours, Helen?”
“Of mine! oh no, never!” Still from her fear of saying something that
should implicate Cecilia, her tone, though she spoke exactly the truth,
was not to Lady Davenant’s discriminative ear quite natural--Helen
seeing doubt, added,
“Impossible, my dear Lady Davenant! you know I was then so young, quite
a child!”
“No, no, not quite; two from eighteen and sixteen remain, I think, and
in our days sixteen is not absolutely a child.”
Helen made no answer; her thoughts had gone back to the time when
Colonel D’Aubigny was first introduced to her, which was just before her
uncle’s illness, and when her mind had been so engrossed by him, that
she had but a confused recollection of all the rest.
“Now you are right, my dear,” said Lady Davenant; “right to be
absolutely silent. In difficult cases say nothing; but still you are
wrong in sitting so uneasily under it, for that seems as if there _was_
something.”
“Nothing upon earth!” cried Helen, “if you would not look at me _so_, my
clear Lady Davenant.”
“Then, my dear Helen, do not break my embroidery silk; that jerk was
imprudent, and trust me, my dear, the screw of that silk winder is not
so much to blame as you would have me think; take patience with yourself
and with me. There is no great harm done, no unbearable imputation,
you are not accused of loving or liking, only of having been admired.”
“Never!” cried Helen.
“Well, well! it does not signify in the least now; the man is either
dying or dead.”
“I am glad of it,” cried Helen.
“How barbarous!” said Lady Davenant, “but let it pass, I am neither glad
nor sorry; contempt is more dignified and safer than hatred, my dear.
“Now to return to Cecilia; soon after, I will not say the D’Aubigny era,
but soon after you left us, I fell sick, Cecilia was excessively kind to
me. In kindness her affectionate heart never failed, and I felt this
the more, from a consciousness that I had been a little harsh to her. I
recovered but slowly; I could not bear to have her confined so long in a
sick room, and yet I did not much like either of the chaperons with
whom she went out, though they were both of rank, and of unimpeachable
character--the one English, one of the best women in the world, but the
most stupid; the other a foreigner, one of the most agreeable women
in the world, but the most false. I prevailed on Cecilia to break off
that--I do not know what to call it, friendship it was not, and my
daughter and I drew nearer together. Better times began to dawn, but
still there was little sympathy between us; my mind was intent on Lord
Davenant’s interests, hers on amusement and admiration. Her conquests
were numerous, and she gloried in their number, for, between you and
me, Cecilia was, before the reformation, not a little of a coquette. You
will not allow it, you did not see it, you did not go out with her, and
being three or four years younger, you could not be a very good critic
of Cecilia’s conduct; and depend upon it I am right, she was not a
little of a coquette. She did not know, and I am sure I did not know,
that she had a heart, till she became acquainted with General Clarendon.
“The first time we met him,”--observing a quickening of attention in
Helen’s eyes, Lady Davenant smiled, and said, “Young ladies always like
to hear of ‘the first time we saw him.’--The first time we saw General
Clarendon was--forgive me the day of the month--in the gallery at
Florence. I forget how it happened that he had not been presented to
me--to Lord Davenant he must have been. But so it was and it was new to
Cecilia to see a man of his appearance who had not on his first arrival
shown himself ambitious to be made known to her. He was admiring a
beautiful Magdalene, and he was standing with his back towards us. I
recollect that his appearance when I saw him as a stranger--the
time when one can best judge of appearance--struck me as that of a
distinguished person; but little did I think that there stood Cecilia’s
husband! so little did my maternal instinct guide me.
“As we approached, he turned and gave one look at Cecilia; she gave one
look at him. He passed on, she stopped me to examine the picture which
he had been admiring.
“Every English mother at Florence, except myself, had their eyes fixed
upon General Clarendon from the moment of his arrival. But whatever I
may have been, or may have been supposed to be, on the great squares of
politics, I believe I never have been accused or even suspected of being
a manoeuvrer on the small domestic scale.
“My reputation for imbecility in these matters was perhaps advantageous.
He did not shun me as he did the tribe of knowing ones; a hundred
reports flew about concerning him, settling in one, that he was resolved
never to marry. Yet he was a passionate admirer of beauty and grace, and
it was said that he had never been unsuccessful where he had wished to
please. The secret of his resolution against marriage was accounted for
by the gossiping public in many ways variously absurd. The fact was,
that in his own family, and in that of a particular friend, there had
been about this time two or three scandalous intrigues, followed by ‘the
public brand of shameful life.’ One of these ‘sad affairs,’ as they are
styled, was marked with premeditated treachery and turpitude. The lady
had been, or had seemed to be, for years a pattern wife, the mother of
several children; yet she had long betrayed, and at last abandoned, a
most amiable and confiding husband, and went off with a man who did
not love her, who cared for nought but himself, a disgusting monster
of selfishness, vanity, and vice! This woman was said to have been once
good, but to have been corrupted and depraved by residence abroad--by
the contagion of foreign profligacy. In the other instance, the
seduced wife had been originally most amiable, pure-minded, uncommonly
beautiful, loved to idolatry by her husband, Clarendon’s particular
friend, a man high in public estimation. The husband shot himself. The
seducer was, it’s said, the lady’s first love. That these circumstances
should have made a deep impression on Clarendon, is natural; the more
feeling--the stronger the mind, the more deep and lasting it was likely
to be. Besides his resolution against marriage in general, we heard that
he had specially resolved against marrying any travelled lady, and most
especially against any woman with whom there was danger of a first love.
How this danger was to be avoided or ascertained, mothers and daughters
looked at one another, and did not ask, or at least did not answer.
“Cecilia, apparently unconcerned, heard and laughed at these high
resolves, after her gay fashion with her young companions, and marvelled
how long the resolution would be kept. General Clarendon of course could
not but be introduced to us, could not but attend our assemblies, nor
could he avoid meeting us in all the good English and foreign society
at Florence; but whenever he met us, he always kept at a safe distance:
this caution marked his sense of danger. To avoid its being so
construed, perhaps, he made approaches to me, politely cold; we talked
very wisely on the state of the Continent and the affairs of Europe;
I did not, however, confine myself or him to politics, I gave him many
unconscious opportunities of showing in conversation, not his abilities,
for they are nothing extraordinary; but his character, which is
first-rate. Gleams came out, of a character born to subjugate, to
captivate, to attach for life. It worked first on Cecilia’s curiosity;
she thought she was only curious, and she listened at first, humming an
opera air between times, with the least concerned look conceivable. But,
her imagination was caught, and it thenceforward through every thing
that every body else might be saying, and through all she said herself,
she heard every word that fell from our general, and even all that was
repeated of his saying at second or third hand. So she learned in due
season that he had seen women as handsome, handsomer than Lady Cecilia
Davenant; but that there was something in her manner peculiarly suited
to his taste--his fastidious taste! so free from coquetry, he said she
was. And true, perfectly true, from the time he became acquainted with
her; no hypocrisy on her part, no mistake on his; at the first touch
of a real love, there was an end of vanity and coquetry. Then her
deference--her affection for her mother, was so charming, he thought;
such perfect confidence--such quick intelligence between us. No deceit
here either, only a little self-deception on Cecilia’s part. She had
really grown suddenly fonder of me; what had become of her fear, she did
not know. But I knew full well my new charm and my real merit; I was a
good and safe conductor of the electric shock.
“It chanced one day, when I was listening only as one listens to a man
who is talking at another through oneself, I did not immediately catch
the meaning, or I believe hear what the general said. Cecilia,
unawares, answered for me, and showed that she perfectly understood:--he
bowed--she blushed.
“Man is usually quicksighted to woman’s blushes. But our general was not
vain, only proud; the blush he did not set down to his own account, but
very much to hers. It was a proof, he thought, of so much simplicity of
heart, so unspoiled by the world, so unlike--in short, so like the very
woman he had painted in his fancy, before he knew too much----. Lady
Cecilia was now a perfect angel. Not one word of all this did he say,
but it was understood quite as well as if it had been spoken: his
lips were firm compressed, and the whole outer man composed--frigidly
cold;--yet through all this Cecilia saw--such is woman’s penetration in
certain cases--Cecilia saw what must sooner or later happen. He, still
proud of his prudence, refrained from word, look, or sigh, resolved to
be impassive till his judgment should be perfectly satisfied. At last
this judgment was perfectly satisfied; that is, he was passionately in
love--fairly ‘caught,’ my dear, ‘in the strong toils of grace,’ and he
threw himself at Cecilia’s feet. She was not quite so much surprised as
he expected, but more pleased than he had ventured to hope. There was
that, however, in his proud humility, which told Cecilia there must be
no trifling.
‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who fears to put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.’
“He put it to the test, and won it all. General Clarendon, indeed, is a
man likely to win and keep the love of woman, for this, among other good
reasons, that love and honour being with him inseparable, the idol he
adores must keep herself at the height to which he has raised her, or
cease to receive his adoration. She must be no common vulgar idol for
every passing worshipper.” As Lady Davenant paused, Helen looked up,
hesitated, and said: “I hope that General Clarendon is not disposed to
jealousy.”
“No: he’s too proud to be jealous,” replied Lady Davenant.
Are proud men never jealous? thought Helen.
“I mean,” continued Lady Davenant, “that General Clarendon is too proud
to be jealous of his wife. For aught I know, he might have felt jealousy
of Cecilia before she was his, for then she was but a woman, like
another; but once HIS--once having set his judgment on the cast, both
the virtues and the defects of his character join in security for his
perfect confidence in the wife ‘his choice and passion both approve.’
From temper and principle he is unchangeable. I acknowledge that I think
the general is a little inclined perhaps to obstinacy; but, as Burke
says, though obstinacy is certainly a vice, it happens that the whole
line of the great and masculine virtues, constancy, fidelity, fortitude,
magnanimity, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which
we have so just an abhorrence.
“It is most peculiarly happy for Cecilia that she has a husband of this
firm character, one on whom she can rely--one to whom she may, she must,
look up, if not always, yet upon all important occasions where decision
is necessary, or integrity required. It is between her and her general
as it should be in marriage, each has the compensating qualities to
those which the other possesses: General Clarendon is inferior to
Cecilia in wit, but superior in judgment; inferior in literature,
superior in knowledge of the world; inferior to my daughter altogether
in abilities, in what is called genius, but far superior in that ruling
power, _strength of mind_. Strength of mind is an attaching as well as a
ruling power: all human creatures, women especially, become attached to
those who have power over their minds. Yes, Helen, I am satisfied with
their marriage, and with your congratulations: yours are the sort
I like. Vulgar people--by vulgar people I mean all who think
vulgarly--very great vulgar people have congratulated me upon this
establishment of my daughter’s fortune and future rank (a dukedom in
view), all that could be wished in worldly estimation. But I rejoice in
it as the security for my daughter’s character and happiness. Thank you
again, my dear young friend, for your sympathy; you can understand me,
you can feel with me.”
Sympathy, intelligent, quick, warm, unwearied, unweariable, such as
Helen’s, is really a charming accomplishment in a friend; the only
obligation a proud person, is never too proud to receive; and it
was most gratifying to Helen to be allowed to sympathise with Lady
Davenant--one who, in general, never spoke of herself, or unveiled her
private feelings, even to those who lived with her on terms of intimacy.
Helen felt responsible for the confidence granted to her thus upon
credit, and a strong ambition was excited in her mind to justify the
high opinion her superior friend had formed of her. She determined to
become all that she was believed to be; as the flame of a taper suddenly
rises towards what is held over it, her spirit mounted to the point to
which her friend pointed.
CHAPTER V.
Helen’s perfect happiness at Clarendon Park was not of long duration.
People who have not been by nature blessed or cursed with nice feelings,
or who have well rubbed off their delicacy in roughing through the
world, can be quite happy, or at least happy enough without ascertaining
whether they are really esteemed or liked by those with whom they live.
Many, and some of high degree, when well sheltered and fed, and provided
with all the necessaries, and surrounded by all the luxuries of life,
and with appearances tolerably well kept up by outward manner, care
little or nought about the inside sentiments.
But Helen was neither of the case-hardened philosophic, or the naturally
obtuse-feeling class; she belonged to the over-anxious. Surrounded at
Clarendon Park with all the splendour of life, and with the immediate
expectation of seeing and being seen by the first society in England;
with the certainty also of being tenderly loved and highly esteemed
by two of the persons she was living with, yet a doubt about the third
began to make her miserable. Whether General Clarendon really liked
her or not, was a question that hung upon her mind sometimes as a dead
weight--then vibrating backwards and forwards, she often called to mind,
and endeavoured to believe, what Cecilia the first day told her, that
this reserved manner was natural to him with strangers, and would wear
off. But to her the icy coldness did not thaw. So she felt, or so she
fancied, and which it was she could not decide. She had never before
lived with any one about whose liking for her she could doubt,
therefore, as she said to herself, “I know I am a bad judge.” She feared
to open her mind to Cecilia. Lady Davenant would be the safest person
to consult; yet Helen, with all her young delicacy fresh about her,
scrupled, and could not screw her courage to the sticking-place. Every
morning going to Lady Davenant’s room, she half resolved and yet came
away without speaking. At last, one morning, she began:--
“You said something the other day, my dear Lady Davenant, about a visit
from Miss Clarendon. Perhaps--I am afraid--in short I think,--I fear,
the general does not like my being here; and I thought, perhaps, he was
displeased at his sister’s not being here,--that he thought Cecilia’s
having asked me prevented his sister’s coming; but then you told me he
was not of a jealous temper, did not you?”
“_Distinguez_,” said Lady Davenant; “_distinguons_, as the old French
metaphysicians used to say, _distinguons_, there be various kinds of
jealousy, as of love. The old romancers make a distinction between
_amour_ and _amour par amours_. Whatever that mean, I beg leave to
take a distinction full as intelligible, I trust, between _jalousie par
amour_ and _jalousie par amitié_. Now, to apply; when I told you that
our general was not subject to jealousy, I should have distinguished,
and said, _jalousie par amour_--jealousy in love, but I will not ensure
him against _jalousie par amitié_--jealousy in friendship--of friends
and relations, I mean. Me-thinks I have seen symptoms of this in the
general, he does not like my influence over Cecilia, nor yours, my
dear.”
“I understand it all,” exclaimed Helen, “and I was right from the very
first; I saw he disliked me, and he ever will and must dislike and
detest me--I see it in every look, hear it in every word, in every
tone.”
“Now, my dear Helen, if you are riding off on your imagination, I
wish you a pleasant ride, and till you come back again I will write my
letter,” said Lady Davenant, taking up a pen.
Helen begged pardon, and protested she was not going to ride off
upon any imagination,--she had no imagination now--she entreated Lady
Davenant to go on, for she was very anxious to know the whole truth,
whatever it might be. Lady Davenant laid down her pen, and told her all
she knew. In the first place, that Cecilia did not like Miss Clarendon,
who, though a very estimable person, had a sort of uncompromising
sincerity, joined with a _brusquerie_ of manner which Cecilia could
not endure. How her daughter had managed matters to refuse the sister
without offending the brother, Lady Davenant said she did not know; that
was Cecilia’s secret, and probably it lay in her own charming manner
of doing things, aided by the whole affair having occurred a few days
before marriage, when nothing could be taken ill of the bride elect.
“The general, as Cecilia told me, desired that she would write to invite
you, Helen; she did so, and I am very glad of it. This is all I know of
this mighty matter.”
But Helen could not endure the idea of being there, contrary to the
general’s wishes, in the place of the sister he loved. Oh, how very,
very unfortunate she was to have all her hopes blighted, destroyed--and
Cecilia’s kindness all in vain. Dear, dear Cecilia!--but for the whole
world Helen would not be so selfish--she would not run the hazard of
making mischief. She would never use her influence over Cecilia in
opposition to the general. Oh, how little he knew of her character, if
he thought it possible.
Helen had now come to tears. Then the keen sense of injustice turned to
indignation; and the tears wiped away, and pride prevailing, colouring
she exclaimed, “That she knew what she ought to do, she knew what she
would do--she would not stay where the master of the house did not wish
for her. Orphan though she was, she could not accept of protection or
obligation from any human being who neither liked or esteemed her. She
would shorten her visit at Clarendon Park--make it as short as his heart
could desire,--she would never be the cause of any disagreement--poor,
dear, kind Cecilia! She would write directly to Mrs. Collingwood.” At
the close of these last incoherent sentences, Helen was awe-struck by
the absolute composed immovability and silence of Lady Davenant. Helen
stood rebuked before her.
“Instead of writing to Mrs. Collingwood, had not you better go at
once?” said her ladyship, speaking in a voice so calm, and in a tone so
slightly ironical, that it might have passed for earnest on any but an
acutely feeling ear--“Shall I ring, and order your carriage?”
putting her hand on the bell as she spoke, and resting it there, she
continued--“It would be so spirited to be off instantly; so wise, so
polite, so considerate towards _dear_ Cecilia--so dignified towards the
general, and so kind towards me, who am going to a far country, Helen,
and may perhaps not see you ever again.”
“Forgive me!” cried Helen; “I never could go while you were here.”
“I did not know what you might think proper when you seemed to have lost
your senses.”
“I have recovered them,” said Helen; “I will do whatever you
please--whatever you think best.”
“It must not be what I please, my dear child, nor what I think best,
but what you judge for yourself to be best; else what will become of you
when I am in Russia? It must be some higher and more stable principle of
action that must govern you. It must not be the mere wish to please this
or that friend;--the defect of your character, Helen, remember I tell
you, is this--inordinate desire to be loved, this impatience of not
being loved--that which but a moment ago made you ready to abandon two
of the best friends you have upon earth, because you imagine, or you
suspect, or you fear, that a third person, almost a stranger, does not
like before he has had time to know you.”
“I was very foolish,” said Helen; “but now I will be wise, I will do
whatever is--right. Surely you would not have me live here if I were
convinced that the master of the house did not wish it?”
“Certainly not--certainly not,” repeated Lady Davenant; “but let us see
our way before us; never gallop, my dear, much less leap; never move,
till you see your way;--once it is ascertained that General Clarendon
does not wish you to be here, nor approve of you for the chosen
companion of his wife, I, as your best friend, would say, begone, and
speed you on your way; then as much pride, as much spirit as you will;
but those who are conscious of possessing real spirit, should never
be--seldom are--in a hurry to show it; that kind of ostentatious haste
is undignified in man, and ungraceful in woman.”
Helen promised that she would be patience itself: “But tell me exactly,”
said she, “what you would have me do.”
“Nothing,” said Lady Davenant.
“Nothing! that is easy at least,” said Helen, smiling.
“No, not so easy as you imagine; it requires sometimes no small share of
strength of mind.”
“Strength of mind!” said Helen, “I am afraid I have not any.”
“Acquire it then, my dear,” said her friend.
“But can I?”
“Certainly; strength of mind, like strength of body, is improved by
exercise.”
“If I had any to begin with--” said Helen.
“You have some, Helen, a great deal in one particular, else why should
I have any more regard for you, or more hope of you, than of any other
well-dressed, well-taught beauty, any of the tribe of young ladies who
pass before me without ever fixing my mind’s eye for one moment?”
“But in what particular, my dear Lady Davenant, do you mean?” said
Helen, anxiously; “I am afraid you are mistaken; in what do you think I
ever showed strength of mind? Tell me, and I will tell you the truth.”
“That you will, and there is the point that I mean. Ever since I have
known you, you have always, as at this moment, coward as you are, been
brave enough to speak the truth; and truth I believe to be the only real
lasting foundation for friendship; in all but truth there is a principle
of decay and dissolution. Now good bye, my dear;--stay, one word
more--there is a line in some classic poet, which says ‘the suspicion of
ill-will never fails to produce it’--Remember this in your intercourse
with General Clarendon; show no suspicion of his bearing you ill-will,
and to show none, you must feel none. Put absolutely out of your head
all that you may have heard or imagined about Miss Clarendon, or her
brother’s prejudices on her account.”
“I will--I will indeed,” said Helen, and so they parted. A few words
have sometimes a material influence on events in human life. Perhaps
even among those who hold in general that advice never does good, there
is no individual who cannot recollect some few words--some conversation
which has altered the future colour of their lives.
Helen’s over-anxiety concerning General Clarendon’s opinion of her,
being now balanced by the higher interest Lady Davenant had excited, she
met him with new-born courage; and Lady Cecilia, not that she suspected
it was necessary, but merely by way of prevention, threw in little
douceurs of flattery, on the general’s part, repeated sundry pretty
compliments, and really kind things which he had said to her of Helen.
These always pleased Helen at the moment, but she could never make
what she was told he said of her quite agree with what he said to her:
indeed, he said so very little, that no absolute discrepancy could be
detected between the words spoken and the words reported to have been
said; but still the looks did not agree with the opinions, or the
cordiality implied.
One morning Lady Cecilia told her that the general wished that she would
ride out with them, “and you must come, indeed you must, and try his
pretty Zelica; he wishes it of all things, he told me so last night.”
The general chancing to come in as she spoke, Lady Cecilia appealed to
him with a look that almost called upon him to enforce her request; but
he only said that if Miss Stanley would do him the honour, he should
certainly be happy, if Zelica would not be too much for her; but he
could not take it upon him to advise. Then looking for some paper
of which he came in search, and passing her with the most polite and
deferential manner possible, he left the room.
Half vexed, half smiling, Helen looked at Cecilia, and asked whether all
she had told her was not a little--“_plus belle que la vérité._”
Lady Cecilia, blushing slightly, poured out rapid protestations that
all she had ever repeated to Helen of the general’s sayings was perfect
truth--“I will not swear to the words--because in the first place it is
not pretty to swear, and next, because I can never recollect anybody’s
words, or my own, five minutes after they have been said.”
Partly by playfulness, and partly by protestations, Lady Cecilia
half convinced Helen; but from this time she refrained from repeating
compliments which, true or false, did no good, and things went on
better; observing this, she left them to their natural course, upon all
such occasions the best way.
And now visitors began to appear, and some officers of the general’s
staff arrived. Clarendon Park happened to be in the district which
General Clarendon commanded, so that he was able usually to reside
there. It was in what is called a good neighbourhood, and there was much
visiting, and many entertainments.
One day at dinner, Helen was seated between the general and a fine
young guardsman, who, as far as his deep sense of his own merit, and
his fashionable indifference to young ladies would permit, had made some
demonstrations of a desire to attract her notice. He was piqued when,
in the midst of something he had wonderfully exerted himself to say, he
observed that her attention was distracted by a gentleman opposite, who
had just returned from the Continent, and who, among other pieces of
news, marriages and deaths of English abroad, mentioned that “poor
D’Aubigny” was at last dead.
Helen looked first at Cecilia, who, as she saw, heard what was said with
perfect composure; and then at Lady Davenant, who had meantime glanced
imperceptibly at her daughter, and then upon Helen, whose eyes she
met--and Helen coloured merely from association, because she had
coloured before--provoking! yet impossible to help it. All passed in
less time than it can be told, and Helen had left the guardsman in the
midst of his sentence, discomfited, and his eyes were now upon her; and
in confusion she turned from him, and there were the general’s eyes but
he was only inviting her to taste some particular wine, which he thought
she would like, and which she willingly accepted, and praised, though
she assuredly did not know in the least what manner of taste it had. The
general now exerted himself to occupy the guardsman in a conversation
about promotion, and drew all observation from Helen. Yet not the
slightest indication of having seen, heard, or understood, appeared
in his countenance, not the least curiosity or interest about Colonel
D’Aubigny. Of one point Helen was however intuitively certain, that he
had noticed that confusion which he had so ably, so coolly covered. One
ingenuous look from her thanked him, and his look in return was most
gratifying; she could not tell how it was, but it appeared more as if
he understood and liked her than any look she had ever seen from him
before. They were both more at their ease. Next day, he certainly
justified all Cecilia’s former assurances, by the urgency with which
he desired to have her of the riding party. He put her on horseback
himself, bade the aide-de-camp ride on with Lady Cecilia--three several
times set the bridle right in Miss Stanley’s hand, assuring her that she
need not be afraid, that Zelica was the gentlest creature possible, and
he kept his fiery horse, Fleetfoot, to a pace that suited her during
the whole time they were out. Helen took courage, and her ride did her a
vast deal of good.
The rides were repeated, the general evidently became more and more
interested about Miss Stanley; he appealed continually to her taste, and
marked that he considered her as part of his family; but, as Helen told
Lady Davenant, it was difficult, with a person of his high-bred manners
and reserved temper, to ascertain what was to be attributed to general
deference to her sex, what to particular regard for the individual, how
much to hospitality to his guest, or attention to his wife’s friend,
and what might be considered as proof of his own desire to share that
friendship, and of a real wish that she should continue to live with
them.
While she was in this uncertainty, Lord Davenant arrived from London; he
had always been fond of Helen, and now the first sight of her youthful
figure in deep mourning, the recollection of the great changes that had
taken place since they had last met, touched him to the heart--he folded
her in his arms, and was unable to speak. He! a great bulky man, with a
face of constitutional joy--but so it was; he had a tender heart,
deep feelings of all kinds under an appearance of _insouciance_ which
deceived the world. He was distinguished as a political leader--but,
as he said of himself, he had been three times inoculated with
ambition--once by his mother, once by his brother, and once by his wife;
but it had never taken well; the last the best, however,--it had shown
at least sufficiently to satisfy his friends, and he was happy to be
no more tormented. With talents of the first order, and integrity
unblenching, his character was not of that stern stuff--no, not of that
corrupt stuff--of which modern ambition should be made.
He had now something to tell Helen, which he would say even before he
opened his London budget of news. He told her, with a congratulatory
smile, that he had had an opportunity of showing his sense of Mr.
Collingwood’s merits; and as he spoke he put a letter into her hand.
The letter was from her good friend Mr. Collingwood, accepting a
bishopric in the West Indies, which had been offered to him by Lord
Davenant. It enclosed a letter for Helen, desiring in the most kind
manner that she would let him know immediately and decidedly where and
with whom she intended to live; and there was a postscript from Mrs.
Collingwood full of affection, and doubts, and hopes, and fears.
The moment Helen had finished this letter, without seeming to regard the
inquiring looks of all present, and without once looking towards any
one else, she walked deliberately up to General Clarendon, and begged to
speak to him alone. Never was general more surprised, but of course he
was too much of a general to let that appear. Without a word, he offered
his arm, and led her to his study; he drew a chair towards her--
“No misfortune, I hope, Miss Stanley? If I can in any way be of
service----”
“The only service, General Clarendon,” said Helen, her manner becoming
composed, and her voice steadying as she went on--“the only service you
can do me now is to tell me the plain truth, and this will prevent what
would certainly be a misfortune to me--perhaps to all of us. Will you
read this letter?”
He received it with an air of great interest, and again moved the chair
to her. Before she sat down, she added,--
“I am unused to the world, you see, General Clarendon. I have been
accustomed to live with one who always told me his mind sincerely, so
that I could judge always what I ought to do. Will you do so now? It is
the greatest service, as well as favour, you can do me.”
“Depend upon it, I will,” said General Clarendon.
“I should not ask you to tell me in words--that might be painful to your
politeness; only let me see it,” said Helen, and she sat down.
The general read on without speaking, till he came to the mention of
Helen’s original promise of living with the Collingwoods. He did not
comprehend that passage, he said, showing it to her. He had always,
on the contrary, understood that it had been a long _settled_ thing, a
promise between Miss Stanley and Lady Cecilia, that Helen should live
with Lady Cecilia when she married.
“No such thing!” Helen said. “No such agreement had ever been made.”
So the general now perceived; but this was a mistake of his which he
hoped would make no difference in her arrangements, he said: “Why should
it?--unless Miss Stanley felt unhappy at Clarendon Park?”
He paused, and Helen was silent: then, taking desperate resolution, she
answered,--
“I should be perfectly happy here, if I were sure of your wishes, your
feelings about me--about it.”
“Is it possible that there has been any thing in my manner,” said he,
“that could give Miss Stanley pain? What could have put a doubt into her
mind?”
“There might be some other person nearer, and naturally dearer to you,”
said Helen, looking up in his face ingenuously--“one whom you might have
desired to have in my place:--your sister, Miss Clarendon, in short.”
“Did Cecilia tell you of this?”
“No, Lady Davenant did; and since I heard it I never could be happy--I
never can be happy till I know your feeling.”
His manner instantly changed.
“You shall know my feelings, then,” said he. “Till I knew you, Helen,
my wish was, that my sister should live with my wife; now I know you, my
wish is, that you should live with us. You will suit Cecilia better
than my sister could--will suit us both better, having the same truth
of character, and more gentleness of manner. I have answered you with
frankness equal to your own. And now,” said he, taking her hand, “you
know Cecilia has always considered you as her sister--allow me to do the
same: consider me as a brother--such you shall find me. Thank you. This
is settled for life,” added he, drawing her arm through his, and taking
up her letters, he led her back towards the library.
But her emotion, the stronger for being suppressed, was too great for
re-appearing in company: she withdrew her arm from his when they were
passing through the hall, and turning her face away, she had just voice
enough to beg he would show her letters to----
He understood. She ran up-stairs to her own room, glad to be alone; a
flood of joy came over her.
“A brother in Cecilia’s husband!--a brother!”
The word had a magical charm, and she could not help repeating it
aloud--she wept like a child. Lady Cecilia soon came flying in, all
delight and affection, reproaches and wonder alternately, in the
quickest conceivable succession. “Delighted, it is settled and for ever!
my dear, dear Helen! But how could you ever think of leaving us, you
wicked Helen! Well! now you see what Clarendon really is! But, my dear,
I was so terrified when I heard it all. You are, and ever were, the
oddest mixture of cowardice and courage. I--do you know I, brave
_I_--never should have advised--never should have ventured as you have?
But he is delighted at it all, and so am I now it has all ended so
charmingly, now I have you safe. I will write to the Collingwoods; you
shall not have a moment’s pain; I will settle it all, and invite them
here before they leave England; Clarendon desired I would--oh, he
is!--now you will believe me! The Collingwoods, too, will be glad to be
asked here to take leave of you, and all will be right; I love, as you
do, dear Helen, that everybody should be pleased when I am happy.”
When Lady Davenant heard all that had passed, she did not express that
prompt unmixed delight which Helen expected; a cloud came over her brow,
something painful regarding her daughter seemed to strike her, for her
eyes fixed on Cecilia, and her emotion was visible in her countenance;
but pleasure unmixed appealed as she turned to Helen, and to her she
gave, what was unusual, unqualified approbation.
“My dear Helen, I admire your plain straightforward truth; I am
satisfied with this first essay of your strength of mind and courage.”
“Courage!” said Helen, smiling.
“Not such as is required to take a lion by the beard, or a bull by the
horns,” replied Lady Davenant; “but there are many persons in this world
who, brave though they be, would rather beard a lion, sooner seize a
bull by the horns, than, when they get into a dilemma, dare to ask a
direct question, and tell plainly what passes in their own minds. Moral
courage is, believe me, uncommon in both sexes, and yet in going through
the world it is equally necessary to the virtue of both men and women.”
“But do you really think,” said Helen, “that strength of mind, or what
you call moral courage, is as necessary to women as it is to men?”
“Certainly, show me a virtue, male or female--if virtues admit of
grammatical distinctions, if virtues acknowledge the more worthy gender
and the less worthy of the grammar, show me a virtue male or female that
_can_ long exist without truth. Even that emphatically termed the virtue
of our sex, Helen, on which social happiness rests, society depends, on
what is it based? is it not on that single-hearted virtue truth?--and
truth on what? on courage of the mind. They who dare to speak the truth,
will not ever dare to go irretrievably wrong. Then what is falsehood but
cowardice?--and a false woman!--does not that say all in one word?”
“But whence arose all this? you wonder, perhaps,” said Lady Davenant;
“and I have not inclination to explain. Here comes Lord Davenant. Now
for politics--farewell morality, a long farewell. Now for the London
budget, and ‘what news from Constantinople? Grand vizier certainly
strangled, or not?’”
CHAPTER VI.
The London budget of news was now opened, and gone through by Lord
Davenant, including quarrels in the cabinet and all that with fear of
change perplexes politicians. But the fears and hopes of different ages
are attached to such different subjects, that Helen heard all this as
though she heard it not, and went on with her drawing, touching, and
retouching it, without ever looking up, till her attention was wakened
by the name of Granville Beauclerc; this was the name of the person who
had written those interesting letters which she had met with in Lady
Davenant’s portfolio. “What is he doing in town?” asked the general.
“Amusing himself, I suppose,” replied Lord Davenant.
“I believe he forgets that I am his guardian,” said the general.
“I am sure he cannot forget that you are his friend,” said Lady Cecilia;
“for he has the best heart in the world.”
“And the worst head for any thing useful,” said the general.
“He is a man of genius,” said Lady Davenant.
“Did you speak to him, my lord,” pursued the general, “about standing
for the county?”
“Yes.”
“And he said what?”
“That he would have nothing to do with it.”
“Why?”
“Something about not being tied to party, and somewhat he said about
patriotism,” replied Lord Davenant.
“Nonsense!” said the general, “he is a fool.”
“Only young,” said Lady Davenant,
“Men are not so very young in these days at two-and-twenty,” said the
general.
“In some,” said Lady Davenant, “the classical touch, the romance of
political virtue, lasts for months, if not years, after they leave
college; even those who, like Granville, go into high life in London,
do not sometimes, for a season or two, lose their first enthusiasm of
patriotism.”
The general’s lips became compressed. Lord Davenant, throwing himself
back in his easy chair, repeated, “Patriotism! yes, every young man of
talent is apt to begin with a fit of that sort.”
“My dear lord,” cried Lady Davenant, “you, of all men, to speak of
patriotism as a disease!”
“And a disease that can be had but once in life, I am afraid,” replied
her lord laughing; “and yet,” as if believing in that at which he
laughed, “it evaporates in most men in words, written or spoken, lasts
till the first pamphlet is published, or till the maiden-speech in
parliament is fairly made, and fairly paid for--in all honour--all
honourable men.”
Lady Davenant passed over these satirical observations, and somewhat
abruptly asked Lord Davenant if he recollected the late Mr. Windham.
“Certainly he was not a man to be easily forgotten: but what in
particular?”
“The scales of his mind were too fine,” said Lady Davenant, “too nicely
adjusted for common purposes; diamond scales will not do for weighing
wool. Very refined, very ingenious, very philosophical minds, such as
Windham, Burke, Bacon, were all too scrupulous weighers; their scales
turned with the millionth of a grain, and all from the same cause,
subject to the same defect, indecision. They saw too well how much can
be said on both sides of the question. There is a sort of philosophical
doubt, arising from enlargement of understanding, quite different from
that irresolution of character which is caused by infirmity of will;
and I have observed,” continued Lady Davenant, “in some of these over
scrupulous weighers, that when once they come to a balance, that instant
they become most wilful; so it will be, you will see, with Beauclerc.
After excessive indecision, you will see him start perhaps at once to
rash action.”
“Rash of wrong, resolute of right,” said Lord Davenant.
“He is constitutionally wilful, and metaphysically vacillating,” said
Lady Davenant.
The general waited till the metaphysics were over, and then said to Lord
Davenant that he suspected there was something more than mere want of
ambition in Beauclerc’s refusal to go into parliament. Some words were
here inaudible to Helen, and the general began to walk up and down the
room with so strong a tread, that at every step the china shook on the
table near which Helen sat, so that she lost most part of what followed,
and yet it seemed interesting, about some Lord Beltravers, and a
Comtesse de Saint ---- something, or a Lady Blanche ---- somebody.
Lady Davenant looked anxious, the general’s steps became more
deliberately, more ominously firm; till lady Cecilia came up to him, and
playfully linking her arm in his, the steps were moderated, and when
a soothing hand came upon his shoulder, the compressed lips were
relaxed--she spoke in a low voice--he answered aloud.
“By all means! write to him yourself, my love; get him down here and he
will be safe; he cannot refuse you.”
“Tuesday, then?” she would name the earliest day if the general
approved.
He approved of every thing she said; “Tuesday let it be.” Following
him to the door, Lady Cecilia added something which seemed to fill the
measure of his contentment. “Always good and kind,” said he; “so let it
be.
“Then shall I write to your sister, or will you?”
“You,” said the general, “let the kindness come from you, as it always
does.”
Lady Cecilia, in a moment at the writing-table, ran off, as fast as pen
could go, two notes, which she put into her mother’s hand, who gave
an approving nod; and, leaving them with her to seal and have franked,
Cecilia darted out on the terrace, carrying Helen along with her, to see
some Italian garden she was projecting.
And as she went, and as she stood directing the workmen, at every close
of her directions she spoke to Helen. She said she was very glad that
she had settled that Beauclerc was to come to them immediately. He was a
great favourite of hers.
“Not for any of those grandissimo qualities which my mother sees in him,
and which I am not quite clear exist; but just because he is the most
agreeable person in nature; and really natural; though he is a man of
the world, yet not the least affected. Quite fashionable, of course, but
with true feeling. Oh! he is delightful, just--” then she interrupted
herself to give directions to the workmen about her Italian garden----
“Oleander in the middle of that bed; vases nearer to the balustrade--”
“Beauclerc has a very good taste, and a beautiful place he has,
Thorndale. He will be very rich. Few very rich young men are
agreeable now, women spoil them so.--[‘Border that bed with something
pretty.’]--Still he is, and I long to know what you will think of him;
I know what I think he will think, but, however, I will say no more;
people are always sure to get into scrapes in this world, when they say
what they think.--[‘That fountain looks beautiful.’]--I forgot to tell
you he is very handsome. The general is very fond of him, and he of the
general, except when he considers him as his guardian, for Granville
Beauclerc does not particularly like to be controlled--who does? It is
a curious story.--[‘Unpack those vases, and by the time that is done I
will be back.’]--Take a turn with me, Helen, this way. It is a curious
story: Granville Beauclerc’s father--but I don’t know it perfectly, I
only know that he was a very odd man, and left the general, though he
was so much younger than himself, guardian to Granville, and settled
that he was not to be of age, I mean not to come into possession of
his large estates, till he is five-and-twenty: shockingly hard on poor
Granville, and enough to make him hate Clarendon, but he does not, and
that is charming, that is one reason I like him! So amazingly respectful
to his guardian always, considering how impetuous he is, amazingly
respectful, though I cannot say I think he is what the gardening books
call _patient of the knife_, I don’t think he likes his fancies to
be lopped; but then he is so clever. Much more what you would call a
reading man than the general, distinguished at college, and all that
which usually makes a young man conceited, but Beauclerc is only a
little headstrong--all the more agreeable, it keeps one in agitation;
one never knows how it will end, but I am sure it will all go on well
now. It is curious, too, that mamma knew him also when he was at Eton,
I believe--I don’t know how, but long before we ever heard of Clarendon,
and she corresponded with him, but I never knew him till he came to
Florence, just after it was all settled with me and the general; and he
was with us there and at Paris, and travelled home with us, and I like
him. Now you know all, except what I do not choose to tell you, so come
back to the workmen--‘That vase will not do there, move it in front of
these evergreens; that will do.’”
Then returning to Helen--“After all, I did so right, and I am so glad
I thought in time of inviting Esther, now Mr. Beauclerc is coming--the
general’s sister--half sister. Oh, so unlike him! you would never guess
that Miss Clarendon was his sister, except from her pride. But she is
so different from other people; she knows nothing, and wishes to know
nothing of the world. She lives always at an old castle in Wales, Llan
---- something, which she inherited from her mother, and she has always
been her own mistress, living with her aunt in melancholy grandeur
there, till her brother brought her to Florence, where--oh, how she was
out of her element! Come this way and I will tell you more. The fact is,
I do not not much like Miss Clarendon, and I will tell you why--I will
describe her to you.”
“No, no, do not,” said Helen; “do not, my dear Cecilia, and I will tell
you why.”
“Why--why?” cried Cecilia. “Do you recollect the story my uncle told us
about the young bride and her old friend, and the bit of advice?”
No, Cecilia did not recollect any thing of it. She should be very glad
to hear the anecdote, but as to the advice, she hated advice.
“Still, if you knew who gave it--it was given by a very great man.”
“A very great man! now you make me curious. Well, what is it?” said Lady
Cecilia.
“That for one year after her marriage, she would not tell to her friends
the opinion she had formed, if unfavourable, of any of her husband’s
relations, as it was probable she might change that opinion on knowing
them better, and would afterwards be sorry for having told her first
hasty judgment. Long afterwards the lady told her friend that she owed
to this advice a great part of the happiness of her life, for she really
had, in the course of the year, completely changed her first notions of
some of her husband’s family, and would have had sorely to repent, if
she had told her first thoughts!”
Cecilia listened, and said it was all “Vastly well! excellent! But I
had nothing in the world to say of Miss Clarendon, but that she was too
good--too sincere for the world we live in. For instance, at Paris, one
day a charming Frenchwoman was telling some anecdote of the day in the
most amusing manner. Esther Clarendon all the while stood by, grave and
black as night, and at last turning upon our charmer at the end of the
story, pronounced, ‘There is not one word of truth in all you have been
saying!’ Conceive it, in full salon! The French were in such amazement.
‘Inconceivable!’ as they might well say to me, as she walked off with
her tragedy-queen air; _‘Inconcevable--mais, vraiment inconcevable;’_
and _‘Bien Anglaise,’_ they would have added, no doubt, if I had not
been by.”
“But there must surely have been some particular reason,” said Helen.
“None in the world, only the story was not true, I believe. And then
another time, when she was with her cousin, the Duchess of Lisle, at
Lisle-Royal, and was to have gone out the next season in London with the
Duchess, she came down one morning, just before they were to set off for
town, and declared that she had heard such a quantity of scandal since
she had been there, and such shocking things of London society, that she
had resolved not to go out with the Duchess, and not to go to town at
all? So absurd--so prudish!”
Helen felt some sympathy in this, and was going to have said so, but
Cecilia went on with--
“And then to expect that Granville Beauclerc--should--”
Here Cecilia paused, and Helen felt curious, and ashamed of her
curiosity; she turned away, to raise the branches of some shrub, which
were drooping from the weight of their flowers.
“I know something _has_ been thought of,” said Cecilia. “A match has
been in contemplation--do you comprehend me, Helen?”
“You mean that Mr. Beauclerc is to marry Miss Clarendon,” said Helen,
compelled to speak.
“I only say it has been thought of,” replied Lady Cecilia; “that is, as
every thing in this way is thought of about every couple not within the
prohibited degrees, one’s grandmother inclusive. And the plainer the
woman, the more sure she is to contemplate such things for herself, lest
no one else should think of them for her. But, my dear Helen, if you
mean to ask--”
“Oh, I don’t mean to ask any thing,” cried Helen.
“But, whether you ask or not, I must tell you that the general is too
proud to own, even to himself, that he could; ever think of any man for
his sister who had not first proposed for her.”
There was a pause for some minutes.
“But,” resumed Lady Cecilia, “I could not do less than ask her here
for Clarendon’s sake, when I know it pleases him; and she is
very--estimable, and so I wish to make her love me if I could! But I do
not think she will be nearer her point with Mr. Beauclerc, if it is her
point, by coming here just now. Granville has eyes as well as ears,
and contrasts will strike. I know who I wish should strike him, as she
strikes me--and I think--I hope--”
Helen looked distressed.
“I am as innocent as a dove,” pursued Lady Cecilia; “but I suppose even
doves may have their own private little thoughts and wishes.”
Helen was sure Cecilia had meant all this most kindly, but she was
sorry that some things had been said. She was conscious of having been
interested by those letters of Mr. Beauclerc’s; but a particular thought
had now been put into her mind, and she could never more say, never
more feel, that such a thought had not come into her head. She was very
sorry; it seemed as if somewhat of the freshness, the innocence, of her
mind was gone from her. She was sorry, too, that she had heard all
that Cecilia had said about Miss Clarendon; it appeared as if she was
actually doomed to get into some difficulty with the general about his
sister; she felt as if thrown back into a sea of doubts, and she was not
clear that she could, even by opposing, end them.
On the appointed Tuesday, late, Miss Clarendon arrived; a fine figure,
but ungraceful, as Helen observed, from the first moment when she
turned sharply away from Lady Cecilia’s embrace to a great dog of her
brother’s--“Ah, old Neptune! I’m glad you’re here still.”
And when Lady Cecilia would have put down his paws--“Let him alone, let
him alone, dear, honest, old fellow.”
“But the dear, honest, old fellow’s paws are wet, and will ruin your
pretty new pelisse.”
“It may be new, but you know it is not pretty,” said Miss Clarendon,
continuing to pat Neptune’s head as he jumped up with his paws on her
shoulders.
“O my dear Esther, how can you bear him? he is so rough in his love!”
“I like rough better than smooth.” The rough paw caught in her lace
frill, and it was torn to pieces before “down! down!” and the united
efforts of Lady Cecilia and Helen could extricate it.--“Don’t distress
yourselves about it, pray; it does not signify in the least. Poor
Neptune, how really sorry he looks--there, there, wag your tail
again--no one shall come between us two old friends.”
Her brother came in, and, starting up, her arms were thrown round his
neck, and her bonnet falling back, Helen who had thought her quite plain
before, was surprised to see that, now her colour was raised, and there
was life in her eyes, she was really handsome.
Gone again that expression, when Cecilia spoke to her: whatever she
said, Miss Clarendon differed from; if it was a matter of taste, she
was always of the contrary opinion; if narrative or assertion,
she questioned, doubted, seemed as if she could not believe. Her
conversation, if conversation it could be called, was a perpetual
rebating and regrating, especially with her sister-in-law; if Lady
Cecilia did but say there were three instead of four, it was taken up as
“quite a mistake,” and marked not only as a mistake, but as “not true.”
Every, the slightest error, became a crime against majesty, and the
first day ended with Helen’s thinking her really the most disagreeable,
intolerable person she had ever seen.
And the second day went on a little worse. Helen thought Cecilia took
too much pains to please, and said it would be better to let her quite
alone. Helen did so completely, but Miss Clarendon did not let Helen
alone; but watched her with penetrating eyes continually, listened to
every word she said, and seeming to weigh every syllable,--“Oh, my words
are not worth your weighing,” said Helen, laughing.
“Yes they are, to settle my mind.”
The first thing that seemed at all to settle it was Helen’s not agreeing
with Cecilia about the colour of two ribands which Helen said she could
not flatter her were good matches. The next was about a drawing of Miss
Clarendon’s, of Llansillan, her place in Wales; a beautiful drawing
indeed, which she had brought for her brother, but one of the towers
certainly was out of the perpendicular. Helen was appealed to, and could
not say it was upright; Miss Clarendon instantly took up a knife, cut
the paper at the back of the frame, and, taking out the drawing, set the
tower to rights.
“There’s the use of telling the truth.”
“Of listening to it,” said Helen.
“We shall get on, I see, Miss Stanley, if you can get over the first
bitter outside of me;--a hard outside, difficult to crack--stains
delicate fingers, may be,” she continued, as she replaced her drawing in
its frame--“stains delicate fingers, may be, in the opening, but a good
walnut you will find it, taken with a grain of salt.”
Many a grain seemed necessary, and very strong nut-crackers in very
strong hands. Lady Cecilia’s evidently were not strong enough, though
she strained hard. Helen did not feel inclined to try.
Cecilia invited Miss Clarendon to walk out and see some of the
alterations her brother had made. As they passed the new Italian garden,
Miss Clarendon asked, “What’s all this?--don’t like this--how I regret
the Old English garden, and the high beech hedges. Every thing is to be
changed here, I suppose,--pray do not ask my opinion about any of the
alterations.”
“I do not wonder,” said Cecilia, “that you should prefer the old garden,
with all your early associations; warm-hearted, amiable people must
always be so fond of what they have loved in childhood.”
“I never was here when I was a child, and I am not one of your amiable
people.”
“Very true, indeed,” thought Helen.
“Miss Stanley looks at me as if I had seven heads,” said Miss Clarendon,
laughing; and, a minute after, overtaking Helen as she walked on, she
looked full in her face, and added, “Do acknowledge that you think me
a savage.” Helen did not deny it, and from that moment Miss Clarendon
looked less savagely upon her: she laughed and said, “I am not quite
such a bear as I seem, you’ll find; at least I never hug people to
death. My growl is worse than my bite, unless some one should flatter my
classical, bearish passion, and offer to feed me with honey, and when I
find it all comb and no honey, who would not growl then?”
Lady Cecilia now came up, and pointed out views to which the general had
opened. “Yes, it’s well, he has done very well, but pray don’t stand
on ceremony with me. I can walk alone, you may leave me to my own
cogitations, as I like best.”
“Surely, as you like best,” said Lady Cecilia; “pray consider yourself,
as you know you are, at home here.”
“No, I never shall be at home here,” said Esther.
“Oh! don’t say that, let me hope--let me hope--” and she withdrew. Helen
just stayed to unlock a gate for Miss Clarendon’s ‘rambles further,’
and, as she unlocked it, she heard Miss Clarendon sigh as she repeated
the word, “Hope! I do not like to hope, hope has so often deceived me.”
“You will never be deceived in Cecilia,” said Helen.
“Take care--stay till you try.”
“I have tried,” said Helen, “I know her.”
“How long?”
“From childhood!”
“You’re scarcely out of childhood yet.”
“I am not so very young. I have had trials of my friends--of Cecilia
particularly, much more than you could ever have had.”
“Well, this is the best thing I ever heard of her, and from good
authority too; her friends abroad were all false,” said Miss Clarendon.
“It is very extraordinary,” said Helen, “to hear such a young person as
you are talk so--
“So--how?”
“Of false friends--you must have been very unfortunate.”
“Pardon me--very fortunate--to find them out in time.” She looked at
the prospect, and liked all that her brother was doing, and disliked all
that she even guessed Lady Cecilia had done. Helen showed her that she
guessed wrong here and there, and smiled at her prejudices; and Miss
Clarendon smiled again, and admitted that she was prejudiced, “but every
body is; only some show and tell, and others smile and fib. I wish that
word fib was banished from English language, and white lie drummed out
after it. Things by their right names and we should all do much better.
Truth must be told, whether agreeable or not.”
“But whoever makes truth disagreeable commits high treason against
virtue,” said Helen.
“Is that yours?” cried Miss Clarendon, stopping short.
“No,” said Helen. “It is excellent whoever said it.”
“It was from my uncle Stanley I heard it,” said Helen.
“Superior man that uncle must have been.”
“I will leave you now,” said Helen.
“Do, I see we shall like one another in time, Miss Stanley; in time,--I
hate sudden friendships.”
That evening Miss Clarendon questioned Helen more about her friendship
with Cecilia, and how it was she came to live with her. Helen plainly
told her.
“Then it was not an original promise between you?”
“Not at all,” said Helen.
“Lady Cecilia told me it was. Just like her,--I knew all the time it was
a lie.”
Shocked and startled at the word, and at the idea, Helen exclaimed, “Oh!
Miss Clarendon, how can you say so? anybody may be mistaken. Cecilia
mistook--” Lady Cecilia joined them at this moment. Miss Clarendon’s
face was flushed. “This room is insufferably hot. What can be the use of
a fire at this time of year?”
Cecilia said it was for her mother, who was apt to be chilly in the
evenings; and as she spoke, she put a screen between the flushed cheek
and the fire. Miss Clarendon pushed it away, saying, “I can’t talk, I
can’t hear, I can’t understand with a screen before me. What did you
say, Lady Cecilia, to Lady Davenant, as we came out from dinner, about
Mr. Beauclerc?”
“That we expect him to-morrow.”
“You did not tell me so when you wrote!”
“No, my dear.”
“Why pray?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, Lady Cecilia! why should people say they do not know,
when they do know perfectly well?”
“If I had thought it was of any consequence to you, Esther,” said
Cecilia, with an arch look----
“Now you expect me to answer that it was not of the least consequence to
me--that is the answer you would make; but my answer is, that it was of
consequence to me, and you knew it was.”
“And if I did?”
“If you did, why say ‘If I had thought it of any consequence to
you?’--why say so? answer me truly.”
“Answer me truly!” repeated Lady Cecilia, laughing. “Oh, my dear Esther,
we are not in a court of justice.”
“Nor in a court of honour,” pursued Miss Clarendon.
“Well, well! let it be a court of love at least,” said Lady Cecilia.
“What a pretty proverb that was, Helen, that we met with the other day
in that book of old English proverbs--‘Love rules his kingdom without a
sword.’”
“Very likely; but to the point,” said Miss Clarendon, “when do you
expect Mr. Beauclerc?”
“To-morrow.”
“Then I shall go to-morrow!”
“My dear Esther, why?”
“You know why; you know what reports have been spread; it suits neither
my character nor my brother’s to give any foundation for such reports.
Let me ring the bell and I will give my own orders.”
“My dear Esther, but your brother will be so vexed--so surprised.”
“My brother is the best judge of his own conduct, he will do what he
pleases, or what you please. I am the judge of mine, and certainly shall
do what I think right.”
She rang accordingly, and ordered that her carriage should be at the
door at six o’clock in the morning.
“Nay, my dear Esther,” persisted Cecilia, “I wish you would not decide
so suddenly; we were so glad to have you come to us--”
“Glad! why you know--”
“I know,” interrupted Lady Cecilia, colouring, and she began as fast
as possible to urge every argument she could think of to persuade Miss
Clarendon; but no arguments, no entreaties of hers or the general’s,
public or private, were of any avail,--go she would, and go she did at
six o’clock.
“I suppose,” said Helen to Lady Davenant, “that Miss Clarendon is very
estimable, and she seems to be very clever: but I wonder that with all
her abilities she does not learn to make her manners more agreeable.”
“My dear,” said Lady Davenant, “we must take people as they are; you may
graft a rose upon an oak, but those who have tried the experiment tell
us the graft will last but a short time, and the operation ends in the
destruction of both; where the stocks have no common nature, there is
ever a want of conformity which sooner or later proves fatal to both.”
But Beauclerc, what was become of him?--that day passed, and no
Beauclerc; another and another came, and on the third day, only a letter
from him, which ought to have come on Tuesday.--But “_too late_,” the
shameful brand of procrastination was upon it--and it contained only a
few lines blotted in the folding, to say that he could not possibly
be at Clarendon Park on Tuesday, but would on Wednesday or Thursday if
possible.
Good-natured Lord Davenant observed, “When a young man in London,
writing to his friends in the country, names two days for leaving town,
and adds an ‘_if possible_’ his friends should never expect him till the
last of the two named.”
The last of the two days arrived--Thursday. The aide-de-camp asked if
Mr. Beauclerc was expected to-day. “Yes, I expect to see him to-day,”
the general answered.
“I hope, but do not expect,” said Lady Davenant, “for, as learned
authority tells me, ‘to expect is to hope with some degree of
certainty’--”
The general left the room repeating, “I expect him to-day, Cecilia.”
The day passed, however, and he came not--the night came. The general
ordered that the gate should be kept open, and that a servant should
sit up. The servant sat up all night, cursing Mr. Beauclerc. And in the
morning he replied with malicious alacrity to the first question his
master asked, “No, Sir, Mr. Beauclerc is not come.”
At breakfast, the general, after buttering his bread in silence for some
minutes, confessed that he loved punctuality. It might be a military
prejudice;--it might be too professional, martinet perhaps,--but
still he owned he did love punctuality. He considered it as a part
of politeness, a proper attention to the convenience and feelings of
others; indispensable between strangers it is usually felt to be, and he
did not know why intimate friends should deem themselves privileged to
dispense with it.
His eyes met Helen’s as he finished these words, and smiling, he
complimented her upon her constant punctuality. It was a voluntary grace
in a lady, but an imperative duty in a man--and a young man.
“You are fond of this young man, I see general,” said Lord Davenant.
“But not of his fault.”
Lady Cecilia said something about forgiving a first fault.
“Never!” said Lady Davenant. “Lord Collingwood’s rule was--never forgive
a first fault, and you will not have a second. You love Beauclerc, I
see, as Lord Davenant says.”
“Love him!” resumed the general; “with all his faults and follies, I
love him as if he were my brother.”
At which words Lady Cecilia, with a scarcely perceptible smile, cast a
furtive glance at Helen.
The general called for his horses, and, followed by his aide-de-camp,
departed, saying that he should be back at luncheon-time, when he
hoped to find Beauclerc. In the same hope, Lady Davenant ordered
her pony-phaeton earlier than usual; Lady Cecilia further hoped most
earnestly that Beauclerc would come this day, for the next the house
would be full of company, and she really wished to have him one day at
least to themselves, and she gave a most significant glance at Helen.
“The first move often secures the game against the best players,” said
she.
Helen blushed, because she could not help understanding; she was
ashamed, vexed with Cecilia, yet pleased by her kindness, and half
amused by her arch look and tone.
They were neither of them aware that Lady Davenant had heard the words
that passed, or seen the looks; but immediately afterwards, when they
were leaving the breakfast-room, Lady Davenant came between the two
friends, laid her hand upon her daughter’s arm, and said,
“Before you make any move in a dangerous game, listen to the voice of
old experience.”
Lady Cecilia startled, looked up, but as if she did not comprehend.
“Cupid’s bow, my dear,” continued her mother, “is, as the Asiatics tell
us, strung with bees, which are apt to sting--sometimes fatally--those
who meddle with it.”
Lady Cecilia still looked with an innocent air, and still as if she
could not comprehend.
“To speak more plainly, then, Cecilia,” said her mother, “build
no matrimonial castles in the air; standing or falling they do
mischief--mischief either to the builder, or to those for whom they may
be built.”
“Certainly if they fall they disappoint one,” said Lady Cecilia, “but if
they stand?”
Seeing that she made no impression on her daughter, Lady Davenant turned
to Helen, and gravely said,--
“My dear Helen, do not let my daughter inspire you with false, and
perhaps vain imaginations, certainly premature, therefore unbecoming.”
Helen shrunk back, yet instantly looked up, and her look was ingenuously
grateful.
“But, mamma,” said Lady Cecilia, “I declare I do not understand what all
this is about.”
“About Mr. Granville Beauclerc,” said her mother.
“How can you, dear mamma, pronounce his name so _tout an long?_”
“Pardon my indelicacy, my dear; delicacy is a good thing, but truth a
better. I have seen the happiness of many young women sacrificed by such
false delicacy, and by the fear of giving a moment’s present pain, which
it is sometimes the duty of a true friend to give.”
“Certainly, certainly, mamma, only not necessary now; and I am so sorry
you have said all this to poor dear Helen.”
“If you have said nothing to her, Cecilia, I acknowledge I have said too
much.”
“I said--I did nothing,” cried Lady Cecilia; “I built no castles--never
built a regular castle in my life; never had a regular plan in my
existence; never mentioned his name, except about another person--”
An appealing look to Helen was however _protested_.
“To the best of my recollection, at least,” Lady Cecilia immediately
added.
“Helen seems to be blushing for your want of recollection, Cecilia.”
“I am sure I do not know why you blush, Helen. I am certain I never did
say a word distinctly.”
“Not _distinctly_ certainly,” said Helen in a low voice. “It was my
fault if I understood----”
“Always true, you are,” said Lady Davenant.
“I protest I said nothing but the truth,” cried Lady Cecilia hastily.
“But not the whole truth, Cecilia,” said her mother.
“I did, upon my word, mamma,” persisted Lady Cecilia, repeating “upon my
word.”
“Upon your word, Cecilia! that is either a vulgar expletive or a most
serious asseveration.”
She spoke with a grave tone, and with her severe look, and Helen dared
not raise her eyes; Lady Cecilia now coloured deeply.
“Shame! Nature’s hasty conscience,” said Lady Davenant. “Heaven preserve
it!”
“Oh, mother!” cried Lady Cecilia, laying her hand on her mother’s,
“surely you do not think seriously--surely you are not angry--I cannot
bear to see you displeased,” said she, looking up imploringly in her
mother’s face, and softly, urgently pressing her hand. No pressure was
returned; that hand was slowly and with austere composure withdrawn, and
her mother walked away down the corridor to her own room. Lady Cecilia
stood still, and the tears came into her eyes.
“My dear friend, I am exceedingly sorry,” said Helen. She could not
believe that Cecilia meant to say what was not true, yet she felt that
she had been to blame in not telling all, and her mother in saying too
much.
Lady Cecilia, her tears dispersed, stood looking at the impression which
her mother’s signet-ring had left in the palm of her hand. It was at
that moment a disagreeable recollection that the motto of that ring was
“Truth.” Rubbing the impress from her hand, she said, half speaking to
herself, and half to Helen--“I am sure I did not mean anything wrong;
and I am sure nothing can be more true than that I never formed a
regular plan in my life. After all, I am sure that so much has been said
about nothing, that I do not understand anything: I never do, when mamma
goes on in that way, making mountains of molehills, which she always
does with me, and did ever since I was a child; but she really forgets
that I am not a child. Now, it is well the general was not by; he would
never have borne to see his wife so treated. But I would not, for the
world, be the cause of any disagreement. Oh! Helen, my mother does not
know how I love her, let her be ever so severe to me! But she never
loved me; she cannot help it. I believe she does her best to love me--my
poor, dear mother!”
Helen seized this opportunity to repeat the warm expressions she had
heard so lately from Lady Davenant, and melting they sunk into Cecilia’s
heart. She kissed Helen again and again, for a dear, good peacemaker,
as she always was--and “I’m resolved”--but in the midst of her good
resolves she caught a glimpse through the glass door opening on the
park, of the general, and a fine horse they were ringing, and she
hurried out: all light of heart she went, as though
“Or shake the downy _blowball_ from her stalk.”
CHAPTER VII
Since Lord Davenant’s arrival, Lady Davenant’s time was so much taken
up with him, that Helen could not have many opportunities of conversing
with her, and she was the more anxious to seize every one that occurred.
She always watched for the time when Lady Davenant went out in her pony
phaeton, for then she had her delightfully to herself, the carriage
holding only two.
It was at the door, and Lady Davenant was crossing the hall followed by
Helen, when Cecilia came in with a look, unusual in her, of being much
discomfited.
“Another put off from Mr. Beauclerc! He will not be here to-day. I give
him up.”
Lady Davenant stopped short, and asked whether Cecilia had told him that
probably she should soon be gone?
“To be sure I did, mamma.”
“And what reason does he give for his delay?”
“None, mamma, none--not the least apology. He says, very cavalierly
indeed, that he is the worst man in the world at making excuses--shall
attempt none.”
“There he is right” said Lady Davenant. “Those who are good at excuses,
as Franklin justly observed, are apt to be good for nothing else.”
The general came up the steps at this moment, rolling a note between his
fingers, and looking displeased. Lady Davenant inquired if he could tell
her the cause of Mr. Beauclerc’s delay. He could not.
Lady Cecilia exclaimed--“Very extraordinary! Provoking! Insufferable!
Intolerable!”
“It is Mr. Beauclerc’s own affair,” said Lady Davenant, wrapping her
shawl round her; and, taking the general’s arm, she walked on to
her carriage. Seating herself, and gathering up the reins, she
repeated--“Mr. Beauclerc’s own affair, completely.”
The lash of her whip was caught somewhere, and, while the groom
was disentangling it, she reiterated--“That will do: let the horses
go:”--and with half-suppressed impatience thanked Helen, who was
endeavouring to arrange some ill-disposed cloak--“Thank you, thank you,
my dear: it’s all very well. Sit down, Helen.”
She drove off rapidly, through the beautiful park scenery But the
ancient oaks, standing alone, casting vast shadows, the distant massive
woods of magnificent extent and of soft and varied foliage; the secluded
glades, all were lost upon her. Looking straight between her horses’
ears, she drove on in absolute silence.
Helen’s idea of Mr. Beauclerc’s importance increased wonderfully. What
must he be whose coming or not coming could so move all the world, or
those who were all the world to her? And, left to her own cogitations,
she was picturing to herself what manner of man he might be, when
suddenly Lady Davenant turned, and asked what she was thinking of?
“I beg your pardon for startling you so, my dear; I am aware that it
is a dreadfully imprudent, impertinent question--one which, indeed, I
seldom ask. Few interest me sufficiently to make me care of what they
think: from fewer still could I expect to hear the truth. Nay--nothing
upon compulsion, Helen. Only say plainly, if you would rather not tell
me. That answer I should prefer to the ingenious formula of evasion,
the solecism in metaphysics, which Cecilia used the other day, when
unwittingly I asked her of what she was thinking--‘Of a great many
different things, mamma.’”
Helen, still more alarmed by Lady Davenant’s speech than by her
question, and aware of the conclusions which might be drawn from her
answer, nevertheless bravely replied that she had been thinking of Mr.
Beauclerc, of what he might be whose coming or not coming was of such
consequence. As she spoke the expression of Lady Davenant’s countenance
changed.
“Thank you, my dear child, you are truth itself, and truly do I love you
therefore. It’s well that you did not ask me of what I was thinking, for
I am not sure that I could have answered so directly.”
“But I could never have presumed to ask such a question of you,” said
Helen, “there is such a difference.”
“Yes,” replied Lady Davenant; “there is such a difference as age and
authority require to be made, but nevertheless, such as is not quite
consistent with the equal rights of friendship. You have told me the
subject of your day-dream, my love, and if you please, I will tell you
the subject of mine. I was rapt into times long past: I was living over
again some early scenes--some which are connected, and which connect me,
in a curious manner, with this young man, Mr. Granville Beauclerc.”
She seemed to speak with some difficulty, and yet to be resolved to go
on. “Helen, I have a mind,” continued she, “to tell you what, in the
language of affected autobiographers, I might call ‘some passages of my
life.’”
Helen’s eyes brightened, as she eagerly thanked her: but hearing a
half-suppressed sigh, she added--“Not if it is painful to you though, my
dear Lady Davenant.”
“Painful it must be,” she replied, “but it may be useful to you; and a
weak friend is that who can do only what is pleasurable. You have
often trusted me with those little inmost feelings of the heart, which,
however innocent, we shrink from exposing to any but the friends we most
love; it is unjust and absurd of those advancing in years to expect of
the young that confidence should come all and only on their side: the
human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in
return.”
Lady Davenant paused again, and then said,--“It is a general opinion,
that nobody is the better for advice.”
“I am sure I do not think so,” said Helen.
“I am glad you do not; nor do I. Much depends upon the way in which it
is offered. General maxims, drawn from experience, are, to the young at
least, but as remarks--moral sentences--mere dead letter, and take no
hold of the mind. ‘I have felt’ must come before ‘I think,’ especially
in speaking to a young friend, and, though I am accused of being so
fond of generalising that I never come to particulars, I can and will:
therefore, my dear, I will tell you some particulars of my life, in
which, take notice, there are no adventures. Mine has been a life of
passion--of feeling, at least,--not of incidents: nothing, my dear, to
excite or to gratify curiosity.”
“But, independent of all curiosity about events,” said Helen, “there
is such an interest in knowing what has been really felt and thought in
their former lives by those we know and love.”
“I shall sink in your esteem,” said Lady Davenant--“so be it.”
“I need not begin, as most people do, with ‘I was born’--” but,
interrupting herself, she said, “this heat is too much for me.”
They turned into a long shady drive through the woods. Lady Davenant
drew up the reins, and her ponies walked slowly on the grassy road;
then, turning to Helen, she said:--
“It would have been well for me if any friend had, when I was of your
age, put me on my guard against my own heart: but my too indulgent, too
sanguine mother, led me into the very danger against which she should
have warned me--she misled me, though without being aware of it. Our
minds, our very natures differed strangely.
“She was a castle-builder--yes, now you know, my dear, why I spoke so
strongly, and, as you thought, so severely this morning. My mother was
a castle-builder of the ordinary sort: a worldly plan of a castle was
hers, and little care had she about the knight within; yet she
had sufficient tact to know that it must be the idea of the _preux
chevalier_ that would lure her daughter into the castle. Prudent for
herself, imprudent for me, and yet she loved me--all she did was for
love of me. She managed with so much address, that I had no suspicion
of my being the subject of any speculation--otherwise, probably, my
imagination might have revolted, my self-will have struggled, my pride
have interfered, or my delicacy might have been alarmed, but nothing of
all that happened; I was only too ready, too glad to believe all that I
was told, all that appeared in that spring-time of hope and love. I was
very romantic, not in the modern fashionable young-lady sense of the
word, with the mixed ideas of a shepherdess’s hat and the paraphernalia
of a peeress--love in a cottage, and a fashionable house in town. No;
mine was honest, pure, real romantic love--absurd if you will; it was
love nursed by imagination more than by hope. I had early, in my
secret soul, as perhaps you have at this instant in yours, a pattern of
perfection--something chivalrous, noble, something that is no longer to
be seen now-a-days--the more delightful to imagine, the moral
sublime and beautiful; more than human, yet with the extreme of human
tenderness. Mine was to be a demigod whom I could worship, a husband to
whom I could always look up, with whom I could always sympathise, and to
whom I could devote myself with all a woman’s self-devotion. I had then
a vast idea--as I think you have now, Helen--of self-devotion; you would
devote yourself to your friends, but I could not shape any of my friends
into a fit object. So after my own imagination I made one, dwelt upon
it, doated on it, and at last threw this bright image of my own
fancy full upon the being to whom I thought I was most happily
destined--destined by duty, chosen by affection. The words ‘I love you’
once pronounced, I gave my whole heart in return, gave it, sanctified,
as I felt, by religion. I had high religious sentiments; a vow once
passed the lips, a look, a single look of appeal to Heaven, was as much
for me as if pronounced at the altar, and before thousands to witness.
Some time was to elapse before the celebration of our marriage.
Protracted engagements are unwise, yet I should not say so; this gave me
time to open my eyes--my bewitched eyes: still, some months I passed
in a trance of beatification, with visions of duties all
performed--benevolence universal, and gratitude, and high success, and
crowns of laurel, for my hero, for he was military; it all joined well
in my fancy. All the pictured tales of vast heroic deeds were to be his.
Living, I was to live in the radiance of his honour; or dying, to die
with him, and then to be most blessed.
“It is all to me now as a dream, long passed, and never told; no, never,
except to him who had a right to know it--my husband, and now to you,
Helen. From my dream I was awakened by a rude shock--I saw, I thank
Heaven I first, and I alone, saw that his heart was gone from me--that
his heart had never been mine--that it was unworthy of me. No, I
will not say that; I will not think so. Still I trust he had deceived
himself, though not so much as he deceived me. I am willing to believe
he did not know that what he professed for me was not love, till he was
seized by that passion for another, a younger, fairer----Oh! how much
fairer. Beauty is a great gift of Heaven--not for the purposes of female
vanity; but a great gift for one who loves, and wishes to be loved. But
beauty I had not.”
“Had not!” interrupted Helen, “I always heard----”
“_He_ did not think so, my dear; no matter what others thought, at least
so I felt at that time. My identity is so much changed that I can look
back upon this now, and tell it all to you calmly.
“It was at a rehearsal of ancient music; I went there accidentally one
morning without my mother, with a certain old duchess and her daughters;
the dowager full of some Indian screen which she was going to buy; the
daughters, intent, one of them, on a quarrel between two of the singers;
the other upon loves and hates of her own. I was the only one of the
party who had any real taste for music. I was then particularly fond of
it.
“Well, my dear, I must come to the point,” her voice changing as she
spoke.--“After such a lapse of time, during which my mind, my whole self
has so changed, I could not have believed before I began to speak on
this subject, that these reminiscences could have so moved me; but it is
merely this sudden wakening of ideas long dormant, for years not called
up, never put into words.
“I was sitting, wrapt in a silent ecstasy of pleasure, leaning back
behind the whispering party, when I saw him come in, and, thinking only
of his sharing my delight, I made an effort to catch his attention, but
he did not see me--his eye was fixed on another; I followed that eye,
and saw that most beautiful creature on which it fixed; I saw him seat
himself beside her--one look was enough--it was conviction. A pang went
through me; I grew cold, but made no sound nor motion; I gasped for
breath, I believe, but I did not faint. None cared for me; I was
unnoticed--saved from the abasement of pity. I struggled to retain
my self-command, and was enabled to complete the purpose on which I
then--even _then_, resolved. That resolve gave me force.
“In any great emotion we can speak better to those who do not care for
us than to those who feel for us. More calmly than I now speak to you, I
turned to the person who then sat beside me, to the dowager whose heart
was in the Indian screen, and begged that I might not longer detain her,
as I wished that she would carry me home--she readily complied: I had
presence of mind enough to move when we could do so without attracting
attention. It was well that woman talked as she did all the way home;
she never saw, never suspected, the agony of her to whom she spoke. I
ran up to my own room, bolted the door, and threw myself into a chair;
that is the last thing I remember, till I found myself lying on the
floor, wakening from a state of insensibility. I know not what time had
elapsed; so as soon as I could I rang for my maid; she had knocked at my
door, and, supposing I slept, had not disturbed me--my mother, I found,
had not yet returned.
“I dressed for dinner: HE was to dine with us. It was my custom to see
him for a few minutes before the rest of the company arrived. No time
ever appeared to me so dreadfully long as the interval between my being
dressed that day and his arrival.
“I heard him coming up stairs: my heart beat so violently that I feared
I should not be able to speak with dignity and composure, but the motive
was sufficient.
“What I said I know not; I am certain only that it was without one
word of reproach. What I had at one glance foreboded was true--he
acknowledged it. I released him from all engagement to me. I saw he was
evidently relieved by the determined tone of my refusal--at what expense
to my heart he was set free, he saw not--never knew--never suspected.
But after that first involuntary expression of the pleasure of relief, I
saw in his countenance surprise, a sort of mortified astonishment at my
self-possession. I own my woman’s pride enjoyed this; it was something
better than pride--the sense of the preservation of my dignity. I felt
that in this shipwreck of my happiness I made no cowardly exposure of my
feelings, but he did not understand me. Our minds, as I now found, moved
in different orbits. We could not comprehend each other. Instead of
feeling, as the instinct of generosity would have taught him to feel,
that I was sacrificing my happiness to his, he told me that he now
believed I had never loved him. My eyes were opened--I saw him at once
as he really was. The ungenerous look upon self-devotion as madness,
folly, or art: he could not think me a fool, he did not think me mad,
artful I believe he did suspect me to be; he concluded that I made
the discovery of his inconstancy an excuse for my own; he thought me,
perhaps, worse than capricious, interested--for, our engagement being
unknown, a lover of higher rank had, in the interval, presented himself.
My perception of this base suspicion was useful to me at the moment, as
it roused my spirit, and I went through the better, and without relapse
of tenderness, with that which I had undertaken. One condition only I
made; I insisted that this explanation should rest between us two;
that, in fact, and in manner, the breaking off the match should be left
entirely to me. And to this part of the business I now look back with
satisfaction, and I have honest pride in telling you, who will feel
the same for me, that I practised in the whole conduct of the affair no
deceit of any kind, not one falsehood was told. The world knew nothing;
there my mother had been prudent. She was the only person to whom I was
bound to explain--to speak, I mean, for I did not feel myself bound
to explain. Perfect confidence only can command perfect confidence in
whatever relation of life. I told her all that she had a right to know.
I announced to her that the intended marriage could never be--that I
objected to it; that both our minds were changed; that we were both
satisfied in having released each other from our mutual engagement.
I had, as I foresaw, to endure my mother’s anger, her entreaties, her
endless surprise, her bitter disappointment; but she exhausted all
these, and her mind turned sooner than I had expected to that hope of
higher establishment which amused her during the rest of the season in
London. Two months of it were still to be passed--to me the two most
painful months of my existence. The daily, nightly, effort of appearing
in public, while I was thus wretched, in the full gala of life in the
midst of the young, the gay, the happy--broken-hearted as I felt--it was
an effort beyond my strength. That summer was, I remember, intolerably
hot. Whenever my mother observed that I looked pale, and that my spirits
were not so good as formerly, I exerted myself more and more; accepted
every invitation because I dared not refuse; I danced at this ball,
and the next, and the next; urged on, I finished to the dregs the
dissipation of the season.
“My mother certainly made me do dreadfully too much. But I blame
others, as we usually do when we are ourselves the most to blame--I had
attempted that which could not be done. By suppressing all outward sign
of suffering, allowing no vent for sorrow in words or tears--by actual
force of compression--I thought at once to extinguish my feelings.
Little did I know of the human heart when I thought this! The weak are
wise in yielding to the first shock. They cannot be struck to the
earth who sink prostrate; sorrow has little power where there is no
resistance.--‘The flesh will follow where the pincers tear.’ Mine was a
presumptuous--it had nearly been a fatal struggle. That London season at
last over, we got into the country; I expected rest, but found none. The
pressing necessity for exertion over, the stimulus ceasing, I sunk--sunk
into a state of apathy. Time enough had elapsed between the breaking off
of my marriage and the appearance of this illness, to prevent any ideas
on my mother’s part of cause and effect, ideas indeed which were never
much looked for, or well joined in her mind. The world knew nothing of
the matter. My illness went under the convenient head ‘nervous.’ I heard
all the opinions pronounced on my case, and knew they were all mistaken,
but I swallowed whatever they pleased. No physician, I repeated to
myself, can ‘minister to a mind diseased.’
“I tried to call religion to my aid; but my religious sentiments were,
at that time, tinctured with the enthusiasm of my early character. Had I
been a Catholic, I should have escaped from my friends and thrown myself
into a cloister; as it was, I had formed a strong wish to retire from
that world which was no longer anything to me: the spring of passion,
which I then thought the spring of life, being broken, I meditated my
resolution secretly and perpetually as I lay on my bed. They used to
read to me, and, among other things, some papers of ‘The Rambler,’ which
I liked not at all; its tripod sentences tired my ear, but I let them go
on--as well one sound as another.
“It chanced that one night, as I was going to sleep, an eastern story in
‘The Rambler,’ was read to me, about some man, a-weary of the world, who
took to the peaceful hermitage. There was a regular moral tagged to the
end of it, a thing I hate, the words were, ‘No life pleasing to God that
is not useful to man.’ When I wakened in the middle of that night, this
sentence was before my eyes, and the words seemed to repeat themselves
over and over again to my ears when I was sinking to sleep. The
impression remained in my mind, and though I never voluntarily recurred
to it, came out long afterwards, perfectly fresh, and became a motive of
action.
“Strange, mysterious connection between mind and body; in mere animal
nature we see the same. The bird wakened from his sleep to be taught a
tune sung to him in the dark, and left to sleep again,--the impression
rests buried within him, and weeks afterward he comes out with the
tune perfect. But these are only phenomena of memory--mine was more
extraordinary. I am not sure that I can explain it to you. In my weak
state, my understanding enfeebled as much as my body--my reason weaker
than my memory, I could not help allowing myself to think that the
constant repetition of that sentence was a warning sent to me from
above. As I grew stronger, the superstition died away, but the sense of
the thing still remained with me. It led me to examine and reflect. It
did more than all my mother’s entreaties could effect. I had refused to
see any human creature, but I now consented to admit a few. The charm
was broken. I gave up my longing for solitude, my plan of retreat from
the world; suffered myself to be carried where they pleased--to Brighton
it was--to my mother’s satisfaction. I was ready to appear in the ranks
of fashion at the opening of the next London campaign. Automatically
I ‘ran my female exercises o’er’ with as good grace as ever. I had
followers and proposals; but my mother was again thrown into despair
by what she called the short work I made with my admirers, scarcely
allowing decent time for their turning into lovers before I warned them
not to think of me. I have heard that women who have suffered from man’s
inconstancy are disposed afterwards to revenge themselves by inflicting
pain such as they have themselves endured, and delight in all the
cruelty of coquetry. It was not so with me. Mine was too deep a
wound--skinned over--not callous, and all danger of its opening again I
dreaded. I had lovers the more, perhaps, because I cared not for
them; till amongst them there came one who, as I saw, appreciated my
character, and, as I perceived, was becoming seriously attached. To
prevent danger to his happiness, as he would take no other warning,
I revealed to him the state of my mind. However humiliating the
confession, I thought it due to him. I told him that I had no heart
to give--that I had received none in return for that with which I had
parted, and that love was over with me.
“‘As a passion, it may be so, not as an affection,’ was his reply.
“The words opened to me a view of his character. I saw, too, by his love
increasing with his esteem, the solidity of his understanding, and the
nobleness of his nature. He went deeper and deeper into my mind, till he
came to a spring of gratitude, which rose and overflowed, vivifying and
fertilising the seemingly barren waste. I believe it to be true that,
after the first great misfortune, persons never return to be the same
that they were before, but this I know--and this it is important you
should be convinced of, my dear Helen--that the mind, though sorely
smitten, can recover its powers. A mind, I mean, sustained by good
principles, and by them made capable of persevering efforts for its
own recovery. It may be sure of regaining, in time--observe, I say in
time--its healthful tone.
“Time was given to me by that kind, that noble being, who devoted
himself to me with a passion which I could not return--but, with such
affection as I could give, and which he assured me would make his
happiness, I determined to devote to him the whole of my future
existence. Happiness for me, I thought, was gone, except in so far as I
could make him happy.
“I married Lord Davenant--much against my mother’s wish, for he was then
the younger of three brothers, and with a younger brother’s very small
portion. Had it been a more splendid match, I do not think I could have
been prevailed on to give my consent. I could not have been sure of
my own motives, or rather my pride would not have been clear as to the
opinion which others might form. This was a weakness, for in acting we
ought to depend upon ourselves, and not to look for the praise or blame
of others; but I let you see me as I am, or as I was: I do not insist,
like Queen Elizabeth, in having my portrait without shade.”
CHAPTER VIII.
“I am proud to tell you, that at the time I married we were so poor,
that I was obliged to give up many of those luxuries to which I was
entitled, and to which I had been so accustomed, that the doing without
them had till then hardly come within my idea of possibility. Our whole
establishment was on the most humble scale.
“I look back to this period of my life with the greatest satisfaction.
I had exquisite pleasure, like all young people of sanguine temperament
and generous disposition, in the consciousness of the capability of
making sacrifices. This notion was my idol, the idol of the inmost
sanctuary of my mind, and I worshipped it with all the energies of body
and soul.
“In the course of a few years, my husband’s two elder brothers died. If
you have any curiosity to know how, I will tell you, though indeed it
is as little to the purpose as half the things people tell in their
histories. The eldest, a homebred lordling, who, from the moment he
slipped his mother’s apron-strings, had fallen into folly, and then, to
show himself manly, run into vice, lost his life in a duel about some
lady’s crooked thumb, or more crooked mind.
“The second brother distinguished himself in the navy; he died the death
of honour; he fell gloriously, and was by his country honoured--by his
country mourned.
“After the death of this young man, the inheritance came to my husband.
Fortune soon after poured in upon us a tide of wealth, swelled by
collateral streams.
“You will wish to know what effect this change of circumstances produced
upon my mind, and you shall, as far as I know it myself. I fancied that
it would have made none, because I had been before accustomed to all
the trappings of wealth; yet it did make a greater change in my feelings
than you could have imagined, or I could have conceived. The possibility
of producing a great effect in society, of playing a distinguished part,
and attaining an eminence which pleased my fancy, had never till now
been within my reach. The incense of fame had been wafted near me,
but not to me--near my husband I mean, yet not to him; I had heard his
brother’s name from the trumpet of fame, I longed to hear his own. I
knew, what to the world was then unknown, his great talents for civil
business, which, if urged into action, might make him distinguished as a
statesman even beyond his hero brother, but I knew that in him ambition,
if it ever awoke, must be awakened by love. Conscious of my influence, I
determined to use it to the utmost.
“Lord Davenant had not at that time taken any part in politics, but from
his connections he could ask and obtain; and there was one in the world
for whom I desired to obtain a favour of importance. It chanced that he,
whom I have mentioned to you as my inconstant lover, now married to
my lovely rival, was at this time in some difficulty about a command
abroad. His connections, though of very high rank were not now in power.
He had failed in some military exploit which had formerly been intrusted
to him. He was anxious to retrieve his character; his credit, his whole
fate in life, depended on his obtaining this appointment, which, at my
request, was secured to him by Lord Davenant. The day it was obtained
was, I think, the proudest of my life. I was proud of returning good for
evil; that was a Christian pride, if pride can be Christian. I was proud
of showing that in me there was none of the fury of a woman scorned--no
sense of the injury of charms despised.
“But it was not yet the fulness of success; it had pained me in the
midst of my internal triumph, that my husband had been obliged to use
intermediate powers to obtain that which I should have desired should
have been obtained by his own. Why should not he be in that first place
of rule? He could hold the balance with a hand as firm, an eye as just.
That he should be in the House of Peers was little satisfaction to me,
unless distinguished among his peers. It was this distinction that I
burned to see obtained by Lord Davenant; I urged him forward then by all
the motives which make ambition virtue. He was averse from public life,
partly from indolence of temper, partly from sound philosophy: power was
low in the scale in his estimate of human happiness; he saw how little
can be effected of real good in public by any individual; he felt
it scarcely worth his while to stir from his easy chair of domestic
happiness. However, love urged him on, and inspired him, if not with
ambition, at least with what looked like it in public. He entered the
lists, and in the political tournament tilted successfully. Many were
astonished, for, till they came against him in the joust, they had
no notion of his weight, or of his skill in arms; and many seriously
inclined to believe that Lord Davenant was only Lady Davenant in
disguise, and all he said, wrote, and did, was attributed to me. Envy
gratifies herself continually by thus shifting the merit from one person
to another; in hopes that the actual quantity may be diminished, she
tries to make out that it is never the real person, but somebody else
who does that which is good. This silly, base propensity might have cost
me dear, would have cost me my husband’s affections, had he not been a
man, as there are few, above all jealousy of female influence or female
talent; in short, he knew his own superiority, and needed not to measure
himself to prove his height. He is quite content, rather glad, that
every body should set him down as a common-place character. Far from
being jealous of his wife’s ruling him, he was amused by the notion: it
flattered his pride, and it was convenient to his indolence; it fell in,
too, with his peculiar humour. The more I retired, the more I was put
forward, he, laughing behind me, prompted and forbade me to look back.
“Now, Helen, I am come to a point where ambition ceased to be virtue.
But why should I tell you all this? no one is ever the better for the
experience of another.”
“Oh! I cannot believe that,” cried Helen; “pray, pray go on.”
“Ambition first rose in my mind from the ashes of another passion. Fresh
materials, of heterogeneous kinds, altered the colour, and changed the
nature of the flame: I should have told you, but narrative is not my
forte--I never can remember to tell things in their right order. I
forgot to tell you, that when Madame de Staël’s book, ‘Sur la Revolution
Française,’ came out, it made an extraordinary impression upon me. I
turned, in the first place, as every body did, eagerly to the chapter
on England, but, though my national feelings were gratified, my female
pride was dreadfully mortified by what she says of the ladies of
England; in fact, she could not judge of them. They were afraid of her.
They would not come out of their shells. What she called timidity, and
what I am sure she longed to call stupidity, was the silence of overawed
admiration, or mixed curiosity and discretion. Those who did venture,
had not full possession of their powers, or in a hurry showed them in
a wrong direction. She saw none of them in their natural state. She
asserts that, though there may be women distinguished as writers in
England, there are no ladies who have any great conversational and
political influence in society, of that kind which, during _l’ancien
régime_, was obtained in France by what they would call their _femmes
marquantes_, such as Madame de Tencin, Madame du Deffand, Mademoiselle
de l’Espinasse. This remark stung me to the quick, for my country and
for myself, and raised in me a foolish, vain-glorious emulation, an
ambition false in its objects, and unsuited to the manners, domestic
habits, and public virtue of our country. I ought to have been gratified
by her observing, that a lady is never to be met with in England, as
formerly in France, at the Bureau du Ministre; and that in England there
has never been any example of a woman’s having known in public
affairs, or at least told, what ought to have been kept secret.
Between ourselves, I suspect she was a little mistaken in some of these
assertions; but, be that as it may, I determined to prove that she
was mistaken; I was conscious that I had more within me than I had yet
brought out; I did not doubt that I had eloquence, if I had but courage
to produce it. It is really astonishing what a mischievous effect
those few passages produced on my mind. In London, one book drives out
another, one impression, however deep, is effaced by the next shaking
of the sand; but I was then in the country, for, unluckily for me, Lord
Davenant had been sent away on some special embassy. Left alone with my
nonsense, I set about, as soon as I was able, to assemble an audience
round me, to exhibit myself in the character of a female politician, and
I believe I had a notion at the same time of being the English Corinne.
Rochefoucault, the dexterous anatomist of self-love, says that we
confess our small faults, to persuade the world that we have no large
ones. But, for my part, I feel that there are some small faults more
difficult to me to confess than any large ones. Affectation, for
instance; it is something so little, so paltry, it is more than a crime,
it is a ridicule: I believe I did make myself completely ridiculous; I
am glad Lord Davenant was not by, it lasted but a short time. Our dear
good friend Dumont (you knew Dumont at Florence?) could not bear to see
it; his regard for Lord Davenant urged him the more to disenchant
me, and bring me back, before his return, to my natural form. The
disenchantment was rather rude.
“One evening, after I had been snuffing up incense till I was quite
intoxicated, when my votaries had departed, and we were alone together,
I said to him, ‘Allow that this is what would be called at Paris, _un
grand succés_.’
“Dumont made no reply, but stood opposite to me playing in his peculiar
manner with his great snuff-box, slowly swaying the snuff from side to
side. Knowing this to be a sign that he was in some great dilemma, I
asked of what he was thinking. ‘Of you,’ said he. ‘And what of me?’ In
his French accent he repeated those two provoking lines--
‘New wit, like wine, intoxicates the brain,
Too strong for feeble women to sustain.’
“‘To my face?’ said I, smiling, for I tried to command my temper.
“‘Better than behind your back, as others do,’ said he.
“‘Behind my back!’ said I; ‘impossible.’
“‘Perfectly possible,’ said he, ‘as I could prove if you were strong
enough to bear it.’
“‘Quite strong enough,’ I said, and bade him speak on.
“‘Suppose you were offered,’ said he, ‘the fairy-ring that rendered the
possessor invisible, and enabled him to hear every thing that was said,
and all that was thought of him, would you throw it away, or put it on
your finger?’
“‘Put it on my finger,’ I replied; ‘and this instant, for a true friend
is better than a magic ring, I put it on.’
“‘You are very brave,’ said he, ‘then you shall hear the lines I heard
in a rival salon, repeated by him who last wafted the censer to you
to-night.’ He repeated a kind of doggrel pasquinade, beginning with--
‘Tell me, gentles, have you seen,
The prating she, the mock Corinne?’
“Dumont, who had the courage for my good to inflict the blow, could
not stay to see its effect, and this time I was left alone, not with my
nonsense, but with my reason. It was quite sufficient. I was cured. My
only consolation in my disgrace was, that I honourably kept Dumont’s
counsel. The friend who composed the lampoon, from that day to this
never knew that I had heard it; though I must own I often longed to
tell him, when he was offering his incense again, that I wished he would
reverse his practice, and let us have the satire in my presence, and
keep the flattery for my absence. The graft of affectation, which was
but a poor weak thing, fell off at once, but the root of the evil had
not yet been reached. My friend Dumont had not cut deep enough, or
perhaps feared to cut away too much that was sound and essential to
life: my political ambition remained, and on Lord Davenant’s return
sprang up in full vigour.
“Now it is all over, I can analyse and understand my own motives: when
I first began my political course, I really and truly had no love for
power; full of other feelings, I was averse from it; it was absolutely
disagreeable to me; but as people acquire a taste for drams after making
faces at first swallowing, so I, from experience of the excitation,
acquired the habit, the love, of this mental dram-drinking; besides, I
had such delightful excuses for myself: I didn’t love power for its own
sake, it was never used for myself, always for others; ever with my old
principle of sacrifice in full play: this flattering unction I laid to
my soul, and it long hid from me its weakness, its gradual corruption.
“The first instance in which I used my influence, and by my husband’s
intervention obtained a favour of some importance, the thing done,
though actually obtained by private favour, was in a public point of
view well done and fit to be done; but when in time Lord Davenant had
reached that eminence which had been the summit of my ambition, and when
once it was known that I had influence (and in making it known between
jest and earnest Lord Davenant was certainly to blame), numbers of
course were eager to avail themselves of the discovery, swarms born in
the noontide ray, or such as salute the rising morn, buzzed round me.
I was good-natured and glad to do the service, and proud to show that I
could do it. I thought I had some right to share with Lord Davenant,
at least, the honour and pleasures of patronage, and so he willingly
allowed it to be, as long as my objects were well chosen, though he
said to me once with a serious smile, ‘The patronage of Europe would not
satisfy you; you would want India, and if you had India, you would sigh
for the New World.’ I only laughed, and said ‘The same thought as Lord
Chesterfield’s, only more neatly put.’ ‘If all Ireland were given to
such a one for his patrimony, he’d ask for the Isle of Man for his
cabbage-garden.’ Lord Davenant did not smile. I felt a little alarmed,
and a feeling of estrangement began between us.
“I recollect one day his seeing a note on my table from one of my
_protegés_, thanking me outrageously, and extolling my very obliging
disposition. He read, and threw it down, and with one of his dry-humour
smiles repeated, half to himself,
And so obliging that she ne’er obliged.’
“I thought these lines were in the Characters of Women, and I hunted all
through them in vain; at last I found them in the character of a man,
which could not suit me, and I was pacified, and, what is extraordinary,
my conscience quite put at ease.
“The week afterwards I went to make some request for a friend: my little
boy--for I had a dear little boy then--had come in along with mamma.
Lord Davenant complied with my request, but unwillingly I saw, and as if
he felt it a weakness; and, putting his hand upon the curly-pated little
fellow’s head, he said, ‘This boy rules Greece, I see.’ The child was
sent for the Grecian history, his father took him on his knee, while
he read the anecdote, and as he ended he whispered in the child’s ear,
‘Tell mamma this must not be; papa should be ruled only by justice.’ He
really had public virtue, I only talked of it.
“After this you will wonder that I could go on, but I did.
“I had at that time a friend, who talked always most romantically,
and acted most selfishly, and for some time I never noticed the
inconsistency between her words and actions. In fact she had two
currents in her mind, two selves, one romantic from books, the other
selfish from worldly education and love of fashion, and of the goods of
this world. She had charming manners, which I thought went for nothing
with me, but which I found stood for every thing. In short, she was as
caressing, as graceful, in her little ways, and as selfish as a cat. She
had claws too, but at first I only felt the velvet.
“It was for this woman that I hazarded my highest happiness--my
husband’s esteem, and for the most paltry object imaginable. She wanted
some petty place for some man who was to marry her favourite maid. When
I first mentioned it to him, Lord Davenant coldly said, ‘It can’t be
done,’ and his pen went on very quickly with the letter he was writing.
Vexed and ashamed, and the more vexed because ashamed, I persisted.
‘Cannot be done for _me_?’ said I. ‘Not for anybody,’ said he--‘by me,
at least.’--I thought--Helen, I am ashamed to tell you what I thought;
but I will tell it you, because it will show you how a mind may be
debased by the love of power, or rather by the consequence which its
possession bestows. I thought he meant to point out to me that, although
he would not do it, I might _get it done_. And, speaking as if to
myself, I said, ‘Then I’ll go to such a person; then I’ll use such and
such ways and means.’
“Looking up from his writing at me, with a look such as I had never
seen from him before, he replied, in the words of a celebrated minister,
_‘C’est facile de se servir de pareils moyens, c’est difficile de s’y
resoudre.’_
“I admired him, despised myself, left the room, and went and told my
friend decidedly it could not be done. That instant, she became my
enemy, and I felt her claws. I was proud of the wounds, and showed them
to my husband. Now, Helen, you think I am cured for ever, and safe.
Alas! no, my dear, it is not so easy to cure habit. I have, however,
some excuse--let me put it forward; the person for whom I again
transgressed was my mother, and for her I was proud of doing the utmost,
because she had, as I could not forget, been ready to sacrifice my
happiness to her speculations. She had left off building castles in the
air, but she had outbuilt herself on earth. She had often recourse to me
in her difficulties, and I supplied funds, as well I might, for I had a
most liberal allowance from my most liberal lord; but schemes of my
own, very patriotic but not overwise, had in process of time drained
my purse. I had a school at Cecilhurst, and a lace manufactory; and to
teach my little girls I must needs bring over lace-makers from Flanders,
and Lisle thread, at an enormous expense: I shut my lace-makers up in a
room (for secrecy was necessary), where, like spiders, they quarrelled
with each other and fought, and the whole failed.
“Another scheme, very patriotic too, cost me an immensity: trying to
make Indian cachemires in England, very beautiful they were, but they
left not the tenth part of a penny in my private purse, and then my
mother wanted some thousands for a new dairy; dairies were then the
fashion, and hers was to be floored with the finest Dutch tiles,
furnished with Sevre china, with plate glass windows, and a porch hung
with French mirrors; so she set me to represent to Lord Davenant her
very distressed situation, and to present a petition from her for a
pension. The first time I urged my mother’s request, Lord Davenant said,
‘I am sure, Anne, that you do not know what you are asking.’ I desisted.
I did not indeed well understand the business, nor at all comprehend
that I was assisting a fraudulent attempt to obtain public money for a
private purpose, but I wished to have the triumph of success, I wished
to feel my own influence.
“Had it been foretold to me that I could so forget myself in the
intoxication of political power, how I should have disdained the
prophecy--‘Lord, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’
There is a fine sermon of Blair’s on this subject; it had early made a
great impression upon me; but what are good impressions, good feelings,
good impulses, good intentions, good any thing, without principle?
“My mother wondered how I could so easily take a refusal; she piqued
my pride by observing that she was sorry my influence had declined; her
pity, so near contempt, wounded me, and I unadvisedly exclaimed that my
influence had in no way declined. Scarcely had I uttered the words, when
I saw the inference to which they laid me open, that I had not used
my influence to the utmost for her. My mother had quite sense and just
feeling enough to refrain from marking this in words. She noted it
only by an observing look, followed by a sigh. She confessed that I had
always been so kind, so much kinder than she could have expected, that
she would say no more. This was more to the purpose with me than if
she had talked for hours. I heard fresh sighs, and saw tears begin to
flow--a mother’s sighs and tears it is difficult, and I felt it was
shameful, to bear. I was partly melted, much confused, and hurried, too,
by visitors coming in, and I hastily promised that I would try once more
what I could do. The moment I had time for reflection I repented of what
I had promised. But the words were past recall. It was so disagreeable
to me to speak about the affair to my husband, that I wanted to get it
off my mind as soon as possible, but the day passed without my being
able to find a moment when I could speak to Lord Davenant in private.
Company stayed till late, my mother the latest. At parting, as she
kissed me, calling me her dearest Anne, she said she was convinced I
could do whatever I pleased with Lord Davenant, and as she was going
down stairs, added, she was sure the first words she should hear from me
in the morning would be ‘Victory, victory!’
“I hated myself for admitting the thought, and yet there it was; I let
it in, and could not get it out. From what an indescribable mixture of
weak motives or impulses, and often without one reasonable principle, do
we act in the most important moments of life. Even as I opened the door
of his room I hesitated, my heart beat forebodingly, but I thought I
could not retreat, and I went in.
“He was standing on the hearth looking weary, but a reviving smile came
on seeing me, and he held out his hand--‘My comfort always,’ said he.
“I took his hand, and, hesitating, was again my better self; but I would
not go back, nor could I begin with any preface.--Thank Heaven that was
impossible. I began:--
“‘Davenant, I am come to ask you a favour, and you must do it for me.’
“‘I hope it is in my power, my dear,’ said he; ‘I am sure you would not
ask--’ and there he stopped.
“I told him it was in his power, and that I would not ask it for any
creature living, but--’ He put his hand upon my lips, told me he knew
what I was going to say, and begged me not to say it; but I, hoping to
carry it off playfully, kissed his hand, and putting it aside said, ‘I
must ask, and you must grant this to my mother.’ He replied, ‘It cannot
be, Anne, consistently with public justice, and with my public duty.
I--’
“‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ I said, ‘such words are only to mask a refusal.’
_Mask_, I remember, was the word that hurt him. Of all I could have
used, it was the worst: I knew it the instant I had said it. Lord
Davenant stepped back, and with such a look! You, Helen, who have seen
only his benign countenance, his smiling eyes, cannot conceive it. I am
sure he must have seen how much it alarmed me, for suddenly it changed,
and I saw all the melting softness of love.
“Oh fool! vain wicked fool that I was! I thought of ‘victory,’ and
pursued it. My utmost power of persuasion--words--smiles--and tears I
tried--and tried in vain; and then I could not bear to feel that I had
in vain made this trial of power and love. Shame and pride and
anger seized me by turns, and raised such a storm within me--such
confusion--that I knew not what I did or said. And he was so calm!
looked so at least, though I am sure he was not. His self-possession
piqued and provoked me past all bearing. I cannot tell you exactly
how it was--it was so dreadfully interesting to me that I am unable to
recall the exact words; but I remember at last hearing him say, in a
voice I had never before heard, ‘Lady Davenant!’--He had never called
me so before; he had always called me ‘Anne:’ it seemed as if he had
dismissed me from his heart.
“‘Call me Anne! O call me Anne!’
“And he yielded instantly, he called me Anne, and caressing me, ‘his
Anne.’ ‘O Helen! never do as I did.’ I whispered, ‘Then, my love, you
will do this for me--for me, your own Anne?’
“He put me gently away, and leaned against the chimney-piece in silence.
Then turning to me, in a low suppressed voice, he said,--
“‘I have loved you--love you as much as man can love woman, there is
nothing I would not sacrifice for you except--’
“‘No exceptions!’ cried I, in an affected tone of gaiety.
“‘Except honour,’ he repeated firmly.--Helen, my dear, you are of a
generous nature, so am I, but the demon of pride was within me, it made
me long to try the extent of my power. Disappointed, I sunk to meanness;
never, never, however tempted, however provoked, never do as I did,
never reproach a friend with any sacrifice you have made for them; this
is a meanness which your friend may forgive, but which you can never
forgive yourself.
“I reproached him with the sacrifice of my feelings, which I had made
in marrying him! His answer was, ‘I feel that what you say is true, I
am now convinced you are incapable of loving me; and since I cannot make
you happy, we had better--part.’
“These were the last words I heard. The blow was wholly unexpected.
“Whether I sunk down, or threw myself at his feet, I know not; but when
I came to myself he was standing beside me. There were other faces, but
my eyes saw only his: I felt his hand holding mine, I pressed it, and
said, ‘Forget.’ He stooped down and whispered, ‘It is forgotten.’
“I believe there is nothing can touch a generous mind so much as the
being treated with perfect generosity--nothing makes us so deeply feel
our own fault.”
Lady Davenant was here so much moved that she could say no more. By an
involuntary motion, she checked the reins, and the horses stopped, and
she continued quite silent for a few minutes: at length two or three
deeply drawn sighs seemed to relieve her; she looked up, and her
attention seemed to be caught by a bird that was singing sweetly on a
branch over their heads. She asked what bird it was? Helen showed it to
her where it sat: she looked up and smiled, touched the horses with
her whip, and went on where she had left off.--“The next thing was the
meeting my mother in the morning; I prepared myself for it, and thought
I was now armed so strong in honesty that I could go through with it
well: my morality, however, was a little nervous, was fluttered by the
knock at the door, and, when I heard her voice as she came towards my
room, asking eagerly if I was alone, I felt a sickness at the certainty
that I must at once crush her hopes. But I stood resolved; my eyes
fixed on the door through which she was to enter. She came in, to my
astonishment, with a face radiant with joy, and hastening to me she
embraced me with the warmest expression of fondness and gratitude.--I
stood petrified as I heard her talk of my kindness--my generosity. I
asked what she could mean, said there must be some mistake. But holding
before my eyes a note, ‘Can there be any mistake in this?’ said she.
That note, for I can never forget it, I will repeat to you.
“‘What you wish can be done in a better manner than you proposed.
The public must have no concern with it; Lady Davenant must have the
pleasure of doing it her own way; an annuity to the amount required
shall be punctually paid to your banker. The first instalment will be in
his hands by the time you receive this.--DAVENANT.’
“When I had been formerly disenchanted from my trance of love, the
rudeness of the shock had benumbed all my faculties, and left me
scarcely power to think; but now, when thus recovered from the delirium
of power, I was immediately in perfect possession of my understanding,
and when I was made to comprehend the despicable use I would have
made of my influence, or the influence my husband possessed, I was so
shocked, that I have ever since, I am conscious, in speaking of any
political corruption, rather exaggerated my natural abhorrence of it.
Not from the mean and weak idea of convincing the world how foreign
all such wrong was to my soul, but because it really is foreign to it,
because I know how it can debase the most honourable characters; I feel
so much shocked at the criminal as at the crime, because I saw it once
in all its hideousness so near myself.
“A change in the ministry took place this year, Lord Davenant’s
resignation was sent in and accepted, and in retirement I had not only
leisure to be good, but also leisure to cultivate my mind. Of course I
had read all such reading as ladies read, but this was very different
from the kind of study that would enable me to keep pace with Lord
Davenant and his highly informed friends. Many of these, more men of
thought than of show, visited us from time to time in the country.
Though I had passed very well in London society, blue, red, and green,
literary, fashionable, and political, and had been extolled as both
witty and wise, especially when my husband was in place; yet when I
came into close contact with minds of a higher order, I felt my own
deficiencies. Lord Davenant’s superiority I particularly perceived in
the solidity of the ground he uniformly took and held in reasoning. And
when I, too confident, used to venture rashly, and often found myself
surrounded, and in imminent danger in argument, he used to bring me off
and ably cover my retreat, and looked so pleased, so proud, when I made
a happy hit, or jumped to a right conclusion.
“But what I most liked, most admired, in him was, that he never
triumphed or took unfair advantages on the strength of his learning, of
his acquirements, or of what I may call his logical training.
“I mention these seeming trifles because it is not always in the great
occasions of life that a generous disposition shows itself in the way
which we most feel. Little instances of generosity shown in this way,
unperceived by others, have gone most deeply into my mind; and have most
raised my opinion of his character. The sense that I was over rather
than under valued, made me the more ready to acknowledge and feel my own
deficiencies. I felt the truth of an aphorism of Lord Verulam’s, which
is now come down to the copy-books; that ‘knowledge is power.’ Having
made this notable discovery, I set about with all my might to acquire
knowledge. You may smile, and think that this was only in a new form
the passion for power; no, it was something better. Not to do myself
injustice, I now felt the pure desire of knowledge, and enjoyed the pure
pleasure of obtaining it; assisted, supported, and delighted, by the
sympathy of a superior mind.
“As to intellectual happiness, this was the happiest time of my life.
As if my eyes had been rubbed by your favourite dervise in the Arabian
tales, with this charmed ointment, which opened at once to view all the
treasures of the earth, I saw and craved the boundless treasures opened
to my view. I now wanted to read all that Lord Davenant was reading,
that I might be up to his ideas, but this was not to be done in an
instant. There was a Frenchwoman who complained that she never could
learn any thing, because she could not find anybody to teach her all
she wanted to know in two words. I was not quite so _exigeante_ as
this lady; but, after having skated on easily and rapidly, far on the
superficies of knowledge, it was difficult and rather mortifying to have
to go back and begin at the beginning. Yet, when I wanted to go a little
deeper, and really to understand what I was about, this was essentially
necessary. I could not have got through without the assistance of one
who showed me what I might safely leave unlearned, and who pointed out
what fruit was worth climbing for, what would only turn to ashes.
“This happy time of my life too quickly passed away. It was interrupted,
however, not by any fault or folly of my own, but by an infliction
from the hand of Providence, to which I trust I submitted with
resignation--we lost our dear little boy; my second boy was born dead,
and my confinement was followed by long and severe illness. I was
ordered to try the air of Devonshire.
“One night--now, my dear, I have kept for the last the only romantic
incident in my life--one night, a vessel was wrecked upon our coast;
one of the passengers, a lady, an invalid, was brought to our house; I
hastened to her assistance--it was my beautiful rival!
“She was in a deep decline, and had been at Lisbon for some time, but
she was now sent home by the physicians, as they send people from one
country to another to die. The captain of the ship in which she was
mistook the lights upon the coast, and ran the ship ashore near to our
house.
“Of course we did for her all we could, but she was dying: she knew
nothing of my history, and I trust I soothed her last moments--she died
in my arms.
“She had one child, a son, then at Eton: we sent for him; he arrived too
late; the feeling he showed interested us deeply; we kept him with us
some time; he was grateful; and afterwards as he grew up he often wrote
to me. His letters you have read.”
“Mr. Beauclerc!” said Helen.
“Mr. Beauclerc.--I had not seen him for some time, when General
Clarendon presented him to me as his ward at Florence, where I had
opportunities of essentially serving him. You may now understand,
my dear, why I had expected that Mr. Granville Beauclerc might have
preferred coming to Clarendon Park this last month of my stay in England
to the pleasures of London. I was angry, I own, but after five minutes’
grace I cooled, saw that I must be mistaken, and came to the just
conclusion of the old poet, that no one sinks at once to the depth of
ill, and ingratitude I consider as the depth of ill. I opine, therefore,
that some stronger feeling than friendship now operates to detain
Granville Beauclerc. In that case I forgive him, but, for his own sake,
and with such a young man I should say for the sake of society--of the
public good--for he will end in public life, I hope the present object
is worthy of him, whoever she may be.
“Have I anything more to tell you? Yes, I should say that, when by
changes in the political world Lord Davenant was again in power, I had
learned, if not to be less ambitious, at least to show it less. D----,
who knew always how to put sense into my mind, so that I found it there,
and thought it completely my own, had once said that ‘every public man
who has a cultivated and high-minded wife, has in fact two selves, each
holding watch and ward for the other.’ The notion pleased me--pleased
both my fancy and my reason; I acted on it, and Lord Davenant assures
me that I have been this second self to him, and I am willing to believe
it, first because he is a man of strict truth, and secondly, because
every woman is willing to believe what she wishes.”
Lady Davenant paused, and after some minutes of reflection said, “I
confess, however, that I have not reason to be quite satisfied with
myself as a mother; I did not attend sufficiently to Cecilia’s early
education: engrossed with politics, I left her too much to governesses,
at one period to a very bad one. I have done what I can to remedy this,
and you have done more perhaps; but I much fear that the early neglect
can never be completely repaired; she is, however, married to a man of
sense, and when I go to Russia I shall think with satisfaction that I
leave you with her.”
After expressing how deeply she had been interested in all that she
had heard, and how grateful she felt for the confidence reposed in her,
Helen said she could not help wishing that Cecilia knew all that had
been just told her of Lady Davenant’s history. If Cecilia could but know
all the tenderness of her mother’s heart, how much less would she fear,
how much more would she love her!
“It would answer no purpose,” replied Lady Davenant; “there are persons
with intrinsic differences of character, who, explain as you will, can
never understand one another beyond a certain point. Nature and art
forbid--no spectacles you can furnish will remedy certain defects of
vision. Cecilia sees as much as she can ever see of my character, and I
see, in the best light, the whole of hers. So Helen, my dear, take the
advice of a Scotch proverb--proverbs are vulgar, because they usually
contain common sense--‘Let well alone.’”
“You are really a very good little friend,” added she, “but keep my
personal narrative for your own use.”
CHAPTER IX.
It was late before they reached home, and Helen dressed as fast as
possible, for the general’s punctual habits required that all should
assemble in the drawing-room five minutes at least before dinner. She
was coming down the private turret staircase, which led from the family
apartments to the great hall, when, just at the turn, and in the most
awkward way possible, she met a gentleman, a stranger, where never
stranger had been seen by her before, running up full speed, so that
they had but barely space and time to clear out of each other’s way.
Pardons were begged of course. The manner and voice of the stranger were
particularly gentlemanlike. A servant followed with his portmanteau,
inquiring into which room Mr. Beauclerc was to go?
“Mr. Beauclerc!”--When Helen got to the drawing-room, and found that not
even the general was there, she thought she could have time to run
up the great staircase to Lady Davenant’s room, and tell her that Mr.
Beauclerc was come.
“My dear Lady Davenant, Mr. Beauclerc!”--He was there! and she made her
retreat as quickly as possible. The quantity that had been said about
him, and the awkward way in which they had thus accidentally met, made
her feel much embarrassed when they were regularly introduced.
At the beginning of dinner, Helen fancied that there was unusual silence
and constraint; perhaps this might be so, or perhaps people were really
hungry, or perhaps Mr. Beauclerc had not yet satisfied the general and
Lady Davenant: however, towards the end of dinner, and at the dessert,
he was certainly entertaining; and Lady Cecilia appeared particularly
amused by an account which he was giving of a little French piece he
had seen just before he left London, called “Les Premieres Amours,” and
Helen might have been amused too, but that Lady Cecilia called upon her
to listen, and, Mr. Beauclerc turning his eyes upon her, she saw, or
fancied that he was put out in his story, and though he went on with
perfect good breeding, yet it was evidently with diminished spirit. As
soon as politeness permitted, at the close of the story, she, to relieve
him and herself, turned to the aide-de-camp on her other side, and
devoted, or seemed to devote, to him her exclusive attention. He was
always tiresome to her, but now more than ever; he went on, when
once set a-going, about his horses and his dogs, while she had the
mortification of hearing almost immediately after her seceding, that Mr.
Beauclerc recovered the life and spirit of his tone, and was in full and
delightful enjoyment of conversation with Lady Cecilia. Something very
entertaining caught her ear every now and then; but, with her eyes fixed
in the necessary direction, it was impossible to make it out, through
the aid-de-camp’s never-ending tediousness. She thought the sitting
after dinner never would terminate, though it was in fact rather shorter
than usual.
As soon as they reached the drawing-room, Lady Cecilia asked her mother
what was the cause of Granville’s delay in town, and why he had come
to-day, after he had written it was impossible?
Lady Davenant answered, that he had ‘trampled,’ as Lord Chatham did, ‘on
impossibilities.’ “It was not a physical impossibility, it seems.”
“I’m sure--I hope,” continued Cecilia, “that none of the Beltravers’ set
had any thing to do with his delay, yet from a word or two the general
let fall, I’m almost sure that they have--Lady Blanche, I’m afraid--.”
There she stopped. “If it were only a money difficulty with Lord
Beltravers,” resumed she, “that might be easily settled, for Beauclerc
is rich enough.”
“Yes,” said Lady Davenant, “but rashly generous; an uncommon fault in
these days, when young men are in general selfishly prudent or selfishly
extravagant.”
“I hope,” said Cecilia,--“I hope Lady Blanche Forrester will not--”
there she paused, and consulted her mother’s countenance; her mother
answered that Beauclerc had not spoken to her of Lady Blanche. After
putting her hopes and fears, questions and conjectures, into every
possible form and direction, Lady Cecilia was satisfied that her mother
knew no more than herself, and this was a great comfort.
When Mr. Beauclerc reappeared, Helen was glad that she was settled at an
embroidery frame, at the furthest end of the room, as there, apart from
the world, she felt safe from all cause for embarrassment, and there she
continued happy till some one came to raise the light of the lamp
over her head. It was Mr. Beauclerc, and, as she looked up, she gave a
foolish little start of surprise, and then all her confusion returning,
with thanks scarce audible, her eyes were instantly fixed on the
vine leaf she was embroidering. He asked how she could by lamplight
distinguish blue from green? a simple and not very alarming question,
but she did not hear the words rightly, and thinking he asked whether
she wished for a screen, she answered “No, thank you.”
Lady Cecilia laughed, and covering Helen’s want of hearing by
Beauclerc’s want of sight, explained--“Do not you see, Granville,
the silk-cards are written upon, ‘blue’ and ‘green;’ there can be no
mistake.”
Mr. Beauclerc made a few more laudable attempts at conversation with
Miss Stanley, but she, still imagining that this was forced, could not
in return say anything but what seemed forced and unnatural, and as
unlike her usual self as possible. Lady Cecilia tried to relieve her;
she would have done better to have let it alone, for Beauclerc was not
of the French wit’s opinion that, _La modestie n’est bonne qu’à quinze
ans_, and to him it appeared only a graceful timidity. Helen retired
earlier than any one else, and, when she thought over her foolish
awkwardness, felt as much ashamed as if Mr. Beauclerc had actually heard
all that Lady Cecilia had said about him--had seen all her thoughts, and
understood the reason of her confusion. At last, when Lady Cecilia came
into her room before she went to bed, she began with--“I am sure you are
going to scold me, and I deserve it, I am so provoked with myself, and
the worst of it is, that I do not think I shall ever get over it--I am
afraid I shall be just as foolish again tomorrow.”
“I could find it in my heart to scold you to death,” said Lady Cecilia,
“but that I am vexed myself.”
Then hesitating, and studying Helen’s countenance, she seemed doubtful
how to proceed. Either she was playing with Helen’s curiosity, or she
was really herself perplexed. She made two or three beginnings, each a
little inconsistent with the other.
“Mamma is always right; with her--‘coming events’ really and truly ‘cast
their shadows before.’ I do believe she has the fatal gift, the coming
ill to know!”
“Ill!” said Helen; “what ill is coming?”
“After all, however, it may not be an ill,” said Lady Cecilia; “it may
be all for the best; yet I am shockingly disappointed, though I declare
I never formed any--”
“Oh, my dear Cecilia, do tell me at once what it is you mean.”
“I mean, that Granville Beauclerc, like all men of genius, has acted
like the greatest fool.”
“What has he done?”
“He is absolutely--you must look upon him in future--as a married man.”
Helen was delighted. Cecilia could form no farther schemes on her
account, and she felt relieved from all her awkwardness.
“Dearest Helen, this is well at all events,” cried Cecilia, seeing her
cleared countenance. “This comforts me; you are at ease; and, if I have
caused you one uncomfortable evening, I am sure you are consoled for it
by the reflection that my mother was right, and I, as usual, wrong. But,
Helen,” continued she earnestly, “remember that this is not to be known;
remember you must not breathe the least hint of what I have told you to
mamma or the general.”
Something more than astonishment appeared in Helen’s countenance. “And
is it possible that Mr. Beauclerc does not tell them,--does not trust
his guardian and such a friend as your mother?” said Helen.
“He will tell them, he will tell them--but not yet; perhaps not till--he
is not to see his fiancée--they have for some reason agreed to be
separated for some time--I do not know exactly, but surely every body
may choose their own opportunity for telling their own secrets. In fact,
Helen, the lady, I understand, made it a point with him that nothing
should be said of it yet--to any one.”
“But he told it to you?”
“No, indeed, he did not tell it; I found it out, and he could not deny
it; but he charged me to keep it secret, and I would not have told it to
any body living but yourself; and to you, after all I said about him, I
felt it was necessary--thought I was bound--in short, I thought it would
set things to rights, and put you at your ease at once.”
And then, with more earnestness, she again pressed upon Helen a promise
of secrecy, especially towards Lady Davenant. Helen submitted. Cecilia
embraced her affectionately, and left the room. Quite tired, and quite
happy, Helen was in bed and asleep in a few minutes.
Not the slightest suspicion crossed her mind that all her friend had
been telling her was not perfectly true. To a more practised, a less
confiding, person the perplexity of Lady Cecilia’s prefaces, and some
contradictions or inconsistencies, might have suggested doubts; but
Helen’s general confidence in her friend’s truth had never yet been
seriously shaken. Lady Davenant she had always thought prejudiced on
this point, and too severe. If there had been in early childhood a bad
habit of inaccuracy in Cecilia, Helen thought it long since cured; and
so perhaps it was, till she formed a friendship abroad with one who had
no respect for truth.
But of this Helen knew nothing; and, in fact, till now Lady Cecilia’s
aberrations had been always trifling, almost imperceptible, errors, such
as only her mother’s strictness or Miss Clarendon’s scrupulosity could
detect. Nor would Cecilia have ventured upon a decided, an important,
false assertion, except for a kind purpose. Never in her life had she
told a falsehood to injure any human creature, or one that she could
foresee might, by any possibility do harm to any living being. But
here was a friend, a very dear friend, in an awkward embarrassment, and
brought into it by her means; and by a little innocent stretching of the
truth she could at once, she fancied, set all to rights. The moment the
idea came into her head, upon the spur of the occasion, she resolved to
execute it directly. It was settled between the drawing-room door and
her dressing-room. And when thus executed successfully, with happy
sophistry she justified it to herself. “After all,” said she to herself,
“though it was not absolutely true, it was _ben trovato_, it was as near
the truth, perhaps, as possible. Beauclerc’s best friends really feared
that he was falling in love with the lady in question. It was very
likely, and too likely, it might end in his marrying this Lady Blanche
Forrester. And, on every account, and every way, it was for the best
that Helen should consider him as a married man. This would restore
Helen by one magical stroke to herself, and release her from that
wretched state in which she could neither please nor be pleased.” And
as far as this good effect upon Helen was concerned, Lady Cecilia’s plan
was judicious; it succeeded admirably.
Wonderful! how a few words spoken, a single idea taken, out of or
put into the mind, can make such a difference, not only in the mental
feelings, but in the whole bodily appearance, and in the actual powers
of perception and use of our senses.
When Helen entered the breakfast-room the next morning, she looked, and
moved, and felt, quite a different creature from what she had been the
preceding day. She had recovered the use of her understanding, and she
could hear and see quite distinctly; and the first thing she saw was,
that nobody was thinking particularly about her; and now she for the
first time actually saw Mr. Beauclerc. She had before looked at him
without seeing him, and really did not know what sort of looking person
he was, except that he was like a gentleman; of that she had a sort of
intuitive perception;--as Cuvier could tell from the first sight of a
single bone what the animal was, what were its habits, and to what class
it belonged, so any person early used to good company can, by the first
gesture, the first general manner of being, passive or active, tell
whether a stranger, even scarcely seen, is or is not a gentleman.
At the beginning of breakfast, Mr. Beauclerc had all the perfect
English quiet of look and manners, with somewhat of a high-bred air of
indifference to all sublunary things, yet saying and doing whatever was
proper for the present company; yet it was done and said like one in
a dream, performed like a somnambulist, correctly from habit, but all
unconsciously. He awakened from his reverie the moment General Clarendon
came in, and he asked eagerly,--
“General! how far is it to Old Forest?” These were the first words which
he pronounced like one wide awake. “I must ride there this morning; it’s
absolutely necessary.”
The general replied that he did not see the necessity.
“But when I do, sir,” cried Beauclerc; the natural vivacity of the young
man breaking through the conventional manner. Next moment, with a humble
look, he hoped that the general would accompany him, and the look of
proud humility vanished from his countenance the next instant, because
the general demurred, and Beauclerc added, “Will not you oblige me so
far? Then I must go by myself.”
The general, seeming to go on with his own thoughts, and not to be moved
by his ward’s impatience, talked of a review that was to be put off, and
at length found that he could accompany him. Beauclerc then, delighted,
thanked him warmly.
“What is the object of this essential visit to Old Forest, may I ask?”
said Lady Davenant.
“To see a dilapidated house,” said the general.
“To save a whole family from ruin,” cried Beauclerc; “to restore a man
of first-rate talents to his place in society.”
“Pshaw!” said the general.
“Why that contemptuous exclamation, my dear general?” said Beauclerc.
“I have told you, and again I tell you, the thing is impossible!” said
the general.
“So I hear you say, sir,” replied his ward; “but till I am convinced, I
hold to my project.”
“And what is your project, Granville?” said Lady Davenant.
“I will explain it to you when we are alone,” said Beauclerc.
“I beg your pardon, I was not aware that there was any mystery,” said
Lady Davenant. “No mystery,” said Beauclerc, “only about lending some
money to a friend.”
“To which I will not consent,” said the general.
“Why not, sir?” said Beauclerc, throwing back his head with an air of
defiance in his countenance; there was as he looked at his guardian a
quick, mutable succession of feelings, in striking contrast with the
fixity of the general’s appearance.
“I have given you my reasons, Beauclerc,” said the general, “It is
unnecessary to repeat what I have said, you will do no good.”
“No good, general? When I tell you that if I lend Beltravers the money,
to put his place in repair, to put it in such a state that his sisters
could live in it, he would no longer be a banished man, a useless
absentee, a wanderer abroad, but he would come and settle at Old Forest,
re-establish the fortune and respectability of his family, and above
all, save his own character and happiness. Oh, my dear general!”
General Clarendon, evidently moved by his ward’s benevolent enthusiasm,
paused and said that there were many recollections which made it
rather painful to him to revisit Old Forest. Still he would do it for
Beauclerc, since nothing but seeing the place would convince him of
the impracticability of his scheme. “I have not been at Old Forest,”
continued the general, “since I was a boy--since it was deserted by the
owners, and sadly changed I shall find it.
“In former times these Forresters were a respectable, good old English
family, till the second wife, pretty and silly, took a fancy for
figuring in London, where of course she was nobody. Then, to make
herself somebody, she forced her husband to stand for the county. A
contested election--bribery--a petition--another election--ruinous
expense. Then that Beltravers title coming to them: and they were to
live up to it,--and beyond their income. The old story--over head and
shoulders in debt. Then the new story,--that they must go abroad for
economy!”
“Economy! The cant of all those who have not courage to retrench at
home,” said Lady Davenant.
“They must,” they said, “live abroad, it is so cheap,” continued the
general. “So cheap to leave their house to go to ruin! Cheap education
too! and so good--and what does it come to?”
“A cheap provision it is for a family in many cases,” said Lord
Davenant. “Wife, son, and daughter, Satan, are thy own.”
“Not in this case,” cried Beauclerc; “you cannot mean I hope.”
“I can answer for one, the daughter at least,” said Lady Davenant; “that
Mad. de St. Cimon, whom we saw abroad, at Florence, you know, Cecilia,
with whom I would not let you form an acquaintance.”
“Your ladyship was quite right,” said the general.
Beauclerc could not say, “Quite wrong,”--and he looked--suffering.
“I know nothing of the son,” pursued Lady Davenant.
“I do,” said Beauclerc, “he is my friend.”
“I thought he had been a very distressed man, that young Beltravers,”
said the aid-de-camp.
“And if he were, that would not prevent my being his friend, sir,” said
Beauclerc.
“Of course,” said the aid-de-camp, “I only asked.”
“He is a man of genius and feeling,” continued Beauclerc, turning to
Lady Davenant.
“But I never heard you mention Lord Beltravers before. How long has he
been your friend?” said Lady Davenant.
Beauclerc hesitated. The general without hesitation answered, “Three
weeks and one day.”
“I do not count my friendship by days or weeks,” said Beauclerc.
“No, my dear Beauclerc,” said the general: “well would it be for you if
you would condescend to any such common-sense measure.” He rose from the
breakfast-table as he spoke, and rang the bell to order the horses.
“You are prejudiced against Beltravers, general; but you will think
better of him, I am sure, when you know him.”
“You will think worse of him when you know him, I suspect,” replied the
general.
“Suspect! But since you only _suspect_,” said Beauclerc, “we English do
not condemn on suspicion, unheard, unseen.”
“Not unheard,” said the general, “I have heard enough of him.”
“From the reports of his enemies,” said Beauclerc.
“I do not usually form my judgment,” replied the general, “from reports
either of friends or enemies; I have not the honour of knowing any of
Lord Beltravers’ enemies.”
“Enemies of Lord Beltravers!” exclaimed Lady Davenant. “What right as
he to enemies as if he were a great man?--a person of whom nobody ever
heard, setting up to have enemies! But now-a-days, these candidates
for fame, these would-be celebrated, set up their enemies as they would
their equipages, on credit--then, by an easy process of logic, make out
the syllogism thus:--Every great man has enemies, therefore, every man
who has enemies must be great--hey, Beauclerc?”
Beauclerc vouchsafed only a faint, absent smile, and, turning to his
guardian, asked--“Since Lord Beltravers was not to be allowed the
honours of enemies, or the benefit of pleading prejudice, on what _did_
the general form his judgment?”
“From his own words.”
“Stay judgment, my dear general,” cried Beauclerc; “words repeated! by
whom?”
“Repeated by no one--heard from himself, by myself.”
“Yourself! I was not aware you had ever met;--when? where?” Beauclerc
started forward on his chair, and listened eagerly for the answer.
“Pity!” said Lady Davenant, speaking to herself,--“pity! that ‘with such
quick affections kindling into flame,’ they should burn to waste.”
“When, where?” repeated Beauclerc, with his eyes fixed on his guardian,
and his soul in his eyes.
Soberly and slowly his guardian answered, and categorically,--“When did
I meet Lord Beltravers? A short time before his father’s death.--Where?
At Lady Grace Bland’s.”
“At Lady Grace Bland’s!--where he could not possibly appear to
advantage! Well, go on, sir.”
“One moment--pardon me, Beauclerc; I have curiosity as well as yourself.
May I ask why Lord Beltravers could not possibly have appeared to
advantage at Lady Grace Bland’s?”
“Because I know he cannot endure her; I have heard him, speaking of her,
quote what Johnson or somebody says of Clariss--‘a prating, preaching,
frail creature.’”
“Good!” said the general, “he said this of his own aunt!”
“Aunt! You cannot mean that Lady Grace is his aunt?” cried Beauclerc.
“She is his mother’s sister,” replied the general, “and therefore is, I
conceive, his aunt.”
“Be it so,” cried Beauclerc; “people must tell the truth sometimes, even
of their own relations; they must know it best, and therefore I conclude
that what Beltravers said of Lady Grace is true.”
“Bravo! well jumped to a conclusion, Granville, as usual,” said Lady
Davenant, “But go on, general, tell us what you have heard from this
precious lord; can you have better than what Beauclerc, his own witness,
gives in evidence?”
“Better I think, and in the same line,” said the general: “his lordship
has the merit of consistency. At table, servants of course present, and
myself a stranger, I heard Lord Beltravers begin by cursing England
and all that inhabit it. ‘But your country!’ remonstrated his aunt. He
abjured England; he had no country, he said, no liberal man ever has;
he had no relations--what nature gave him without his consent he had a
right to disclaim, I think he argued. But I can swear to these words,
with which he concluded--‘My father is an idiot, my mother a brute, and
my sister may go to the devil her own way.’”
“Such bad taste!” said the aid-de-camp.
Lady Davenant smiled at the unspeakable astonishment in Helen’s face.
“When you have lived one season in the world, my dear child, this power
of surprise will be worn out.”
“But even to those who have seen the world,” said the aide-de-camp, who
had seen the world, “as it strikes me, really it is such extraordinary
bad taste!”
“Such ordinary bad taste! as it strikes me,” said Lady Davenant; “base
imitation, and imitation is always a confession of poverty, a want of
original genius. But then there are degrees among the race of imitators.
Some choose their originals well, some come near them tolerably; but
here, all seems equally bad, clumsy, Birmingham counterfeit; don’t you
think so, Beauclerc? a counterfeit that falls and makes no noise. There
is the worst of it for your protégé, whose great ambition I am sure it
is to make a noise in the world. However, I may spare my remonstrances,
for I am quite aware that you would never let drop a friend.”
“Never, never!” cried Beauclerc.
“Then, my dear Granville, do not take up this man, this Lord Beltravers,
for, depend upon it, he will never do. If he had made a bold stroke for
a reputation, like a great original, and sported some deed without
a name, to work upon the wonder-loving imagination of the credulous
English public, one might have thought something of him. But this
cowardly, negative sin, _not_ honouring his father and mother! so
commonplace, too, neutral tint--no effect. Quite a failure, one cannot
even stare, and you know, Granville, the object of all these strange
speeches is merely to make fools stare. To be the wonder of the London
world for a single day, is the great ambition of these ephemeral
fame-hunters ‘insects that shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting
sun.’”
Beauclerc pushed away his tea-cup half across the table, exclaiming,
“How unjust! to class him among a tribe he detests and despises as much
as you can, Lady Davenant. And all for that one unfortunate speech--Not
quite fair, general, not quite philosophical, Lady Davenant, to decide
on a man’s character from the specimen of a single speech: this is like
judging of a house from the sample of a single brick. All this time I
know how Beltravers came to make that speech--I know how it was, as well
as if I had been present--better!”
“Better!” cried Lady Cecilia.
“Ladies and gentlemen may laugh,” resumed Beauclerc, “but I seriously
maintain--better!”
“How better than the general, who was present, and heard and saw the
whole?” said Lady Cecilia.
“Yes, better, for he saw only effects, and I know causes; and I appeal
to Lady Davenant,--from Lady Davenant sarcastic to Lady Davenant
philosophic I appeal--may not the man who discovers causes, say he knows
more than he who merely sees effects?”
“He may say he knows more, at all events,” replied Lady Davenant; “but
now for the discovery of causes, metaphysical sir.”
“I have done,” cried the general, turning to leave the breakfast-room;
“when Beauclerc goes to metaphysics I give it up.”
“No, no, do not give it up, my dear general,” cried Lady Cecilia; “do
not stir till we have heard what will come next, for I am sure it will
be something delightfully absurd.”
Beauclerc bowed, and feared he should not justify her ladyship’s good
opinion, for he had nothing delightfully absurd to say, adding that the
cause of his friend’s appearing like a brute was, that he feared to be a
hypocrite among hypocrites.
“Lord Beltravers was in company with a set who were striving, with all
their might of dissimulation, to appear better than they are, and he, as
he always does, strove to make himself appear worse than he really is.”
“Unnecessary, I should think,” said Lady Davenant.
“Impossible, I should think,” said the general.
“Impossible I know it is to change your opinion, general, of any one,”
said Beauclerc.
“For my own part, I am glad of that,” said Lady Cecilia, rising; “and
I advise you, Granville, to rest content with the general’s opinion of
yourself, and say no more.”
“But,” said Beauclerc; “one cannot be content to think only of
one’s-self always.”
“Say no more, say no more,” repeated Lady Cecilia, smiling as she looked
back from the door, where she had stopped the general. “For my sake say
no more, I entreat, I do dislike to hear so much said about anything or
anybody. What sort of a road is it to Old Forest?” continued she; “why
should not we ladies go with you, my dear Clarendon, to enliven the
way.”
Clarendon’s countenance brightened at this proposal. The road was
certainly beautiful, he said, by the banks of the Thames. Lady Cecilia
and the general left the room, but Beauclerc remained sitting at the
breakfast-table, apparently intently occupied in forming a tripod
of three tea-spoons; Lady Davenant opposite to him, looking at him
earnestly, “Granville!” said she. He started, “Granville! set my mind at
ease by one word, tell me the _mot d’énigme_ of this sudden friendship.”
“Not what you suppose,” said he steadily, yet colouring deeply. “The
fact is, that Beltravers and I were school-fellows; a generous little
fellow he was as ever was born; he got me out of a sad scrape once at
his own expense, and I can never forget it. We had never met since we
left Eton, till about three weeks ago in town, when I found him in great
difficulties, persecuted too, by a party--I could not turn my back on
him--I would rather be shot!”
“No immediate necessity for being shot, my dear Granville, I hope,” said
Lady Davenant. “But if this be indeed _all_, I will never say another
word against your Lord Beltravers; I will leave it to you to find out
his character, or to time to show it. I shall be quite satisfied that
you throw away your money, if it be only money that is in the question;
be this Lord Beltravers what he may. Let him say, ‘or let them do, it is
all one to me,’ provided that he does not marry you to his sister.”
“He has not a thought of it,” cried Beauclerc; “and if he had, do you
conceive, Lady Davenant, that any man on earth could dispose of me in
marriage, at his pleasure?”
“I hope not,” said Lady Davenant.
“Be assured not; my own will, my own heart alone, must decide that
matter.”
“The horses are at the door!” cried Cecilia, as she entered; but
“where’s Helen?”
Helen had made her escape out of the room when Lady Davenant had
pronounced the words, “Set my mind at rest, Granville,” as she felt it
must then be embarrassing to him to speak, and to herself to hear. Her
retreat, had not, however, been effected with considerable loss, she had
been compelled to leave a large piece of the crape-trimming of her gown
under the foot of Lady Davenant’s inexorable chair.
“Here is something that belongs to Miss Stanley, if I mistake not,” said
the general, who first spied the fragment. The aid-de-camp stooped for
it--Lady Cecilia pitied it--Lady Davenant pronounced it to be Helen’s
own fault--Beauclerc understood how it happened, and said nothing.
“But, Helen,” cried Lady Cecilia, as she re-appeared,--“but, Helen, are
you not coming with us?”
Helen had intended to have gone in the pony-carriage with Lady Davenant,
but her ladyship now declared that she had business to do at home; it
was settled therefore that Helen was to be of the riding party, and that
party consisted of Lady Cecilia and the general, Beauclerc and herself.
CHAPTER X.
It was a delightful day, sun shining, not too hot, air balmy, birds
singing, all nature gay; and the happy influence was quickly felt by the
riding party. Unpleasant thoughts of the past or future, if any such had
been, were now lost in present enjoyment. The general, twice a man on
horseback, as he always felt himself, managed his own and Helen’s horse
to admiration, and Cecilia, riding on with Beauclerc, was well pleased
to hear his first observation, that he had been quite wrong last night,
in not acknowledging that Miss Stanley was beautiful. “People look so
different by daylight and by candlelight,” said he; “and so different
when one does not know them at all, and when one begins to know
something of them.”
“But what can you know yet of Helen?”
“One forms some idea of character from trifles light as air. How
delightful this day is!”
“And now you really allow she may be called beautiful?”
“Yes, that is, with some expression of mind, heart, soul, which is what
I look for in general,” said Beauclerc.
“In general, what can you mean by in general?”
“Not in particular; in particular cases I might think--I--I might
feel--otherwise.”
“In particular, then, do you like fools that have no mind, heart, or
soul, Granville?--Answer me.”
“Take care,” said he, “that horse is too spirited for a lady.”
“Not for me,” said Lady Cecilia; “but do not think you shall get off so;
what did you mean?”
“My meaning lies too deep for the present occasion.”
“For the present company--eh?”
Beauclerc half smiled and answered--“You know you used to tell me that
you hated long discussions on words and nice distinctions.”
“Well, well, but let me have the nice distinction now.”
“Between love and friendship, then, there is a vast difference in what
one wishes for in a woman’s face; there are, ‘faces which pale passion
loves.’”
“To the right, turn,” the general’s voice far behind was heard to say.
To the right they turned, into a glade of the park, which opened to
a favourite view of the general’s, to which Cecilia knew that all
attention must be paid. He came up, and they proceeded through a wood
which had been planted by his father, and which seemed destined to stand
for ever secure from sacrilegious axe. The road led them next into
a village, one of the prettiest of that sort of scattered English
villages, where each habitation seems to have been suited to the fancy
as well as to the convenience of each proprietor; giving an idea at
once of comfort and liberty, such as can be seen only in England. Happy
England, how blest, would she but know her bliss!
This village was inhabited by the general’s tenants. His countenance
brightened and expanded, as did theirs, whenever he came amongst them;
he saw them happy, and they knew that they owed their happiness in
just proportion to their landlord and themselves; therefore there was
a comfortable mixture in their feelings of gratitude and self-respect.
Some old people who were sitting on the stone benches, sunning
themselves at their doors, rose as he passed, cap in hand, with cordial
greeting. The oldest man, the father of the village, forgot his crutch
as he came forward to see his landlord’s bride, and to give him joy. At
every house where they stopped, out came husband, wife, and children,
even “wee toddling things;” one of these, while the general was speaking
to its mother, made its way frightfully close to his horse’s heels:
Helen saw it, and called to the mother. The general, turning and leaning
back on his horse, said to the bold little urchin as the mother snatched
him up, “My boy, as long as you live never again go behind a horse’s
heels.”
“And remember, it was general Clarendon gave you this advice,” added
Beauclerc, and turning to Lady Cecilia--“‘_Et souvenez vous que c’est
Maréchal Turenne qui vous l’a dit_.’”
While the general searched for that English memento, six-pence, Lady
Cecilia repeated, “Marshal Turenne! I do not understand.”
“Yes, if you recollect,” said Helen, “you do.”
“I dare say I know, but I don’t remember,” said Cecilia. “It was only,”
said Helen, “that the same thing had happened to Marshal Turenne, that
he gave the same advice to a little child.”
Lady Cecilia said she owed Beauclerc an acknowledgment down to her
saddle-bow, for the compliment to her general, and a bow at least as low
to Helen, for making her comprehend it; and, having paid both debts with
graceful promptitude, she observed, in an aside to Beauclerc, that she
quite agreed with him, that “In friendship it was good not to have to do
with fools.”
He smiled.
“It is always permitted,” continued Cecilia, “to woman to use her
intellects so far as to comprehend what man says; her knowledge, of
whatever sort, never comes amiss when it serves only to illustrate what
is said by one of the lords of the creation. Let us note this, my dear
Helen, as a general maxim, for future use, and pray, since you have so
good a memory, remember to tell mamma, who says I never generalise, that
this morning I have actually made and established a philosophical
maxim, one that may be of some use too, which cannot be said of all
reflections, general or particular.”
They rode on through a lane bright and fragrant with primroses and
violets; gradually winding, this lane opened at last upon the beautiful
banks of the Thames, whose “silver bosom” appeared at once before them
in the bright sunshine, silent, flowing on, seeming, as Beauclerc
said, as if it would for ever flow on unaltered in full, broad, placid
dignity. “Here,” he exclaimed, as they paused to contemplate the view,
“the throng of commerce, the ponderous barge, the black steam-boat,
the hum and din of business, never have violated the mighty current. No
lofty bridge insultingly over-arches it, no stone-built wharf confines
it; nothing but its own banks, coeval with itself and like itself,
uncontaminated by the petty uses of mankind!--they spread into large
parks, or are hung with thick woods, as nature wills. No citizen’s box,
no chimera villa destroys the idea of repose; but nature, uninterrupted,
carries on her own operations in field, and flood, and tree.”
The general, less poetically inclined, would name to Helen all the fine
places within view--“Residences,” as he practically remarked, “such as
cannot be seen in any country in the world but England; and not only
fine places such as these, but from the cottage to the palace--‘the
homes of Old England’ are the best homes upon earth.”
“The most candid and sensible of all modern French travellers,” said
Beauclerc, “was particularly struck with the superiority of our English
country residences, and the comfort of our homes.”
“You mean M. de Staël?” said the general; “true English sense in that
book, I allow.”
When the general and Beauclerc did agree in opinion about a book,
which was not a circumstance of frequent occurrence, they were mutually
delighted; one always feeling the value of the other’s practical sense,
and the other then acknowledging that literature is good for something.
Beauclerc in the fulness of his heart, and abundance of his words,
began to expatiate on M. de Staël’s merits, in having better than any
foreigner understood the actual workings and balances of the British
constitution, that constitution so much talked of abroad, and so little
understood.
“So little understood any where,” said the general.
Reasonably as Beauclerc now spoke, Helen formed a new idea of his
capacity, and began to think more respectfully even of his common sense,
than when she had heard him in the Beltravers cause. He spoke of the
causes of England’s prosperity, the means by which she maintains her
superiority among nations--her equal laws and their just administration.
He observed, that the hope which every man born in England, even in
the lowest station, may have of rising by his own merits to the highest
eminence, forms the great spring of industry and talent. He agreed with
the intelligent foreigner’s observation, that the aristocracy of talent
is superior in England to the aristocracy of birth.
The general seemed to demur at the word superior, drew himself up, but
said nothing in contradiction.
“Industry, and wealth, and education, and fashion, all emulous, act in
England beneficially on each other,” continued Beauclerc.
The general sat at ease again.
“And above all,” pursued Beauclerc,--“above all, education and the
diffusion of knowledge----”
“Knowledge--yes, but take care of what kind,” said his guardian. “All
kinds are good,” said Beauclerc.
“No, only such as are safe,” said the general. The march of intellect
was not a favourite march with him, unless the step were perfectly kept,
and all in good time.
But now, on passing a projecting bend in the wood, they came within
sight of a place in melancholy contrast to all they had just admired.
A park of considerable extent, absolutely bereft of trees, except a few
ragged firs on each side of a large dilapidated mansion, on the summit
of a bleak hill: it seemed as if a great wood had once been there.
“Old Forest!” exclaimed the general; “Old Forest, now no more! Many a
happy hour, when I was a boy, have I spent shooting in those woods,” and
he pointed to where innumerable stumps of trees, far as the eye could
reach, marked where the forest had once stood: some of the white
circles on the ground showed the magnificent size of those newly felled.
Beauclerc was quite silent.
The general led the way on to the great gate of entrance: the porter’s
lodge was in ruins.
A huge rusty padlock hung upon one of the gates, which had been dragged
half open, but, the hinge having sunk, there it stuck--the gate could
not be opened further. The other could not be stirred without imminent
hazard of bringing down the pier on which it hung, and which was so
crazy, the groom said, “he was afraid, if he shook it never so little,
all would come down together.”
“Let it alone,” said the general, in the tone of one resolved to
be patient; “there is room enough for us to get in one by one--Miss
Stanley, do not be in a hurry, if you please; follow me quietly.”
In they filed. The avenue, overgrown with grass, would have been
difficult to find, but for deep old cart-ruts which still marked the
way. But soon, fallen trees, and lopped branches, dragged many a rood
and then left there, made it difficult to pass. And there lay exposed
the white bodies of many a noble tree, some wholly, some half, stripped
of their bark, some green in decay, left to the weather--and every here
and there little smoking pyramids of burning charcoal.
As they approached the house--“How changed,” said the general, “from
that once cheerful hospitable mansion!”--It was a melancholy example
of a deserted home: the plaster dropping off, the cut stone green, the
windows broken, the shutters half shut, the way to the hall-door steps
blocked up. They were forced to go round through the yards. Coach-houses
and stables, grand ranges, now all dilapidated. Only one yelping cur in
the great kennel. The back-door being ajar, the general pushed it open,
and they went in, and on to the great kitchen, where they found in the
midst of wood smoke one little old woman, whom they nearly scared out
of her remaining senses. She stood and stared. Beauclerc stepped towards
her to explain; but she was deaf: he raised his voice--in vain. She was
made to comprehend by the general, whose voice, known in former times,
reached her heart--“that they only came to see the place.”
“See the place! ah! a sad sight to see.” Her eyes reverted to Beauclerc,
and, conceiving that he was the young lord himself, she waxed pale, and
her head shook fearfully; but, when relieved from this mistake, she went
forward to show them over the house.
As they proceeded up the great staircase, she confided to her friend,
the general, that she was glad it was not the young lord, for she was
told he was a fiery man, and she dreaded his coming unawares.
Lady Cecilia asked if she did not know him?
No, she had never seen him since he was a little fellow: “he has been
always roaming about, like the rest, in foreign parts, and has never set
foot in the place since he came to man’s estate.”
As the general passed a window on the landing-place, he looked
out.--“You are missing the great elm, Sir. Ah! I remember you here, a
boy; you was always good. It was the young lord ordered specially the
cutting of that, which I could not stomach; the last of the real old
trees! Well, well! I’m old and foolish--I’m old and foolish, and I
should not talk.”
But still she talked on, and as this seemed her only comfort, they would
not check her garrulity. In the hope that they were come to take the
house, she now bustled as well as she could, to show all to the best
advantage, but bad was the best now, as she sorrowfully said. She was
very unwilling that the gentlemen should go up to inspect the roof. They
went, however; and the general saw and estimated, and Beauclerc saw and
hoped.
The general, recollecting the geography of the house, observed that she
had not shown them what used to be the picture-gallery, which looked out
on the terrace; he desired to see it. She reluctantly obeyed; and, after
trying sundry impossible keys, repeating all the while that her heart
was broke, that she wished it had pleased God never to give her a heart,
unlock the door she could not in her trepidation. Beauclerc gently took
the keys from her, and looked so compassionately upon her, that she
God-blessed him, and thought it a pity her young lord was not like
him; and while he dealt with the lock, Lady Cecilia, saying they would
trouble her no further, slipped into her hand what she thought would be
some comfort. The poor old creature thanked her ladyship, but said gold
could be of no use to her now in life; she should soon let the parish
bury her, and be no cost to the young lord. She could forgive many
things, she said, but she could never forgive him for parting with the
old pictures. She turned away as the gallery-door opened.
One only old daub of a grandmother was there; all the rest had been
sold, and their vacant places remained discoloured on the walls. There
were two or three dismembered old chairs, the richly dight windows
broken, the floor rat-eaten. The general stood and looked, and did not
sigh, but absolutely groaned. They went to the shattered glass door,
which looked out upon the terrace--that terrace which had cost thousands
of pounds to raise, and he called Cecilia to show her the place where
the youngsters used to play, and to point out some of his favourite
haunts.
“It is most melancholy to see a family-place so gone to ruin,” said
Beauclerc; “if it strikes us so much, what must it be to the son of this
family, to come back to the house of his ancestors, and find it thus
desolate! Poor Beltravers!”
The expression of the general’s eye changed.
“I am sure you must pity him, my dear general,” continued Beauclerc.
“I might, had he done any thing to prevent, or had he done less to
hasten, this ruin.”
“How? he should not have cut down the trees, do you mean?--but it was to
pay his father’s debts----”
“And his own,” said the general.
“He told me his father’s, sir.”
“And I tell you his own.”
“Even so,” said Beauclerc, “debts are not crimes for which we ought to
shut the gates of mercy on our fellow-creatures--and so young a man
as Beltravers, left to himself, without a home, his family abroad, no
parent, no friend--no guardian friend.”
“But what is it you would do, Beauclerc?” said the general.
“What you must wish to be done,” said Beauclerc. “Repair this ruin,
restore this once hospitable mansion, and put it in the power of the son
to be what his ancestors have been.”
“But how--my dear Beauclerc? Tell me plainly--how?”
“Plainly, I would lend him money enough to make this house fit to live
in.”
“And he would never repay you, and would never live in it.”
“He would, sir--he promised me he would.”
“Promised you!”
“And I promised him that I would lend him the money.”
“Promised! Beauclerc? Without your guardian’s knowledge? Pray, how
much--”
“Confound me, if I remember the words. The sense was, what would do the
business; what would make the house fit for him and his sisters to live
in.”
“Ten thousand!--fifteen thousand would not do.”
“Well, sir. You know what will be necessary better than I do. A few
thousands more or less, what signifies, provided a friend be well
served. The superfluous money accumulated during my long minority cannot
be better employed.”
“All that I have been saving for you with such care from the time your
father died!”
“My dear guardian, my dear friend, do not think me ungrateful; but the
fact is,--in short, my happiness does not depend, never can depend, upon
money; as my friend, therefore, I beseech you to consider my moneyed
interest less, and my happiness more.”
“Beauclerc, you do not know what your happiness is. One hour you tell
me it is one thing, the next another. What is become of the plan for the
new house you wanted to build for yourself? I must have common sense for
you, Beauclerc, as you have none for yourself. I shall not give you this
money for Lord Beltravers.”
“You forget sir, that I told you I had promised.”
“You forget, Beauclerc, that I told you that such a promise, vague and
absurd in itself, made without your guardian’s concurrence or consent,
is absolutely null and void.”
“Null and void in law, perhaps it may be,” cried Beauclerc; “but for
that very reason, in honour, the stronger the more binding, and I am
speaking to a man of honour.”
“To one who can take care of his own honour,” said the general.
“And of mine, I trust.”
“You do well to trust it, as your father did, to me: it shall not be
implicated--”
“When once I am of age,” interrupted Beauclerc.
“You will do as you please,” said the general. “In the mean time I shall
do my duty.”
“But, sir, I only ask you to let me _lend_ this money.”
“Lend--nonsense! lend to a man who cannot give any security.”
“Security!” said Beauclerc, with a look of unutterable contempt. “When a
friend is in distress, to talk to him like an attorney, of security! Do,
pray, sir, spare me that. I would rather give the money at once.”
“I make no doubt of it; then at once I say No, sir.”
“No, sir! and why do you say no?”
“Because I think it my duty, and nothing I have heard has at all shaken
my opinion.”
“Opinion! and so I am to be put down by opinion, without any reason!”
cried Beauclerc. Then trying to command his temper, “But tell me, my
dear general, why I cannot have this cursed money?”
“Because, my dear Beauclerc, I am your guardian, and can say _no_,
and can adhere to a refusal as firmly as any man living, when it is
necessary.”
“Yes, and when it is unnecessary. General Clarendon, according to your
own estimate, fifteen thousand pounds is the utmost sum requisite to put
this house in a habitable state--by that sum I abide!”
“Abide!”
“Yes, I require it, to keep my promise to Beltraver’s, and have it I
MUST.”
“Not from me.”
“From some one else then, for have it I WILL.
“Dearest Clarendon,” whispered Lady Cecilia, “let him have it, since he
has promised----”
Without seeming to hear her whisper, without a muscle of his countenance
altering, General Clarendon repeated, “Not from me.”
“From some one else then--I can.”
“Not while I have power to prevent.”
“Power! power! power! Yes, that is what you love, above all things
and all persons, and I tell you plainly, General Clarendon,” pursued
Beauclerc, too angry to heed or see Lady Cecilia’s remonstrating looks,
“at once I tell you that you have not the power. You had it. It is past
and gone. The power of affection you had, if not of reason; but force,
General Clarendon, despotism, can never govern me. I submit to no man’s
mere will, much less to any man’s sheer obstinacy.”
At the word obstinacy, the general’s face, which was before rigid, grew
hard as iron. Beauclerc walked up and down the room with great strides,
and as he strode he went on talking to himself.
“To be kept from the use of my own money, treated like a child--an
idiot--at my time of life! Not considered at years of discretion, when
other men of the meanest capacity, by the law of the land, can do
what they please with their own property! By heavens!--that will of my
father’s----”
“Should be respected, my dear Granville, since it was your father’s
will,” said Lady Cecilia, joining him as he walked. “And respect----” He
stopped short.
“My dear Lady Cecilia, for your sake----” he tried to restrain himself.
“Till this moment never did I say one disrespectful word to General
Clarendon. I always considered him as the representative of my father;
and when most galled I have borne the chains in which it was my father’s
pleasure to leave me. Few men of my age would have so submitted to a
guardian not many years older than himself.”
“Yes, and indeed that should be considered,” said Lady Cecilia, turning
to the general.
“I have always considered General Clarendon more as my friend than my
guardian.”
“And have found him so, I had hoped,” said the general, relaxing in tone
but not in looks.
“I have never treated you, sir, as some wards treat their guardians.
I have dealt openly, as man of honour to man of honour, gentleman to
gentleman, friend to friend.”
“Acknowledged, and felt by me, Beauclerc.”
“Then now, my dear Clarendon, grant the only request of any consequence
I ever made you--say yes.” Beauclerc trembled with impatience.
“No,” said the general, “I have said it--No.”
The gallery rung with the sound.
“No!” repeated Beauclerc.
Each walked separately up and down the room, speaking without listening
to what the other said. Helen heard an offer from Beauclerc, to which
she extremely wished that the general had listened. But he was deaf with
determination not to yield to any thing Beauclerc could say further: the
noise of passion in their ears was too great for either of them to hear
the other.
Suddenly turning, Beauclerc exclaimed,--
“Borne with me, do you say? ‘Tis I that have to bear--and by heavens!”
cried he, “more than I can--than I will--bear. Before to-morrow’s sun
goes down I will have the money.”
“From whom?”
“From any money-lending
Jew--usurer--extortioner--cheat--rascal--whatever he be. You drive me
to it--you--you my friend--you, with whom I have dealt so openly; and to
the last it shall be open. To no vile indirections will I stoop. I tell
you, my guardian, that if you deny me my own, I will have what I want
from the Jews.”
“Easily,” said his guardian. “But first, recollect that a clause in your
father’s will, in such case, sends his estates to your cousin Venables.”
“To my cousin Venables let them go--all--all; if such be your pleasure,
sir, be it so. The lowest man on earth that has feeling keeps his
promise. The slave has a right to his word! Ruin me if you will, and as
soon as you please; disgrace me you cannot; bend my spirit you cannot;
ruin in any shape I will meet, rather than submit to such a guardian,
such a----”
Tyrant he was on the point of saying, but Lady Cecilia stopped that word
by suddenly seizing upon his arm: forcibly she carried him off, saying
“Come out with me on the terrace, Granville, and recover your senses.”
“My senses! I have never lost them; never was cooler in my life,”
said he, kicking open the glass door upon its first resistance, and
shattering its remaining panes to fragments. Unnoticing, not hearing
the crash, the general stood leaning his elbow on the mantel-piece,
and covering his eyes with his hand. Helen remained near him, scarce
breathing loud enough to be heard; he did not know she was there, and he
repeated aloud, in an accent of deep feeling, “Tyrant! from Beauclerc!”
A sigh from Helen made him aware of her presence, and, as he removed his
hand from his eyes, she saw his look was more in sorrow than in anger:
she said softly, “Mr. Beauclerc was wrong, very wrong, but he was in a
passion, he did not know what he meant.”
There was silence for a few moments. “You are right, I believe,” said
the general, “it was heat of anger----”
“To which the best are subject,” said Helen, “and the best and kindest
most easily forgive.”
“But Beauclerc said some things which were----”
“Unpardonable--only forget them; let all be forgotten.”
“Yes,” said the general, “all but my determination; that, observe, is
fixed. My mind, Miss Stanley, is made up, and, once made up, it is not
to be changed.”
“I am certain of that,” said Helen, “but I am not clear that your mind
is made up.”
The general looked at her with astonishment.
“Your refusal is not irrevocable.”
“You do not know me, Miss Stanley.”
“I think I do.”
“Better than I know myself.”
“Yes, better, if you do yourself the injustice to think that you would
not yield, if it were right to do so. At this very instant,” pursued
Helen, disregarding his increasing astonishment, “you would yield if you
could reasonably, honourably--would not you? If you could without injury
to your ward’s fortune or character, would you not? Surely it is for his
good only that you are so resolute?”
“Certainly!” He waited with eyes fixed, bending forward, but with
intensity of purpose in his calmness of attention.
“There was something which I heard Mr. Beauclerc say, which, I think,
escaped your attention,” said Helen. “When you spoke of the new house he
intended to build for himself, which was to cost so much, he offered to
give that up.”
“I never heard that offer.”
“I heard him,” said Helen, “I assure you: it was when you were both
walking up and down the room.”
“This may be so, I was angry _then_,” said the general.
“But you are not angry now,” said Helen.
He smiled, and in truth he desired nothing more than an honourable
loophole--a safe way of coming off without injury to his ward--without
hurting his own pride, or derogating from the dignity of guardian. Helen
saw this, and, thanking him for his condescension, his kindness,
in listening to her, she hastened as quickly as possible, lest the
relenting moment might not be seized; and running out on the terrace,
she saw Beauclerc, his head down upon his arms, leaning upon an old
broken stone lion, and Lady Cecilia standing beside him, commiserating;
and as she approached, she heard her persuading him to go to the
general, and speak to him again, and say _so_--only say so.
Whatever it was, Helen did not stay to inquire, but told Cecilia, in as
few words as she could, all that she had to say; and ended with “Was I
right?”
“Quite right, was not she, Granville?”
Beauclerc looked up--a gleam of hope and joy came across his face, and,
with one grateful look to Helen, he darted forward. They followed, but
could not keep pace with him; and when they reached the gallery, they
found him appealing, as to a father, for pardon.
“Can you forgive, and will you?”
“Forgive my not hearing you, not listening to you, as your father would?
My dear Beauclerc, you were too hot, and I was too cold; and there is
an end of it.” This reconciliation was as quick, as warm, as the quarrel
had been. And then explanations were made, as satisfactorily as they are
when the parties are of good understanding, and depend on each other’s
truth, past, present, and future.
Beauclerc, whose promise all relied on, and for reasons good, none more
implicitly than the general, promised that he would ask for no more than
just what would do to put this Old Forest house in habitable trim; he
said he would give up the new house for himself, till as many thousands
as he now lent, spent, or wasted--take which word you will--should be
again accumulated from his income. It was merely a sacrifice of his
own vanity, and perhaps a little of his own comfort, he said, to save a
friend, a human being, from destruction.
“Well, well, let it rest so.”
It was all settled, witness present--“two angels to witness,” as
Beauclerc quoted from some old play.
And now in high good-humour, up again to nonsense pitch, they all felt
that delightful relief of spirits, of which friends, after perilous
quarrel, are sensible in perfect reconciliation. They left this
melancholy mansion now, with Beauclerc the happiest of the happy, in the
generous hope that he should be the restorer of its ancient glories
and comfort. The poor old woman was not forgotten as they passed, she
courtesying, hoping, and fearing: Lady Cecilia whispered, and the deaf
ear heard.
“The roof will not fall--all will be well: and there is the man that
will do it all.”
“Well, well, my heart inclined to him from the first--at least from the
minute I knew him not to be my young lord.”
They were to go home by water. The boat was in readiness, and, as
Beauclerc carefully handed Helen into it, the general said:--“Yes, you
are right to take care of Miss Stanley, Beauclerc; she is a good friend
in need, at least, as I have found this morning,” added he, as he seated
himself beside her.
Lady Cecilia was charming, and every thing was delightful, especially
the cold chicken.
CHAPTER XI.
No two people could be more unlike in their habits of mind than this
guardian and ward. General Clarendon referred in all cases to old
experience, and dreaded innovation; Beauclerc took for his motto, “My
mind leadeth me to new things.” General Clarendon was what is commonly
called a practical man; Granville Beauclerc was the flower of theorists.
The general, fit for action, prompt and decided in all his judgments,
was usually right and just in his conclusions--but if wrong, there was
no setting him right; for he not only would not, but could not go back
over the ground--he could not give in words any explanation of his
process of reasoning--it was enough for him that it was right, and that
it was _his_; while Beauclerc, who cared not for any man’s opinion,
was always so ingeniously wrong, and could show all the steps of his
reasoning so plausibly, that it was a pity he should be quite out of the
right road at last. The general hated metaphysics, because he considered
them as taking a flight beyond the reach of discipline, as well as of
common sense: he continually asked, of what use are they?--While Lady
Davenant answered,--
“To invigorate and embellish the understanding. ‘This turning the soul
inward on itself concentrates its forces, and fits it for the strongest
and boldest flights; and in such pursuits, whether we take or whether we
lose the game, the chase is certainly of service.’”
Possibly, the general said; he would not dispute the point with Lady
Davenant, but a losing chase, however invigorating, was one in which he
never wished to engage: as to the rest, he altogether hated discussions,
doubts, and questionings. He had “made up his fagot of opinions,” and
would not let one be drawn out for examination, lest he should loosen
the bundle.
Beauclerc, on the contrary, had his dragged out and scattered about
every day, and each particular stick was tried, and bent, and twisted,
this way and that, and peeled, and cut, and hacked; and unless they
proved sound to the very core, not a twig of them should ever go back
into his bundle, which was to be the bundle of bundles, the best that
ever was seen, when once tied so that it would hold together--of which
there seemed little likelihood, as every knot slipped, and all fell to
pieces at each pull.
While he was engaged in this analysis, he was, as his guardian thought,
in great moral peril, for not a principle had he left to bless himself
with; and, in any emergency, if any temptation should occur, what was to
become of him? The general, who was very fond of him, but also strongly
attached to his own undeviating rule of right, was upon one occasion
about peremptorily to interpose, not only with remonstrances as a
friend, but with authority as a guardian.
This occurred when Beauclerc was with them at Florence, and when
the general’s love for Lady Cecilia, and intimacy with her mother,
commenced. Lady Davenant being much interested for young Beauclerc,
begged that the patient might be left to her, and that his guardian
would refrain from interference. This was agreed to the more readily
by the general, as his thoughts and feelings were then more agreeably
engrossed, and Beauclerc found in Lady Davenant the very friend he
wanted and wished for most ardently--one whose mind would not blench at
any moral danger, would never shrink from truth in any shape, but, calm
and self-possessed, would examine whether it were indeed truth, or only
a phantom assuming her form. Besides, there was in Lady Davenant towards
Beauclerc a sort of maternal solicitude and kindness, of which the
effect was heightened by her dignified manner and pride of character.
She, in the first place, listened to him patiently; she, who could talk,
would listen: this was, as she said, her first merit in his estimation.
To her he poured forth all those doubts, of which she was wise enough
not to make crimes: she was sure of his honourable intentions, certain
that there was no underhand motive, no bad passion, no concealed vice,
or disposition to vice, beneath his boasted freedom from prejudice,
to be justified or to be indulged by getting rid of the restraints of
principle. Had there been any danger of this sort, which with young men
who profess themselves _ultra-liberal_ is usually the case, she would
have joined in his guardian’s apprehensions; but in fact Beauclerc,
instead of being “le philosophe sans le savoir,” was “le bon enfant
sans le savoir;” for, while he questioned the rule of right in all his
principles, and while they were held in abeyance, his good habits, and
good natural disposition held fast and stood him in stead; while
Lady Davenant, by slow degrees, brought him to define his terms, and
presently to see that he had been merely saying old things in new words,
and that the systems which had dazzled him as novelties were old to
older eyes; in short, that he was merely a resurrectionist of obsolete
heresies, which had been gone over and over again at various long-past
periods, and over and over again abandoned by the common sense of
mankind: so that, after puzzling and wandering a weary way in the
dark labyrinth he had most ingeniously made for himself, he saw light,
followed it, and at length, making his way out, was surprised, and sorry
perhaps to perceive that it was the common light of day.
It is of great consequence to young enthusiastic tyros, like Beauclerc,
to have safe friends to whom they can talk of their opinions privately,
otherwise they will talk their ingenious nonsense publicly, and so they
bind themselves, or are bound, to the stake, and live or die martyrs to
their own follies.
From these and all such dangers Lady Davenant protected him, and she
took care that nobody hurt him in his defenceless state, before his
shell was well formed and hardened. She was further of peculiar service
in keeping all safe and smooth between the ward and guardian. All
Beauclerc’s romance the general would have called by the German
word “_Schwärmerey_,”--not fudge--not humbug--literally
“sky-rocketing”--visionary enthusiasm; and when it came to arguments,
they might have turned to quarrels, but for Lady Davenant’s superior
influence, while Lady Cecilia’s gentleness and gaiety usually succeeded
in putting all serious dangerous thoughts to flight.
Nature never having intended Lady Cecilia for a manoeuvrer, she was now
perpetually on the point of betraying herself; and one day, when she
was alone with Helen, she exclaimed, “Never was any thing better
managed than I managed this, my dear Helen! I am so glad I told you----”
Recollecting herself just in time, she ended with, “so glad I told you
the truth.”
“Oh yes! thank you,” said Helen. “My uncle used to say no one could be a
good friend who does not tell the whole truth.”
“That I deny,” thought Cecilia. The twinge of conscience was felt but
very slightly; not visible in any change of countenance, except by a
quick twinkling motion of the eyelashes, not noticed by unsuspicious
Helen.
Every thing now went on as happily as Cecilia could have desired; every
morning they rode or booted to Old Forest to see what was doing. The
roof was rather hastily taken off; Lady Cecilia hurried forward that
measure, aware that it would prevent the possibility of any of the
ladies of the family coming there for some time. Delay was all she
wanted, and she would now, as she promised herself, leave the rest to
time. She would never interfere further in word or look, especially when
her mother might be by. One half of this promise she kept faithfully,
the other she broke continually.
There were plans to be made of all the alterations and improvements
at Old Forest. Beauclerc applied to Lady Cecilia for her advice and
assistance. Her advice she gave, but her assistance she ingeniously
contrived to leave to Helen; for whenever Beauclerc brought to her a
sketch or a plan of what was to be done, Lady Cecilia immediately gave
it to Helen, repeating, “Never drew a regular plan in my life, you know,
my dear, you must do this;” so that Helen’s pencil and her patience were
in constant requisition. Then came apologies from Beauclerc, and regrets
at taking up her time, all which led to an intimacy that Lady Cecilia
took care to keep up by frequent visits to Old Forest, so that Helen was
necessarily joined in all his present pursuits.
During one of these visits, they were looking over some old furniture
which Lord Beltravers had commissioned Beauclerc to have disposed of at
some neighbouring auction. There was one curiously carved oak arm-chair,
belonging to “the old old gentleman of all” which the old woman
particularly regretted should go. She had sewn it up in a carpet, and
when it came out, Helen was struck with its likeness to a favourite
chair of her uncle’s; many painful recollections occurred to her, and
tears came into her eyes. Ashamed of what appeared so like affectation,
she turned away, that her tears might not be seen, and when Cecilia,
following her, insisted on knowing what was the matter, she left Helen
immediately to the old woman, and took the opportunity of telling
Beauclerc all about Dean Stanley, and how Helen was an heiress and no
heiress, and her having determined to give up all her fortune to pay
her uncle’s debts. There was a guardian, too, in the case, who would not
consent; and, in short, a parallelism of circumstances, a similarity of
generous temper, and all this she thought must interest Beauclerc--and
so it did. But yet its being told to him would have gone against his
nice notions of delicacy, and Helen would have been ruined in his
opinion had he conceived that it had been revealed to him with her
consent or connivance. She came back before Lady Cecilia had quite
finished, and a few words which she heard, made her aware of the whole.
The blush of astonishment--the glance of indignation--which she gave
at Lady Cecilia, settled Beauclerc’s opinion; and Cecilia was satisfied
that she had done her friend good service against her will; and as to
the means thought she--what signifies going back to consider when they
succeed.
The Collingwoods gladly availed themselves of Lady Cecilia Clarendon’s
kind invitation, as they were both most anxious to take leave of Helen
Stanley before their departure. They were to sail very soon, so that
their visit was but short; a few days of painful pleasure to Helen--a
happy meeting, but enjoyed with the mournful sense that they were so
soon to separate, and for so long a time; perhaps, for ever.
Mr. Collingwood told Helen that if she still agreed to his conditions,
he would arrange with Mr. James, the solicitor, that all the money left
to her by her uncle should be appropriated to the payment of his debts.
“But,” continued he, “pause and consider well, whether you can do
without this money, which is still yours; you are, you know, not bound
by any promise, and it is not yet too late to say you have altered your
decision.”
Helen smiled and said, “You cannot be serious in saying this, I am
sure?”
Mr. Collingwood assured her that he was. Helen simply said that her
determination was unalterable. He looked pleased yet his last words in
taking leave of her were, “Remember, my dear, that when you have given
away your fortune, you cannot live as if you had it.”
The Collingwoods departed; and, after a decent time had elapsed, or what
she deemed a decent time, Lady Cecilia was anxious to ascertain what
progress had been made; how relatively to each other, Lady Blanche
Forrester and Helen stood in Beauclerc’s opinion, or rather in his
imagination. But this was not quite so easy a matter to determine as
she had conceived it would be, judging from the frankness of Beauclerc’s
temper, and from the terms of familiarity on which they had lived while
abroad. His confidence was not to be won, surprised, or forced. He was
not only jealous of his free will, as most human beings are in love
affairs, but, like all men of true feeling, he desired in these matters
perfect mental privacy.
When Pysche is awakened, it should be by Cupid alone. Beauclerc did
not yet wish that she should be awakened. He admired, he enjoyed that
repose; he was charmed by the perfect confiding simplicity of Helen’s
mind, so unlike what he had seen in others--so real. The hope of that
pure friendship which dawned upon him he wished to prolong, and dreaded
lest, by any doubt raised, all might be clouded and changed. Lady
Cecilia was, however, convinced that, without knowing it, he was falling
comfortably in love through friendship; a very easy convenient way.
And Helen, had she too set out upon that easy convenient road of
friendship? She did not think about the road, but she felt that it
was very agreeable, and thought it was quite safe, as she went on so
smoothly and easily. She could not consider Mr. Beauclerc as a new
acquaintance, because she had heard so much about him. He was completely
one of the family, so that she, as part of that family, could not treat
him as a stranger. Her happiness, she was sensible, had much increased
since his arrival; but so had everybody’s. He gave a new spring, a new
interest, to everything; added so much to the life of life; his sense
and his nonsense were each of them good in their kind; and they were
of various kinds, from the high sublime of metaphysics to the droll
realities of life. But everybody blaming, praising, scolding, laughing
_at_, or _with_ him, he was necessary to all and with all, for some
reason or other, a favourite.
But the general was always as impatient as Lady Cecilia herself both
of his hypercriticism and of his never-ending fancies, each of which
Beauclerc purused with an eagerness and abandoned with a facility which
sorely tried the general’s equanimity. One day, after having ridden to
Old Forest, General Clarendon returned chafed. He entered the library,
talking to Cecilia, as Helen thought, about his horse.
“No managing him! Curb him ever so little, and he is on his hind-legs
directly. Give him his head, put the bridle on his neck, and he stands
still; does not know which way he would go, or what he would do. The
strangest fellow for a rational creature.”
Now it was clear it was of Beauclerc that he spoke. “So rash and yet so
resolute,” continued the general.
“How is that?” said Lady Davenant.
“I do not know how, but so it is,” said the general. “As you know,”
appealing to Helen and to Lady Cecilia, “he was ready to run me through
till he had his own way about that confounded old house; and now there
are all the workmen at a stand, because Mr. Beauclerc cannot decide what
he will have done or undone.”
“Oh, it is my fault!” cried Helen, with the guilty recollection of the
last alteration not having been made yesterday in drawing the working
plan, and she hastened to look for it directly; but when she found it,
she saw to her dismay that Beauclerc had scribbled it all over with
literary notes; it was in no state to meet the general’s eye; she set
about copying it as fast as possible.
“Yes,” pursued the general; “forty alterations--shuffling about
continually. Cannot a man be decided?”
“Always with poor Beauclerc,” said Lady Cecilia, “le mieux est l’ennemi
du bien.”
“No, my dear Cecilia, it is all his indolence; there he sat with a book
in his hand all yesterday! with all his impetuosity, too indolent to
stir in his own business,” said the general.
“His mind is too active sometimes to allow his body to stir,” said Lady
Davenant; “and because he cannot move the universe, he will not stir his
little finger.”
“He is very fond of paradoxes, and your ladyship is very fond of him,”
said the general; “but indolent he is; and as to activity of mind, it is
only in pursuit of his own fancies.”
“And your fancies and his differ,” said Lady Davenant.
“Because he never fancies any thing useful,” said the general. “C’est
selon! c’est selon!” cried Lady Cecilia gaily; “he thinks his fancies
useful, and especially all he is doing at Old Forest; but I confess he
tends most to the agreeable. Certainly he is a most agreeable creature.”
“Agreeable! satisfied to be called an agreeable man!” cried the general
indignantly; “yes, he has no ambition.”
“There I differ from you, general,” said Lady Davenant; “he has too
much: have patience with him; he is long-sighted in his visions of
glory.”
“Visions indeed!” said the general.
“Those who are really ambitious,” continued Lady Davenant, “must think
before they act. ‘What shall I do to be for ever known?’ is a question
which deserves at least a little more thought than those which most
young men ask themselves, which commonly are, ‘What shall I do to be
known to-morrow--on the Turf or at Brook’s--or in Doctors’ Commons--or
at some exclusive party at charming Lady Nobody’s?’”
“What will you do for the plan for these workmen in the mean time, my
dear Clarendon?” said Lady Cecilia, afraid that some long discussion
would ensue.
“Here it is!” said Helen, who had managed to get it ready while they
were talking. She gave it to the general, who thanked her, and was
off directly. Cecilia then came to divert herself with looking at
Beauclerc’s scribbled plan, and she read the notes aloud for her
mother’s amusement. It was a sketch of a dramatical, metaphysical,
entertainment, of which half a dozen proposed titles had been scratched
out, and there was finally left ‘Tarquin the Optimist, or the Temple
of Destiny.’ It was from an old story begun by Laurentius Valla, and
continued by Leibnitz;--she read,
_“Act I. Scene 1. Sextus Tarquin goes to consult the Oracle, who
foretells the crime he is to commit.’_
“And then,” cried Lady Cecilia, “come measures of old and new front of
Old Forest house, wings included.”--Now he goes on with his play.
_“‘Tarquin’s complaint to Jupiter of the Oracle--Modern Predestination
compared to Ancient Destiny.’_
“And here,” continued Cecilia, “come prices of Norway deal and a great
blot, and then we have _‘Jupiter’s answer that Sextus may avoid his doom
if he pleases, by staying away from Rome; but he does not please to
do so, because he must then_ _renounce the crown. Good speech here on
vanity, and inconsistency of human wishes.’_
“‘Kitchen 23 ft. by 21. Query with hobs?’
“I cannot conceive, my dear Helen,” continued Lady Cecilia, “how you
could make the drawing out through all this,” and she continued to read.
_“‘Scene 3rd._
_“‘High Priest of Delphi asks Jupiter why he did not give Sextus a
better WILL?--why not MAKE him choose to give up the crown, rather than
commit the crime? Jupiter refuses to answer, and sends the High Priest
to consult Minerva at Athens.’_
“‘N.B. Old woman at Old Forest, promised her an oven,’--‘_Leibnitz
gives_----’
“Oh! if he goes to Leibnitz,” said Lady Cecilia, “he will be too grand
for me, but it will do for you, mamma.”
_“‘Leibnitz gives in his Temple of the Destinies a representation of
every possible universe from the worst to the best--This could not be
done on the stage.’_
“Very true indeed,” said Lady Cecilia; “but, Helen, listen, Granville
has really found an ingenious resource.”
_“‘By Ombres Chinoises, suppose; or a gauze curtain, as in Zemire et
Azore, the audience might be made to understand the main point, that
GOOD resulted from Tarquin’s BAD choice. Brutus, Liberty, Rome’s
grandeur, and the Optimist right at last. Q.E.D.’_
“Well, well,” continued Lady Cecilia, “I don’t understand it; but I
understand this,--‘Bricks wanting.’”
Lady Davenant smiled at this curious specimen of Beauclerc’s
versatility, but said, “I fear he will fritter away his powers on a
hundred different petty objects, and do nothing at last worthy of his
abilities. He will scatter and divide the light of his genius, and
show us every change of the prismatic colours--curious and beautiful to
behold, but dispersing, wasting the light he should concentrate on some
one, some noble object.”
“But if he has light enough for little objects and great too?” said Lady
Cecilia, “I allow, ‘qu’il faudrait plus d’un coeur pour aimer tant de
choses à la fois;’ but as I really think Granville has more heart than
is necessary, he can well afford to waste some of it, even on the old
woman at Old Forest.”
CHAPTER XII.
One evening, Helen was looking over a beautiful scrap-book of Lady
Cecilia’s. Beauclerc, who had stood by for some time, eyeing it in
rather scornful silence, at length asked whether Miss Stanley was a
lover of albums and autographs?
Helen had no album of her own, she said, but she was curious always to
see the autographs of celebrated people.
“Why?” said Beauclerc.
“I don’t know. It seems to bring one nearer to them. It gives more
reality to our imagination of them perhaps,” said Helen.
“The imagination is probably in most cases better than the reality,”
replied he.
Lady Davenant stooped over Helen’s shoulder to look at the handwriting
of the Earl of Essex--the writing of the gallant Earl of Essex, at sight
of which, as she observed, the hearts of queens have beat high. “What a
crowd of associated ideas rise at the sight of that autograph! who can
look at it without some emotion?”
Helen could not. Beauclerc in a tone of raillery said he was sure, from
the eager interest Miss Stanley took in these autographs, that she would
in time become a collector herself; and he did not doubt that he should
see her with a valuable museum, in which should be preserved the old
pens of great men, that of Cardinal Chigi, for instance, who boasted
that he wrote with the same pen for fifty years.
“And by that boast you know,” said Lady Davenant, “convinced the
Cardinal de Retz that he was not a great, but a very little man. We will
not have that pen in Helen’s museum.”
“Why not?” Beauclerc asked, “it was full as well worth having as many
of the relics to be found in most young ladies’ and even old gentlemen’s
museums. It was quite sufficient whether a man had been great or little
that he had been talked of,--that he had been something of a _lion_--to
make any thing belonging to him valuable to collectors, who preserve and
worship even ‘the parings of lions’ claws.’”
That class of indiscriminate collectors Helen gave up to his
ridicule; still he was not satisfied. He went on to the whole class of
‘lion-hunters,’ as he called them, condemning indiscriminately all those
who were anxious to see celebrated people; he hoped Miss Stanley was not
one of that class.
“No, not a lion-hunter,” said Helen; she hoped she never should be one
of that set, but she confessed she had a great desire to see and to know
distinguished persons, and she hoped that this sort of curiosity, or
as she would rather call it enthusiasm, was not ridiculous, and did
not deserve to be confounded with the mere trifling vulgar taste for
sight-seeing and lion-hunting.
Beauclerc half smiled, but, not answering immediately, Lady Davenant
said, that for her part she did not consider such enthusiasm as
ridiculous; on the contrary, she liked it, especially in young people.
“I consider the warm admiration of talent and virtue in youth as a
promise of future excellence in maturer age.”
“And yet,” said Beauclerc, “the maxim ‘not to admire,’ is, I believe,
the most approved in philosophy, and in practice is the great secret of
happiness in this world.”
“In the _fine_ world, it is a fine air, I know,” said Lady Davenant.
“Among a set of fashionable young somnambulists it is doubtless the only
art they know to make men happy or to keep them so; but this has nothing
to do with philosophy, Beauclerc, though it has to do with conceit or
affectation.”
Mr. Beauclerc, now piqued, with a look and voice of repressed feeling,
said, that he hoped her ladyship did not include him among that set of
fashionable somnambulists.
“I hope you will not include yourself in it,” answered Lady Davenant:
“it is contrary to your nature, and if you join the _nil admirari_
coxcombs, it can be only for fashion’s sake--mere affectation.”
Beauclerc made no reply, and Lady Davenant, turning to Helen, told her
that several celebrated people were soon to come to Clarendon Park,
and congratulated her upon the pleasure she would have in seeing them.
“Besides being a great pleasure, it is a real advantage,” continued she,
“to see and be acquainted early in life with superior people. It enables
one to form a standard of excellence, and raises that standard high and
bright. In men, the enthusiasm becomes glorious ambition to excel in
arts or arms; in women, it refines and elevates the taste, and is so far
a preventive against frivolous, vulgar company, and all their train of
follies and vices. I can speak from my own recollection, of the great
happiness it was to me, when I early in life became acquainted with some
of the illustrious of my day.”
“And may I ask,” said Beauclerc, “if any of them equalled the
expectations you had formed of them?”
“Some far exceeded them,” said Lady Davenant.
“You were fortunate. Every body cannot expect to be so happy,” said
Beauclerc. “I believe, in general it is found that few great men of any
times stand the test of near acquaintance. No man----”
“Spare me!” cried Lady Davenant, interrupting him, for she imagined she
knew what he was going to say; “Oh! spare me that old sentence, ‘No man
is a hero to his valet de chambre.’ I cannot endure to hear that for the
thousandth time; I heartily wish it had never been said at all.”
“So do I,” replied Beauclerc; but Lady Davenant had turned away, and he
now spoke in so low a voice, that only Helen heard him. “So do I detest
that quotation, not only for being hackneyed, but for having been these
hundred years the comfort both of lean-jawed envy and fat mediocrity.”
He took up one of Helen’s pencils and began to cut it--he looked vexed,
and low to her observed, “Lady Davenant did not do me the honour to let
me finish my sentence.”
“Then,” said Helen, “if Lady Davenant misunderstood you, why do not you
explain?”
“No, no it is not worth while, if she could so mistake me.”
“But any body may be mistaken; do explain.”
“No, no,” said he, very diligently cutting the pencil to pieces; “she is
engaged, you see, with somebody--something else.”
“But now she has done listening.”
“No, no, not now; there are too many people, and it’s of no
consequence.”
By this time the company were all eagerly talking of every remarkable
person they had seen, or that they regretted not having seen. Lady
Cecilia now called upon each to name the man among the celebrated of
modern days, whom they should most liked to have seen. By acclamation
they all named Sir Walter Scott, ‘The Ariosto of the North!’
All but Beauclerc; he did not join the general voice; he said low to
Helen with an air of disgust--“How tired I am of hearing him called ‘The
Ariosto of the North!’”
“But by whatever name,” said Helen, “surely you join in that general
wish to have seen him?”
“Yes, yes, I am sure of your vote,” cried Lady Cecilia, coming up to
them, “You, Granville, would rather have seen Sir Walter Scott than any
author since Shakespeare--would not you?”
“Pardon me, on the contrary, I am glad that I have never seen him.”
“Glad not to have seen him!--_not_?”
The word _not_ was repeated with astonished incredulous emphasis by all
voices. “Glad not to have seen Sir Walter Scott! How extraordinary! What
can Mr. Beauclerc mean?”
“To make us all stare,” said Lady Davenant, “so do not gratify him. Do
not wonder at him; we cannot believe what is impossible, you know, only
because it is impossible. But,” continued she, laughing, “I know how it
is. The spirit of contradiction--the spirit of singularity--two of your
familiars, Granville, have got possession of you again, and we must have
patience while the fit is on.”
“But I have not, and will not have patience,” said Lord Davenant, whose
good-nature seldom failed, but who was now quite indignant.
“I wonder you are surprised, my dear Lord,” said Lady Davenant, “for Mr.
Beauclerc likes so much better to go wrong by himself than to go right
with all the world, that you could not expect that he would join the
loud voice of universal praise.”
“I hear the loud voice of universal execration,” said Beauclerc; “you
have all abused me, but whom have I abused? What have I said?”
“Nothing.” replied Lady Cecilia; “that is what we complain of. I could
have better borne any abuse than indifference to Sir Walter Scott.”
“Indifference!” exclaimed Beauclerc--“what did I say Lady Cecilia, from
which you could infer that I felt indifference? Indifferent to him whose
name I cannot pronounce without emotion! I alone, of all the world,
indifferent to that genius, pre-eminent and unrivalled, who has so long
commanded the attention of the whole reading public, arrested at will
the instant order of the day by tales of other times, and in this
commonplace, this every-day existence of ours, created a holiday world,
where, undisturbed by vulgar cares, we may revel in a fancy region of
felicity, peopled with men of other times--shades of the historic dead,
more illustrious and brighter than in life!”
“Yes, the great Enchanter,” cried Cecilia.
“Great and good Enchanter,” continued Beauclerc, “for in his magic there
is no dealing with unlawful means. To work his ends, there is never aid
from any one of the bad passions of our nature. In his writings there
is no private scandal--no personal satire--no bribe to human frailty--no
libel upon human nature. And among the lonely, the sad, and the
suffering, how has he medicined to repose the disturbed mind, or
elevated the dejected spirit!--perhaps fanned to a flame the unquenched
spark, in souls not wholly lost to virtue. His morality is not in purple
patches, ostentatiously obtrusive, but woven in through the very texture
of the stuff. He paints man as he is, with all his faults, but with his
redeeming virtues--the world as it goes, with all its compensating good
and evil, yet making each man better contented with his lot. Without our
well knowing how, the whole tone of our minds is raised--for, thinking
nobly of our kind, he makes us think more nobly of ourselves!”
Helen, who had sympathised with Beauclerc in every word he had said,
felt how true it is that
“----Next to genius, is the power Of feeling where true genius lies.”
“Yet after all this, Granville,” said Lady Cecilia, “you would make us
believe you never wished to have seen this great man?”
Beauclerc made no answer.
“Oh! how I wish I had seen him!” said Helen to Lady Davenant, the only
person present who had had that happiness.
“If you have seen Raeburn’s admirable pictures, or Chantrey’s speaking
bust,” replied Lady Davenant, “you have as complete an idea of Sir
Walter Scott as painting or sculpture can give. The first impression of
his appearance and manner was surprising to me, I recollect, from its
quiet, unpretending good nature; but scarcely had that impression been
made before I was struck with something of the chivalrous courtesy of
other times. In his conversation you would have found all that is most
delightful in all his works--the combined talent and knowledge of the
historian, novelist, antiquary, and poet. He recited poetry admirably,
his whole face and figure kindling as he spoke: but whether talking,
reading, or reciting, he never tired me, even with admiring; and it
is curious that, in conversing with him, I frequently found myself
forgetting that I was speaking to Sir Walter Scott; and, what is even
more extraordinary, forgetting that Sir Walter Scott was speaking to me,
till I was awakened to the conviction by his saying something which no
one else could have said. Altogether he was certainly the most perfectly
agreeable and perfectly amiable great man I ever knew.”
“And now, mamma,” said Lady Cecilia, “do make Granville confess honestly
he would give the world to have seen him.”
“Do, Lady Davenant,” said Helen, who saw, or thought she saw, a singular
emotion in Beauclerc’s countenance, and fancied he was upon the point of
yielding; but Lady Davenant, without looking at him, replied,--“No, my
dear, I will not ask him--I will not encourage him in _affectation_.”
At that word dark grew the brow of Beauclerc, and he drew back, as it
were, into his shell, and out of it came no more that night, nor the
next morning at breakfast. But, as far as could be guessed, he suffered
internally, and no effort made to relieve did him any good, so every one
seemed to agree that it was much better to let him alone, or let him
be moody in peace, hoping that in time the mood would change; but it
changed not till the middle of that day, when, as Helen was sitting
working in Lady Davenant’s room, while she was writing, two quick knocks
were heard at the door.
“Come in!” said Lady Davenant.
Mr. Beauclerc stood pausing on the threshold----
“Do not go, Miss Stanley,” said he, looking very miserable and ashamed,
and proud, and then ashamed again.
“What is the matter, Granville?” said Lady Davenant.
“I am come to have a thorn taken out of my mind,” said he--“two thorns
which have sunk deep, kept me awake half the night. Perhaps, I ought to
be ashamed to own I have felt pain from such little things. But so it
is; though, after all, I am afraid they will be invisible to you, Lady
Davenant.”
“I will try with a magnifying-glass,” said she; “lend me that of your
imagination, Granville--a high power, and do not look so very miserable,
or Miss Stanley will laugh at you.”
“Miss Stanley is too good to laugh.”
“That is being too good indeed,” said Lady Davenant. “Well, now to the
point.”
“You were very unjust to me, Lady Davenant, yesterday, and unkind.”
“Unkind is a woman’s word; but go on.”
“Surely man may mark ‘unkindness’ altered eye’ as well as woman,” said
Beauclerc; “and from a woman and a friend he may and must feel it, or he
is more or less than man.”
“Now what can you have to say, Granville, that will not be anticlimax to
this exordium?”
“I will say no more if you talk of exordiums and anti-climaxes,” cried
he. “You accused me yesterday of affectation--twice, when I was no more
affected than you are.”
“Oh! is that my crime? Is that, what has hurt you so dreadfully? Here is
the thorn that has gone in so deep! I am afraid that, as is usual, the
accusation hurt the more because it was----”
“Do not say ‘true,’” interrupted Beauclerc, “for you really cannot
believe it, Lady Davenant. You know me, and all my faults, and I have
plenty; but you need not accuse me of one that I have not, and which
from the bottom of my soul I despise. Whatever are my faults, they are
at least real, and my own.”
“You may allow him that,” said Helen.
“Well I will--I do,” said Lady Davenant; “to appease you, poor injured
innocence; though anyone in the world might think you affected at this
moment. Yet I, who know you, know that it is pure real folly. Yes, yes,
I acquit you of affectation.”
Beauclerc’s face instantly cleared up.
“But you said two thorns had gone into your mind--one is out, now for
the other.”
“I do not feel that other, now,” said Beauclerc, “it was only a mistake.
When I began with ‘No man,’ I was not going to say, ‘No man is a hero to
his valet de chambre.’ If I had been allowed to finish my sentence, it
would have saved a great deal of trouble, I was going to say that no man
admires excellence more fervently than I do, and that my very reason
for wishing not to see celebrated people is, lest the illusion should be
dispelled.
“No description ever gives us an exact idea of any person, so that when
any one has been much described and talked of, before we see them we
form in our mind’s eye some image, some notion of our own, which always
proves to be unlike the reality; and when we do afterwards see it, even
if it be fairer or better than our imagination, still at first there
is a sort of disappointment, from the non-agreement with our previously
formed conception. Every body is disappointed the first time they see
Hamlet, or Falstaff, as I think Dugald Stewart observes.”
“True; and I remember,” said Lady Davenant, “Madame de la Rochejaquelin
once said to me, ‘I hate that people should come to see me. I know it
destroys the illusion.’”
“Yes,” cried Beauclerc; “how much I dread to destroy any of those
blessed illusions, which make the real happiness of life. Let me
preserve the objects of my idolatry; I would not approach too near the
shrine; I fear too much light. I would not know that they were false!”
“Would you then be deceived?” said Lady Davenant.
“Yes,” cried he; “sooner would I believe in all the fables of the Talmud
than be without the ecstasy of veneration. It is the curse of age to
be thus miserably disenchanted; to outlive all our illusions, all our
hopes. That may be my doom in age, but, in youth, the high spring-time
of existence, I will not be cursed with such a premature ossification
of the heart. Oh! rather, ten thousand times rather, would I die this
instant!”
“Well! but there is not the least occasion for your dying,” said Lady
Davenant, “and I am seriously surprised that you should suffer so much
from such slight causes; how will you ever get through the world if you
stop thus to weigh every light word?”
“The words of most people,” replied he, “pass by me like the idle wind;
but I do weigh every word from the very few whom I esteem, admire, and
love; with my friends, perhaps, I am too susceptible, I love them so
deeply.”
This is an excuse for susceptibility of temper which flatters friends
too much to be easily rejected. Even Lady Davenant admitted it, and
Helen thought it was all natural.
CHAPTER XIII.
Lady Cecilia was now impatient to have the house filled with company.
She gave Helen a _catalogue raisonné_ of all who were expected at
Clarendon Park, some for a fashionable three days’ visit; some for a
week; some for a fortnight or three weeks, be the same more or less. “I
have but one fixed principle,” said she, “but I _have_ one,--never to
have tiresome people when it can possibly be avoided. Impossible, you
know, it is sometimes. One’s own and one’s husband’s relations one must
have; but, as for the rest, it’s one’s own fault if one fails in the
first and last maxim of hospitality--to welcome the coming and speed the
parting guest.”
The first party who arrived were of Lady Davenant’s particular friends,
to whom Cecilia had kindly given the precedence, if not the preference,
that her mother might have the pleasure of seeing them, and that they
might have the honour of taking leave of her, before her departure from
England.
They were political, fashionable, and literary; some of ascendency
in society, some of parliamentary promise, and some of ministerial
eminence--the aristocracy of birth and talents well mixed.
The aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of talents are words
now used more as a commonplace antithesis, than as denoting a real
difference or contrast. In many instances, among those now living,
both are united in a manner happy for themselves and glorious for their
country. England may boast of having among her young nobility
“The first in birth, the first in fame.”
men distinguished in literature and science, in senatorial eloquence and
statesmanlike abilities.
But in this party at Clarendon Park there were more of the literary and
celebrated than without the presence of Lady Davenant could perhaps have
been assembled, or perhaps would have been desired by the general and
Lady Cecilia. Cecilia’s beauty and grace were of all societies, and the
general was glad for Lady Davenant’s sake and proud for his own part, to
receive these distinguished persons at his house.
Helen had seen some of them before at Cecilhurst and at the Deanery.
By her uncle’s friends she was kindly recognised, by others of course
politely noticed; but miserably would she have been disappointed and
mortified, if she had expected to fix general attention, or excite
general admiration. Past and gone for ever are the days, if ever they
were, when a young lady, on her entrance into life, captivated by a
glance, overthrew by the first word, and led in triumph her train of
admirers. These things are not to be done now-a-days.
Yet even when unnoticed Helen was perfectly happy. Her expectations were
more than gratified in seeing and in hearing these distinguished people,
and she sat listening to their conversation in delightful enjoyment,
without even wanting to have it seen how well she understood.
There is a precious moment for young people, if taken at the prime, when
first introduced into society, yet not expected, not called upon to take
a part in it, they, as standers by, may see not only all the play, but
the characters of the players, and may learn more of life and of
human nature in a few months, than afterwards in years, when they are
themselves actors upon the stage of life, and become engrossed by their
own parts. There is a time, before the passions are awakened, when
the understanding, with all the life of nature, fresh from all that
education can do to develop and cultivate, is at once eager to observe
and able to judge, for a brief space blessed with the double advantages
of youth and age. This time once gone is lost irreparably; and how often
it is lost--in premature vanity, or premature dissipation!
Helen had been chiefly educated by a man, and a very sensible man, as
Dean Stanley certainly was in all but money matters. Under his masculine
care, while her mind had been brought forward on some points, it
had been kept back on others, and while her understanding had
been cultivated, it had been done without the aid of emulation or
competition; not by touching the springs of pride, but by opening
sources of pure pleasure; and this pure pleasure she now enjoyed,
grateful to that dear uncle. For the single inimitable grace of
simplicity which she possessed, how many mothers, governesses, and young
ladies themselves, willingly, when they see how much it charms, would
too late exchange half the accomplishments, all the acquirements, so
laboriously achieved!
Beauclerc, who had seen something of the London female world, was, both
from his natural taste and from contrast, pleased with Helen’s fresh and
genuine character, and he sympathised with all her silent delight. He
never interrupted her in her enthusiastic contemplation of the great
stars, but he would now and then seize an interval of rest to compare
her observations with his own; anxious to know whether she estimated
their relative magnitude and distances as he did. These snatched moments
of comparison and proof of agreement in their observations, or the
pleasure of examining the causes of their difference of opinion,
enhanced the enjoyment of this brilliant fortnight; and not a cloud
obscured the deep serene.
Notwithstanding all the ultra-refined nonsense Beauclerc had talked
about his wish not to see remarkable persons, no one could enjoy it
more, as Helen now perceived; and she saw also that he was considered
as a man of promise among all these men of performance. But there were
some, perhaps very slight things, which raised him still more in her
mind, because they showed superiority of character. She observed his
manner towards the general in this company, where he had himself
the ‘vantage ground--so different now from what it had been in the
Old-Forest battle, when only man to man, ward to guardian. Before these
distinguished persons there was a look--a tone of deference at once most
affectionate and polite.
“It is so generous,” said Lady Cecilia to Helen; “is not it?” and Helen
agreed.
This brilliant fortnight ended too soon, as Helen thought, but Lady
Cecilia had had quite enough of it. “They are all to go to-morrow
morning, and I am not sorry for it,” said she at night, as she threw
herself into an arm-chair, in Helen’s room; and, after having indulged
in a refreshing yawn, she exclaimed, “Very delightful, very delightful!
as you say, Helen, it has all been; but I am not sure that I should not
be very much tired if I had much more of it. Oh! yes, I admired them all
amazingly, but then admiring all day long is excessively wearisome. The
very attitude of looking up fatigues both body and mind. Mamma is never
tired, because she never has to look up; she can always look down, and
that’s so grand and so easy. She has no idea how the neck of my poor
mind aches this minute; and my poor eyes! blasted with excess of light.
How yours have stood it so well, Helen, I cannot imagine! how much
stronger they must be than mine. I must confess, that, without the
relief of music now and then, and ecarté, and that quadrille, bad as it
was, I should never have got through it to-night alive or awake. But,”
cried she, starting up in her chair, “do you know Horace Churchill
stays to-morrow. Such a compliment from him to stay a day longer than he
intended! And do you know what he says of your eyes, Helen?--that they
are the best listeners he ever spoke to. I should warn you though,
my dear, that he is something, and not a little, I believe, of a male
coquette. Though he is not very young, but he well understands all the
advantages of a careful toilette. He has, like that George Herbert in
Queen Elizabeth’s time, ‘a genteel humour for dress.’ He is handsome
still, and his fine figure, and his fine feelings, and his fine fortune,
have broken two or three hearts; nevertheless I am delighted that he
stays, especially that he stays on your account.”
“Upon my account!” exclaimed Helen. “Did not you see that, from the
first day when Mr. Churchill had the misfortune to be placed beside me
at dinner, he utterly despised me: he began to talk to me, indeed, but
left his sentence unfinished, his good story untold, the instant he
caught the eye of a grander auditor.”
Lady Cecilia had seen this, and marvelled at a well-bred man so far
forgetting himself in vanity; but this, she observed, was only the first
day; he had afterwards changed his manner towards Helen completely.
“Yes, when he saw Lady Davenant thought me worth speaking to. But, after
all, it was quite natural that he should not know well what to say to
me. I am only a young lady. I acquit him of all peculiar rudeness to
me, for I am sure Mr. Churchill really could not talk for only one
insignificant hearer, could not bring out his good things, unless he
felt secure of possessing the attention of the whole dinner-table, so I
quite forgive him.”
“After this curse of forgiveness, my dear Helen, I will wish you a good
night,” said Lady Cecilia, laughing; and she retired with a fear that
there would not be jealousy enough between the gentlemen, or that Helen
would not know how to play them one against another.
There is a pleasure in seeing a large party disperse; in staying behind
when others go:--there is advantage as well as pleasure, which is felt
by the timid, because they do not leave their characters behind them;
and rejoiced in by the satirical, because the characters of the departed
and departing are left behind, fair game for them. Of this advantage
no one could be more sensible, no one availed himself of it with more
promptitude and skill, than Mr. Churchill: for well he knew that though
wit may fail, humour may not take--though even flattery may pall upon
the sense, scandal, satire, and sarcasm, are resources never failing for
the lowest capacities, and sometimes for the highest.
This morning, in the library at Clarendon Park, he looked out of the
window at the departing guests, and, as each drove off, he gave to each
his _coup de patte_. To Helen, to whom it was new, it was wonderful to
see how each, even of those next in turn to go, enjoyed the demolition
of those who were just gone; how, blind to fate, they laughed,
applauded, and licked the hand just raised to strike themselves. Of the
first who went--“Most respectable people,” said Lady Cecilia; “a _bonne
mère de famille_.”
“Most respectable people!” repeated Horace--“most respectable people,
old coach and all.” And then, as another party drove off--“No fear of
any thing truly respectable here.”
“Now, Horace, how can you say so?--she is so amiable and so clever.”
“So clever? only, perhaps, a thought too fond of English liberty and
French dress. _Poissarde bien coiffée_.”
“_Poissarde!_ of one of the best born, best bred women in England!”
cried Lady Cecilia; “_bien coiffée_, I allow.”
“Lady Cecilia is _si coiffée de sa belle amie_, that I see I must not
say a word against her, till--the fashion changes. But, hark! I hear a
voice I never wish to hear.”
“Yet nobody is better worth hearing----”
“Oh! yes, the queen of the Blues--the Blue Devils!”
“Hush!” cried the aide-de-camp, “she is coming in to take leave.”
Then, as the queen of the Blue Devils entered, Mr. Churchill, in the
most humbly respectful manner, begged--“My respects--I trust your grace
will do me the favour--the justice to remember me to all your party
who--do me the honour to bear me in mind--” then, as she left the room,
he turned about and laughed.
“Oh! you sad, false man!” cried the lady next in turn to go. “I declare,
Mr. Churchill, though I laugh, I am quite afraid to go off before you.”
“Afraid! what could malice or envy itself find to say of your ladyship,
_intacte_ as you are?--_Intacte!_” repeated he, as she drove off,
“_intacte!_--a well chosen epithet, I flatter myself!”
“Yes, _intacte_--untouched--above the breath of slander,” cried Lady
Cecilia.
“I know it: so I say,” replied Churchill: “fidelity that has stood all
temptations--to which it has ever been exposed; and her husband is----”
“A near relation of mine,” said Lady Cecilia. “I am not prudish as to
scandal in general,” continued she, laughing; “‘a chicken, too, might do
me good,’ but then the fox must not prey at home. No one ought to stand
by and hear their own relations abused.”
“A thousand pardons! I depended too much on the general maxim--that the
nearer the bone the sweeter the slander.”
“Nonsense!” said Lady Cecilia.
“I meant to say, the nearer the heart the dearer the blame. A cut
against a first cousin may go wrong--but a bosom friend--oh! how I have
succeeded against best friends; scolded all the while, of course, and
called a monster. But there is Sir Stephen bowing to you.” Then, as Lady
Cecilia kissed her hand to him from the window, Churchill went on: “By
the by, without any scandal, seriously I heard something--I was quite
concerned--that he had been of late less in his study and more in the
boudoir of ------. Surely it cannot be true!”
“Positively false,” said Lady Cecilia.
“At every breath a reputation dies,” said Beauclerc.
“‘Pon my soul, that’s true!” said the aide-de-camp. “Positively, hit or
miss, Horace has been going on, firing away with his wit, pop, pop, pop!
till he has bagged--how many brace?”
Horace turned away from him contemptuously, and looked to see
whereabouts Lady Davenant might be all this time.
CHAPTER XIV.
Lady Davenant was at the far end of the room engrossed, Churchill
feared, by the newspaper; as he approached she laid it down, and said,--
“How scandalous some of these papers have become, but it is the fault of
the taste of the age. ‘Those who live to please, must please to live.’”
Horace was not sure whether he was cut or not, but he had the presence
of mind not to look hurt. He drew nearer to Lady Davenant, seated
himself, and taking up a book as if he was tired of folly, to which he
had merely condescended, he sat and read, and then sat and thought, the
book hanging from his hand.
The result of these profound thoughts he gave to the public, not to the
aide-de-camp; no more of the little pop-gun pellets of wits--but now was
brought out reason and philosophy. In a higher tone he now reviewed the
literary, philosophical, and political world, with touches of La Bruyere
and Rochefoucault in the characters he drew and in the reflections
he made; with an air, too, of sentimental contrition for his own
penetration and fine moral sense, which compelled him to see and to be
annoyed by the faults of such superior men.
The analysis he made of every mind was really perfect--in one respect,
not a grain of bad but was separated from the good, and held up clean
and clear to public view. And as an anatomist he showed such knowledge
both of the brain and of the heart, such an admirable acquaintance with
all their diseases and handled the probe and the scalpel so well, with
such a practised hand!
“Well, really this is comfortable,” said Lord Davenant, throwing himself
back in his arm-chair--“True English comfort, to sit at ease and see all
one’s friends so well dissected! Happy to feel that it is our duty to
our neighbour to see him well cut up--ably anatomised for the good of
society; and when I depart--when my time comes--as come it must, nobody
is to touch me but Professor Churchill. It will be a satisfaction to
know that I shall be carved as a dish fit for gods, not hewed as
a carcase for hounds. So now remember, Cecilia, I call on you to
witness--I hereby, being of sound mind and body, leave and bequeath my
character, with all my defects and deficiencies whatsoever, and all and
any singular curious diseases of the mind, of which I may die possessed,
wishing the same many for his sake,--to my good friend Doctor Horace
Churchill, professor of moral, philosophic, and scandalous anatomy, to
be by him dissected at his good pleasure for the benefit of society.”
“Many thanks, my good lord; and I accept your legacy for the honour--not
the value of the gift, which every body must be sensible is nothing,”
said Churchill, with a polite bow--“absolutely nothing. I shall never be
able to make anything of it.”
“Try--try, my dear friend,” answered Lord Davenant. “Try, don’t be
modest.”
“That would be difficult when so distinguished,” said Beauclerc, with an
admirable look of proud humility.
“Distinguished Mr. Horace Churchill assuredly is,” said Lady Davenant,
looking at him from behind her newspaper. “Distinguished above all his
many competitors in this age of scandal; he has really raised the art
to the dignity of a science. Satire, scandal, and gossip, now
hand-in-hand--the three new graces: all on the same elevated
rank--three, formerly considered as so different, and the last left to
our inferior sex, but now, surely, to be a male gossip is no reproach.”
“O, Lady Davenant!--male gossip--what an expression!”
“What a reality!”
“Male gossip!--‘_Tombe sur moi le ciel!_’” cried Churchill.
“‘_Pourvu que je me venge_,’ always understood,” pursued Lady Davenant;
“but why be so afraid of the imputation of gossiping, Mr. Churchill?
It is quite fashionable, and if so, quite respectable, you know, and in
your style quite grand.
“And gossiping wonders at being so fine--
“Malice, to be hated, needs but to be seen, but now when it is elegantly
dressed we look upon it without shame or consciousness of evil; we grow
to doat upon it--so entertaining, so graceful, so refined. When vice
loses half its grossness, it loses all its deformity. Humanity used to
be talked of when our friends were torn to pieces, but now there is such
a philosophical perfume thrown over the whole operation, that we are
irresistibly attracted. How much we owe to such men as Mr. Churchill,
who make us feel detraction virtue!”
He bowed low as Lady Davenant, summoned by her lord, left the room, and
there he stood as one condemned but not penitent.
“If I have not been well sentenced,” said he, as the door closed, “and
made ‘_to feel detraction virtue_!’--But since Lady Cecilia cannot help
smiling at that, I am acquitted, and encouraged to sin again the first
opportunity. But Lady Davenant shall not be by, nor Lord Davenant
either.”
Lady Cecilia sat down to write a note, and Mr. Churchill walked round
the room in a course of critical observation on the pictures, of which,
as of every thing else, he was a supreme judge. At last he put his eye
and his glass down to something which singularly attracted his attention
on one of the marble tables.
“Pretty!” said Lady Cecilia, “pretty are not they?--though one’s so
tired of them every where now--those doves!”
“Doves!” said Churchill, “what I am admiring are gloves, are not they,
Miss Stanley?” said he, pointing to an old pair of gloves, which, much
wrinkled and squeezed together, lay on the beautiful marble in rather an
unsightly lump.
“Poor Doctor V------,” cried Helen to Cecilia; “that poor Doctor
V-------is as absent as ever! he is gone, and has forgotten his gloves!”
“Absent! oh, as ever!” said Lady Cecilia, going on with her note, “the
most absent man alive.”
“Too much of that sort of thing I think there is in Doctor V-------,”
pursued Churchill: “a touch of absence of mind, giving the idea of high
abstraction, becomes a learned man well enough; but then it should only
be slight, as a _soupçon_ of rouge, which may become a pretty woman;
all depends on the measure, the taste, with which these things are
managed--put on.”
“There is nothing managed, nothing _put on_ in Doctor V------,” cried
Helen, eagerly, her colour rising; “it is all perfectly sincere, true in
him, whatever it be.”
Beauclerc put down his book.
“All perfectly true! You really think so, Miss Stanley?” said Churchill,
smiling, and looking superior down.
“I do, indeed,” cried Helen.
“Charming--so young! How I do love that freshness of mind!”
“Impertinent fellow! I could knock him down, felt Beauclerc.
“And you think all Doctor V------‘s humility true?” said Churchill.
“Yes, perfectly!” said Helen; “but I do not wonder you are surprised at
it, Mr. Churchill.”
She meant no _malice_, though for a moment he thought she did; and he
winced under Beauclerc’s smile.
“I do not wonder that any one who does not know Doctor V------ should be
surprised by his great humility,” added Helen.
“You are sure that it is not pride that apes humility?” asked Churchill.
“Yes, quite sure!”
“Yet--” said Churchill (putting his malicious finger through a great
hole in the thumb of the doctor’s glove) “I should have fancied that
I saw vanity through the holes in these gloves, as through the
philosopher’s cloak of old.”
“Horace is a famous fellow for picking holes and making much of them,
Miss Stanley, you see,” said the aide-de-camp.
“Vanity! Doctor V----has no vanity!” said Helen, “if you knew him.”
“No vanity! Whom does Miss Stanley mean?” cried the aide-de-camp. “No
vanity? that’s good. Who? Horace?”
“_Mauvais plaisant_!” Horace put him by, and, happily not easily put out
of countenance, he continued to Helen,--
“You give the good doctor credit, too, for all his _naïveté_?” said
Churchill.
“He does not want credit for it,” said Helen, “he really has it.”
“I wish I could see things as you do, Miss Stanley.”
“Show him that, Helen,” cried Lady Cecilia, looking at a table beside
them, on which lay one of those dioramic prints which appear all a
confusion of lines till you look at them in their right point of view.
“Show him that--it all depends, and so does seeing characters, on
getting the right point of view.”
“Ingenious!” said Churchill, trying to catch the right position; “but I
can’t, I own--” then abruptly resuming, “Navïeté charms me at fifteen,”
and his eye glanced at Helen, then was retracted, then returning to his
point of view, “at eighteen perhaps may do,” and his eyes again turned
to Helen, “at eighteen--it captivates me quite,” and his eye dwelt. “But
naïveté at past fifty, verging to sixty, is quite another thing, really
rather too much for me. I like all things in season, and above all,
simplicity will not bear long keeping. I have the greatest respect
possible for our learned and excellent friend, but I wish this could be
any way suggested to him, and that he would lay aside this out-of-season
simplicity.”
“He cannot lay aside his nature,” said Helen, “and I am glad of it, it
is such a good nature.”
“Kind-hearted creature he is, I never heard him say a severe word of any
one,” said Lady Cecilia.
“What a sweet man he must he!” said Horace, making a face at which none
present, not even Helen, could forbear to smile. “His heart, I am sure,
is in the right place always. I only wish one could say the same of his
wig. And would it be amiss if he sometimes (I would not be too hard upon
him, Miss Stanley), once a fortnight, suppose--brushed, or caused to be
brushed, that coat of his?”
“You have dusted his jacket for him famously, Horace, I think,” said the
aide-de-camp.
At this instant the door opened, and in came the doctor himself.
Lady Cecilia’s hand was outstretched with her note, thinking, as the
door opened, that she should see the servant come in, for whom she had
rung.
“What surprises you all so, my good friends,” said the doctor, stopping
and looking round in all his native simplicity.
“My dear doctor” said Lady Cecilia, “only we all thought you were
gone--that’s all.”
“And I am not gone, that’s all. I stayed to write a letter, and am come
here to look for--but I cannot find-my--”
“Your gloves, perhaps, doctor, you are looking for,” said Churchill,
going forward, and with an air of the greatest respect and
consideration, both for the gloves and for their owner, he presented
them; then shook the doctor by the hand, with a cordiality which the
good soul thought truly English, and, bowing him out, added, “How proud
he had been to make his acquaintance,--_au revoir_, he hoped, in Park
Lane.”
“Oh you treacherous--!” cried Lady Cecilia, turning to Horace, as soon
as the unsuspecting philosopher was fairly gone. “Too bad really! If
he were not the most simple-minded creature extant, he must have seen,
suspected, something from your look; and what would have become of you
if the doctor had come in one moment sooner, and had heard you--I was
really frightened.”
“Frightened! so was I, almost out of my wits,” said Churchill.
“_Les revenans_ always frighten one; and they never hear any good of
themselves, for which reason I make it a principle, when once I have
left a room, full of friends especially, never--never to go back. My
gloves, my hat, my coat, I’d leave, sooner than lose my friends. Once
I heard it said, by one who knew the world and human nature better than
any of us--once I heard it said in jest, but in sober earnest I say,
that I would not for more than I am worth be placed, without his knowing
it, within earshot of my best friend.”
“What sort of a best friend can yours he?” cried Beauclerc.
“Much like other people’s, I suppose,” replied Horace, speaking with
perfect nonchalance--“much like other people’s best friends. Whosoever
expects to find better, I guess, will find worse, if he live in the
world we live in.”
“May I go out of the world before I believe or suspect any such thing?”
cried Beauclerc. “Rather than have the Roman curse light upon me,
‘May you survive all your friends and relations!’ may I die a thousand
times!”
“Who talks of dying, in a voice so sweet--a voice so loud?” said
provoking Horace, in his calm, well-bred tone; “for my part, I who have
the honour of speaking to you, can boast, that never since I was of
years of discretion (counting new style, beginning at thirteen, of
course)--never have I lost a friend, a sincere friend--never, for this
irrefragable reason--since that nonage, never was I such a neophyte as
to fancy I had found that _lusus natures_, a friend perfectly sincere.”
“How I pity you!” cried Beauclerc, “if you are in earnest; but in
earnest you can’t be.”
“Pardon me, I can, and I am. And in earnest you will oblige me, Mr.
Beauclerc, if you will spare me your pity: for, all things in this
world considered,” said Horace Churchill, drawing himself up, “I do not
conceive that I am much an object of pity.” Then, turning upon his heel,
he walked away, conscious, however, half an instant afterwards, that
he had drawn himself up too high, and that for a moment his temper had
spoiled his tone, and betrayed him into a look and manner too boastful,
bordering on the ridiculous. He was in haste to repair the error.
Not Garrick, in the height of his celebrity and of his susceptibility,
was ever more anxious than Horace Churchill to avert the stroke of
ridicule--to guard against the dreaded smile. As he walked away, he felt
behind his back that those he left were smiling in silence.
Lady Cecilia had thrown herself on a sofa, resting, after the labour of
_l’éloquence de billet_. He stopped, and, leaning over the back of the
sofa on which she reclined, repeated an Italian line in which was the
word “_pavoneggiarsi_.”
“My dear Lady Cecilia, you, who understand and feel Italian so well, how
expressive are some of their words! _Pavoneggiarsi!_--untranslatable.
One cannot say well in English, to peacock oneself. To make oneself like
unto a peacock is flat; but _pavoneggiarsi_--action, passion, picture,
all in one! To plume oneself comes nearest to it; but the word cannot
be given, even by equivalents, in English; nor can it be naturalised,
because, in fact, we have not the feeling. An Englishman is too proud to
boast--too bashful to strut; if ever he _peacocks himself_, it is in
a moment of anger, not in display. The language of every country,”
continued he, raising his voice, in order to reach Lady Davenant,
who just then returned to the room, as he did not wish to waste a
philosophical observation on Lady Cecilia,--“the language of every
country is, to a certain degree, evidence, record, history of its
character and manners.” Then, lowering his voice almost to a whisper,
but very distinct, turning while he spoke so as to make sure that Miss
Stanley heard--“Your young friend this morning quite captivated me by
her nature--nature, the thing that now is most uncommon, a real natural
woman; and when in a beauty, how charming! How delicious when one meets
with _effusion de coeur_: a young lady, too, who speaks pure English,
not a leash of languages at once; and cultivated, too, your friend is,
for one does not like ignorance, if one could have knowledge without
pretension--so hard to find the golden mean!--and if one could find it,
one might not be nearer to----”
Lady Cecilia listened for the finishing word, but none came. It all
ended in a sigh, to be interpreted as she pleased. A look towards the
ottoman, where Beauclerc had now taken his seat beside Miss Stanley,
seemed to point the meaning out: but Lady Cecilia knew her man too well
to understand him.
Beauclerc, seated on the ottoman, was showing to Helen some passages in
the book he was reading; she read with attention, and from time to time
looked up with a smile of intelligence and approbation. What either said
Horace could not hear, and he was the more curious, and when the book
was put down, after carelessly opening others he took it up. Very much
surprised was he to find it neither novel nor poem: many passages were
marked with pencil notes of approbation, he took it for granted these
were Bleauclerc’s; there he was mistaken, they were Lady Davenant’s. She
was at her work-table. Horace, book in hand, approached; the book
was not in his line, it was more scientific than literary--it was for
posterity more than for the day; he had only turned it over as literary
men turn over scientific books, to seize what may serve for a new simile
or a good allusion; besides, among his philosophical friends, the book
being talked of, it was well to know enough of it to have something to
say, and he had said well, very _judiciously_ he had praised it among
the elect; but now it was his fancy to depreciate it with all his might;
not that he disliked the author or the work now more than he had
done before, but he was in the humour to take the opposite side from
Beauclerc, so he threw the book from him contemptuously “Rather a slight
hasty thing, in my opinion,” said he. Beauclerc’s eyes took fire as he
exclaimed, “Slight! hasty! this most noble, most solid work!”
“Solid in your opinion,” said Churchill, with a smile deferential,
slightly sneering.
“Our own opinion is all that either of us can give,” said Beauclerc; “in
my opinion it is the finest view of the progress of natural philosophy,
the most enlarged, the most just in its judgments of the past, and in
its prescience of the future; in the richness of experimental knowledge,
in its theoretic invention, the greatest work by any one individual
since the time of Bacon.”
“And Bacon is under your protection, too?”
“Protection! my protection?” said Beauclerc.
“Pardon me, I simply meant to ask if you are one of those who swear by
Lord Verulam.”
“I swear by no man, I do not swear at all, not on philosophical subjects
especially; swearing adds nothing to faith,” said Beauclerc.
“I stand corrected,” said Churchill, “and I would go further, and add
that in argument enthusiasm adds nothing to reason--much as I admire,
as we all admire,” glancing at Miss Stanley, “that enthusiasm with which
this favoured work has been advocated!”
“I could not help speaking warmly,” cried Beauclerc; “it is a book to
inspire enthusiasm; there is such a noble spirit all through it, so pure
from petty passions, from all vulgar jealousies, all low concerns! Judge
of a book, somebody says, by the impression it leaves on your mind when
you lay it down; this book stands that test, at least with me, I lay
it down with such a wish to follow--with steps ever so unequal still to
follow, where it points the way.”
“Bravo! bravissimo! hear him, hear him! print him, print him! hot-press
from the author to the author, hot-press!” cried Churchill, and he
laughed.
Like one suddenly awakened from the trance of enthusiasm by the cold
touch of ridicule, stood Beauclerc, brought down from heaven to earth,
and by that horrid little laugh, not the heart’s laugh.
“But my being ridiculous does not make my cause so, and that is a
comfort.”
“And another comfort you may have, my dear Granville,” said Lady
Davenant, “that ridicule is not the test of truth; truth should be the
test of ridicule.”
“But where is the book?” continued Beauclerc.
Helen gave it to him.
“Now, Mr. Churchill,” said Beauclerc; “I am really anxious, I know you
are such a good critic, will you show me these faults? blame as well as
praise must always be valuable from those who themselves excel.”
“You are too good,” said Churchill.
“Will you then be good enough to point out the errors for me?”
“Oh, by no means,” cried Churchill, “don’t note me, do not quote me, I
am nobody, and I cannot give up my authorities.”
“But the truth is all I want to get at,” said Beauclerc.
“Let her rest, my dear sir, at the bottom of her well; there she is,
and there she will be for ever and ever, and depend upon it none of our
windlassing will ever bring her up.”
“Such an author as this,” continued Beauclerc, “would have been so glad
to have corrected any error.”
“So every author tells you, but I never saw one of them who did not look
blank at a list of errata--if you knew how little one is thanked for
them!”
“But you would be thanked now,” said Beauclerc:--“the faults in style,
at least.”
“Nay, I am no critic,” said Churchill, confident in his habits of
literary detection; “but if you ask me,” said he, as he disdainfully
flirted the leaves back and forward with a “There now!” and a “Here
now!” “We should not call that good writing--you could not think this
correct? I may be wrong, but I should not use this phrase. Hardly
English that--colloquial, I think; and this awkward ablative
absolute--never admitted now.”
“Thank you,” said Beauclerc, “these faults are easily mended.”
“Easily mended, say you? I say, better make a new one.”
“WHO COULD?” said Beauclerc.
“How many faults you see,” said Helen, “which I should never have
perceived unless you had pointed them out, and I am sorry to know them
now.” Smiling at Helen’s look of sincere mortification, in contrast at
this moment with Mr. Churchill’s air of satisfied critical pride, Lady
Davenant said,--
“Why sorry, my dear Helen? No human work can be perfect; Mr. Churchill
may be proud of that strength of eye which in such a powerful light can
count the spots. But whether it be the best use to make of his eyes, or
the best use that can be made of the light, remains to be considered.”
CHAPTER XV.
Beyond measure was Churchill provoked to find Lady Davenant against him
and on the same side as Granville Beauclerc--all unused to contradiction
in his own society, where he had long been supreme, he felt a difference
of opinion so sturdily maintained as a personal insult.
For so young a man as Beauclerc, yet unknown to fame, not only to
challenge the combat but to obtain the victory, was intolerable; and
the more so, because his young opponent appeared no ways elated or
surprised, but seemed satisfied to attribute his success to the goodness
of his cause.
Churchill had hitherto always managed wisely his great stakes and
pretensions in both the fashionable and literary world. He had never
actually published any thing except a clever article or two in a review,
or an epigram, attributed to him but not acknowledged. Having avoided
giving his measure, it was believed he was above all who had been
publicly tried--it was always said--“If Horace Churchill would but
publish, he would surpass every other author of our times.”
Churchill accordingly dreaded and hated all who might by possibility
approach the throne of fashion, or interfere with his dictatorship in a
certain literary set in London, and from this moment he began cordially
to detest Beauclerc--he viewed him with a scornful, yet with jealous
eyes; but his was the jealousy of vanity, not of love; it regarded Lady
Davenant and his fashionable reputation in the first place--Helen only
in the second.
Lady Davenant observed all this, and was anxious to know how much or
how little Helen had seen, and what degree of interest it excited in her
mind. One morning, when they were alone together, looking over a cabinet
of cameos, Lady Davenant pointed to one which she thought like Mr.
Beauclerc. Helen did not see the likeness.
“People see likenesses very differently,” said Lady Davenant. “But you
and I, Helen, usually see characters, if not faces, with the same eyes.
I have been thinking of these two gentlemen, Mr. Churchill and Mr.
Beauclerc--which do you think the most agreeable?”
“Mr. Churchill is amusing certainly,” said Helen, “but I think Mr.
Beauclerc’s conversation much more interesting--though Mr. Churchill is
agreeable, sometimes--when--”
“When he flatters you,” said Lady Davenant.
“When he is not satirical--I was going to say,” said Helen.
“There is a continual petty brilliancy, a petty effort too,” continued
Lady Davenant, “in Mr. Churchill, that tires me--sparks struck
perpetually, but then you hear the striking of the flints, the clink of
the tinder-box.”
Helen, though she admitted the tinder-box, thought it too low a
comparison. She thought Churchill’s were not mere sparks.
“Well, fireworks, if you will,” said Lady Davenant, “that rise, blaze,
burst, fall, and leave you in darkness, and with a disagreeable smell
too; and it’s all _feu d’artifice_ after all. Now in Beauclerc there is
too little art and too ardent nature. Some French friends of mine who
knew both, said of Mr. Churchill, ‘_De l’esprit on ne peut pas plus même
à Paris_,’ the highest compliment a Parisian can pay, but they allowed
that Beauclerc had ‘_beaucoup plus d’ame_.’”
“Yes,” said Helen; “how far superior!”
“It has been said,” continued Lady Davenant, “that it is safer to judge
of men by their actions than by their words, but there are few actions
and many words in life; and if women would avail themselves of their
daily, hourly, opportunities of judging people by their words, they
would get at the natural characters, or, what is of just as much
consequence, they would penetrate through the acquired habits; and here
Helen, you have two good studies before you.”
Preoccupied as Helen was with the certainty of Beauclerc being an
engaged, almost a married man, and looking, as she did, on Churchill as
one who must consider her as utterly beneath his notice, she listened to
Lady Davenant’s remarks as she would have done to observations about two
characters in a novel or on the stage.
As Churchill could not immediately manifest his hatred of Beauclerc, it
worked inwardly the more. He did not sleep well this night, and when he
got up in the morning, there was something the matter with him. Nervous,
bilious--cross it could not be;--_journalier_ (a French word settles
everything)--_journalier_ he allowed he was; he rather gloried in it,
because his being permitted to be so proved his power,--his prerogative
of fortune and talent combined.
In the vast competition of the London world, it is not permitted to
every man to be in his humour or out of his humour at pleasure; but, by
an uncommon combination of circumstances, Churchill had established his
privilege of caprice; he was allowed to have his bad and his good days,
and the highest people and the finest smiled, and submitted to his
“_cachet de faveur et de disgrace_;” and when he was sulky, rude,
or snappish, called it only Horace Churchill’s way. They even prided
themselves on his preferences and his aversions. “Horace is always
charming when he is with us.”--“With me you have no idea how delightful
he is.”--“Indeed I must do him the justice to say, that I never found
him otherwise.”--While the less favoured permitted him to be as rude as
he pleased, and only petted him, and told of his odd ways to those who
sighed in vain to have him at their parties. But Lady Davenant was not
a person to pet or spoil a child of any age, and to the general, Mr.
Churchill was not particularly agreeable--not his sort; while to Lady
Cecilia, secure in grace, beauty, and fashion, his humours were only
matter of amusement, and she bore with him pleasantly and laughingly.
“Such weather!” cried he in a querulous tone; “how can a man have any
sense in such weather? Some foreigner says, that the odious climate of
England is an over-balance for her good constitution. The sun of the
south is in truth well worth the liberty of the north. It is a sad
thing,” said he, with a very sentimental air, “that a free-born Briton
should be servile to these skyey influences;” and, grumbling on, he
looked out of the window as cross as he pleased, and nobody minded him.
The aide-de-camp civilly agreed with him that it was horrid weather,
and likely to rain, and it did rain; and every one knows how men, like
children, are in certain circumstances affected miserably by a rainy
day. There was no going out; horses at the door, and obliged to be
dismissed. Well, since there could be no riding, the next best thing the
aide-de-camp thought, was to talk of horses, and the officers all grew
eager, and Churchill had a mind to exert himself so far as to show
them that he knew more of the matter than they did; that he was no mere
book-man; but on this unlucky day, all went wrong. It happened that
Horace fell into some grievous error concerning the genealogy of a
famous race-horse, and, disconcerted more than he would have been at
being convicted of any degree of moral turpitude, vexed and ashamed,
he talked no more of Newmarket or of Doncaster, left the race-ground
to those who prided themselves on the excellences of their four-footed
betters, and lounged into the billiard-room.
He found Lady Cecilia playing with Beauclerc; Miss Stanley was looking
on. Churchill was a famous billiard-player, and took his turn to show
how much better than Beauclerc he performed, but this day his hand was
out, his eye not good; he committed blunders of which a novice might
have been ashamed. And there was Miss Stanley and there was Beauclerc by
to see! and Beauclerc pitied him!
O line extreme of human misery!
He retreated to the book-room, but there the intellectual Horace, with
all the sages, poets, and novelists of every age within his reach,
reached them not; but, with his hands in his pockets, like any squire
or schoolboy under the load of ignorance or penalties of idleness, stood
before the chimney-piece, eyeing the pendule, and verily believing that
this morning the hands went backward. Dressing-time at last came, and
dinner-time, bringing relief how often to man and child ill-tempered;
but, this day to Churchill dinner brought only discomfiture worse
discomfited.
Some of the neighbouring families were to dine at Clarendon Park. Mr.
Churchill abhorred country neighbours and country gentlemen. Among
these, however, were some not unworthy to be perceived by him; and
besides these, there were some foreign officers; one in particular, from
Spain, of high rank and birth, of the _sangre azul_, the _blue blood_,
who have the privilege of the silken cord if they should come to be
hanged. This Spaniard was a man of distinguished talent, and for him
Horace might have been expected to shine out; it was his pleasure,
however, this day to disappoint expectations, and to do “the dishonours
of his country.” He would talk only of eating, of which he was
privileged not only to speak but to judge, and pronounce upon _en
dernier ressort_, though this was only an air, for he was not really a
gourmand; but after ogling through his glass the distant dishes, when
they with a wish came nigh, he, after a cursory glance or a close
inspection, made them with a nod retire.
At last he thought an opportunity offered for bringing in a
well-prepared anecdote which he had about Cambaçeres, and a hot
blackbird and white feet, but unluckily a country gentleman would tell
some history of a battle between poachers and gamekeepers, which fixed
the attention of the company till the moment for the anecdote was past.
Horace left his tale untold, and spoke word never more till a subject
was started on which he thought he could come out unrivalled. General
Clarendon had some remarkably good wines. Churchill was referred to as
a judge, and he allowed them to be all good, but he prided himself on
possessing a certain Spanish wine, esteemed above all price, because not
to be had for money--_amontillado_ is its name. Horace appealed to the
Spanish officer, who confirmed all he said of this vinous phenomenon.
“No cultivator can be certain of producing it. It has puzzled, almost to
death, all the _growers_ of Xeres:--it is a variety of sherry, almost as
difficult to judge of as to procure.”
But Mr. Churchill boasted he had some, undoubtedly genuine; he added,
“that Spanish judges had assured him his taste was so accurate he might
venture to pronounce upon the difficult question of amontillado or not!”
While he yet spoke, General Clarendon, unawares, placed before him
some of this very fine wine, which, as he finished speaking, Churchill
swallowed without knowing it from some other sherry which he had
been drinking. He would have questioned that it was genuine, but
the Spaniard, as far as he could pretend to judge, thought it
unquestionable.
Churchill’s countenance fell in a manner that quite surprised Helen, and
exceedingly amused Lady Cecilia. He was more mortified and vexed by this
failure than by all the rest, for the whole table smiled.
The evening of this day of misfortune was not brighter than the morning,
everything was wrong--even at night--at night when at last the dinner
company, the country visitors, relieved him from their presence,
and when some comfort might be had, he thought, stretched in a good
easy-chair--Lord Davenant had set him the example. But something had
happened to all the chairs,--there was a variety of fashionable kinds;
he tried them by turns, but none of them this night would suit him. Yet
Lady Cecilia maintained (for the general had chosen them) that they
were each and all of them in their way comfortable, in the full
English spirit of the word, and according to the French explanation of
_comfortable_, given to us by the Duchess d’Abrantes, _convenablement
bon_; but in compassion to Mr. Churchill’s fastidious restlessness, she
would now show him a perfection of a chair which she had just had made
for her own boudoir. She ordered that it should be brought, and in it
rolled, and it was looked at in every direction and sat in, and no fault
could be found with it, even by the great faultfinder; but what was it
called? It was neither a lounger, nor a dormeuse, nor a Cooper, nor a
Nelson, nor a kangaroo: a chair without a name would never do; in all
things fashionable the name is more than half. Such a happy name as
kangaroo Lady Cecilia despaired of finding for her new favourite, but
she begged some one would give it a good one; whoever gave her the best
name should be invited to the honours and pleasures of the sitting in
this chair for the rest of the night.
Her eyes, and all eyes, turned upon Mr. Churchill, but whether the
occasion was too great, or that his desire to satisfy the raised
expectation of the public was too high strained, or that the time was
out of joint, or that he was out of sorts, the fact was, he could find
no name.
Beauclerc, who had not yet tried the chair, sank into its luxurious
depth, and leaning back, asked if it might not be appropriately called
the “Sleepy-hollow.”
“Sleepy-hollow!” repeated Lady Cecilia, “excellent!” and by acclamation
“Sleepy-hollow” was approved; but when Beauclerc was invited to the
honours of the sitting, he declined, declaring that the name was not his
invention, only his recollection; it had been given by a friend of his
to some such easy chair.
This magnanimity was too much for Horace; he looked at his watch,
found it was bed-time, pushed the chair out of his way, and departed;
Beauclerc, the first and last idea in this his day of mortifications.
Seeing a man subject to these petty irritations lowers him in the eyes
of woman. For that susceptibility of temper arising from the jealousy
of love, even when excited by trifles, woman makes all reasonable, all
natural allowance; but for the jealousy of self-love she has no pity.
Unsuited to the manly character!--so Helen thought, and so every woman
thinks.
CHAPTER XVI.
It was expected by all who had witnessed his discomfiture and his
parting push to the chair, that Mr. Churchill would be off early in
the morning--such was his wont when he was disturbed in vanity: but he
reappeared at breakfast.
This day was a good day with Horace; he determined it should be so,
and though it was again a wet day, he now showed that he could rule
the weather of his own humour, when intensity of will was wakened by
rivalry. He made himself most agreeable, and the man of yesterday was
forgotten or remembered only as a foil to the man of to-day. The words
he so much loved to hear, and to which he had so often surreptitiously
listened, were now repeated, ‘No one can be so agreeable as Horace
Churchill is on his good days!’
Bright he shone out, all gaiety and graciousness; the _cachet de faveur_
was for all, but its finest impression was for Helen. He tried flattery,
and wit, each playing on the other with reflected and reflecting lustre,
for a woman naturally says to herself, “When this man has so much wit,
his flattery even must be worth something.”
And another day came, and another, and another party of friends filled
the house, and still Mr. Churchill remained, and was now the delight of
all. As far as concerned his successes in society, no one was more ready
to join in applause than Beauclerc; but when Helen was in question he
was different, though he had reasoned himself into the belief that he
could not yet love Miss Stanley, therefore he could not be jealous. But
he had been glad to observe that she had from the first seemed to see
what sort of a person Mr. Churchill was. She was now only amused, as
everybody must be, but she would never be interested by such a man as
Horace Churchill, a wit without a soul. If she were--why he could never
feel any further interest about her--that was all!
So it went on; and now Lady Cecilia was as much amused as she expected
by these daily jealousies, conflicts, and comparisons, the feelings
perpetually tricking themselves out, and strutting about, calling
themselves judgments, like the servants in Gil Blas in their masters’
clothes, going about as counts dukes, and grandees.
“Well, really,” said Lady Cecilia to Helen, one day, as she was standing
near her tambour frame, “you are an industrious creature, and the only
very industrious person I ever could bear. I have myself a natural
aversion to a needle, but that tambour needle I can better endure than a
common one, because, in the first place, it makes a little noise in
the world; one not only sees but hears it getting on; one finds, that
without dragging it draws at every link a lengthened chain.”
“It is called chainstitch, is it not?” said the aide-de-camp; “and Miss
Stanley is working on so famously fast at it she will have us all in her
chains by and by.”
“Bow, Miss Stanley,” said Lady Cecilia; “that pretty compliment deserves
at least a bow, if not a look-up.”
“I should prefer a look-down, if I were to choose,” said Churchill.
“Beggars must not be choosers,” said the aide-de-camp.
“But the very reason I can bear to look at you working, Helen,”
continued Lady Cecilia, “is, because you do look up so often--so
refreshingly. The professed _Notables_ I detest--those who never raise
their eyes from their everlasting work; whatever is said, read, thought,
or felt, is with them of secondary importance to that bit of muslin in
which they are making holes, or that bit of canvass on which they are
perpetrating such figures or flowers as nature scorns to look upon.
I did not mean anything against you mamma, I assure you,” continued
Cecilia, turning to her mother, who was also at her embroidering
frame, “because, though you do work, or have work before you, to do you
justice, you never attend to it in the least.”
“Thank you! my dear Cecilia,” said Lady Davenant, smiling; “I am,
indeed, a sad bungler, but still I shall always maintain a great respect
for work and workers, and I have good reasons for it.”
“And so have I,” said Lord Davenant. “I only wish that men who do not
know what to do with their hands, were not ashamed to sew. If custom had
but allowed us this resource, how many valuable lives might have been
saved, how many rich ennuyés would not have hung themselves, even in
November! What years of war, what overthrow of empires, might have been
avoided, if princes and sultans, instead of throwing handkerchiefs, had
but hemmed them!”
“No, no,” said Lady Davenant, “recollect that the race of Spanish
kings has somewhat deteriorated since they exchanged the sword for
the tambour-frame. We had better have things as they are: leave us the
privilege of the needle, and what a valuable resource it is; sovereign
against the root of all evil--an antidote both to love in idleness and
hate in idleness--which is most to be dreaded, let those who have felt
both decide. I think we ladies must be allowed to keep the privilege of
the needle to ourselves, humble though it be, for we must allow it is a
good one.”
“Good at need,” said Churchill. “There is an excellent print, by Bouck,
I believe, of an old woman beating the devil with a distaff; distaffs
have been out of fashion with spinsters ever since, I fancy.”
“But as she was old, Churchill,” said Lord Davenant, “might not your
lady have defied his black majesty, without her distaff?”
“His _black_ majesty! I admire your distinction, my lord,” said
Churchill, “but give it more emphasis; for all kings are not black
in the eyes of the fair, it is said, you know.” And here he began an
anecdote of regal scandal in which Lady Cecilia stopped him----
“Now, Horace, I protest against your beginning with scandal so early
in the morning. None of your _on dits_, for decency’s sake, before
luncheon; wait till evening.”
Churchill coughed, and shrugged, and sighed, and declared he would be
temperate; he would not touch a character, upon his honour; he would
only indulge in a few little personalities; it could not hurt any lady’s
feelings that he should criticise or praise absent beauties. So he just
made a review of all he could recollect, in answer to a question one of
the officers, Captain Warmsley, had asked him, and which, in an absent
fit, he had had the ill-manners yesterday, as now he recollected, not
to answer--Whom he considered as altogether the handsomest woman of his
acquaintance? Beauclerc was now in the room, and Horace was proud to
display, before him in particular, his infinite knowledge of all the
fair and fashionable, and all that might be admitted fashionable without
being fair--all that have the _je ne sais quoi_, which is than beauty
dearer. As one conscious of his power to consecrate or desecrate, by one
look of disdain or one word of praise, he stood; and beginning at the
lowest conceivable point, his uttermost notion of want of beauty--his
_laid ideal_, naming one whose image, no doubt, every charitable
imagination will here supply, Horace next fixed upon another for his
mediocrity point--what he should call “just well enough”--_assez bien,
assez_--just up to the Bellasis motto, “_Bonne et belle assez_.” Then,
in the ascending scale, he rose to those who, in common parlance, may be
called charming, fascinating; and still for each he had his fastidious
look and depreciating word. Just keeping within the verge, Horace,
without exposing himself to the ridicule of coxcombry, ended by sighing
for that being ‘made of every creature’s best’--perfect, yet free
from the curse of perfection. Then, suddenly turning to Beauclerc, and
tapping him on the shoulder--“Do, give us your notions--to what sort of
a body or mind, now, would you willingly bend the knee?”
Beauclerc could not or would not tell--“I only know that whenever I bend
the knee,” said he, “it will be because I cannot help it!”
Beauclerc could not be drawn out either by Churchill’s persiflage or
flattery, and he tried both, to talk of his tastes or opinions of women.
He felt too much perhaps about love to talk much about it. This all
agreed well in Helen’s imagination with what Lady Cecilia had told her
of his secret engagement. She was sure he was thinking of Lady Blanche,
and that he could not venture to describe her, lest he should betray
himself and his secret. Then, leaving Churchill and the talkers, he
walked up and down the room alone, at the further side, seeming as if
he were recollecting some lines which he repeated to himself, and then
stopping before Lady Cecilia, repeated to her, in a very low voice, the
following:--
“I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.”
Helen thought Lady Blanche must be a charming creature if she was like
this picture; but somehow, as she afterwards told Lady Cecilia, she had
formed a different idea of Lady Blanche Forrester--Cecilia smiled and
asked, “How? different how?”
Helen did not exactly know, but altogether she had imagined that she
must be more of a heroine, or perhaps more of a woman of rank and
fashion. She had not formed any exact idea--but different altogether
from this description. Lady Cecilia again smiled, and said, “Very
natural; and after all not very certain that the Lady Blanche is like
this picture, which was not drawn for her or from her assuredly--a
resemblance found only in the imagination, to which we are, all of us,
more or less, dupes; and _tant mieux_ say I--_tant pis_ says mamma--and
all mothers.”
“There is one thing I like better in Mr. Beauclerc’s manners than in Mr.
Churchill,” said Helen.
“There are a hundred I like better,” said Lady Cecilia, “but what is
your one thing?”
“That he always speaks of women in general with respect--as if he
had more confidence in them, and more dependence upon them for his
happiness. Now Mr. Churchill, with all the adoration he professes, seems
to look upon them as idols that he can set up or pull down, bend the
knee to or break to pieces, at pleasure--I could not like a man for a
friend who had a bad, or even a contemptuous, opinion of women--could
you, Cecilia?”
“Certainly not,” Lady Cecilia said; “the general had always, naturally,
the greatest respect for women. Whatever prejudices he had taken up had
been only caught from others, and lasted only till he had got rid of the
impression of certain ‘untoward circumstances.’” Even a grave, serious
dislike, both Lady Cecilia and Helen agreed that they could bear better
than that persiflage which seemed to mock even while it most professed
to admire.
Horace presently discovered the mistakes he had made in his attempts,
and repaired them as fast as he could by his infinite versatility. The
changes shaded off with a skill which made them run easily into each
other. He perceived that Mr. Beauclerc’s respectful air and tone were
preferred, and he now laid himself out in the respectful line, adding,
as he flattered himself, something of a finer point, more polish in
whatever he said, and with more weight of authority.
But he was mortified to find that it did not produce the expected
effect, and, after having done the respectful one morning, as he
fancied, in the happiest manner, he was vexed to perceive that he not
only could not raise Helen’s eyes from her work, but that even Lady
Davenant did not attend to him: and that, as he was rounding one of his
best periods, her looks were directed to the other side of the room,
where Beauclerc sat apart; and presently she called to him, and begged
to know what it was he was reading. She said she quite envied him the
power he possessed of being rapt into future times or past, completely
at his author’s bidding, to be transported how and where he pleased.
Beauclerc brought the book to her, and put it into her hand. As she took
it she said, “As we advance in life, it becomes more and more difficult
to find in any book the sort of enchanting, entrancing interest which we
enjoyed when life, and, books, and we ourselves were new. It were vain
to try and settle whether the fault is most in modern books, or in our
ancient selves; probably not in either: the fact is, that not only does
the imagination cool and weaken as we grow older, but we become, as we
live on in this world, too much engrossed by the real business and cares
of life, to have feeling or time for factitious, imaginary interests.
But why do I say factitious? while they last, the imaginative interests
are as real as any others.”
“Thank you,” said Beauclerc, “for doing justice to poor imagination,
whose pleasures are surely, after all, the highest, the most real, that
we have, unwarrantably as they have been decried both by metaphysicians
and physicians.”
The book which had so fixed Beauclerc’s attention, was Segur’s History
of Napoleon’s Russian Campaign. He was at the page where the burning of
Moscow is described--the picture of Buonaparte’s despair, when he met
resolution greater than his own, when he felt himself vanquished by
the human mind, by patriotism, by virtue--virtue in which he could not
believe, the existence of which, with all his imagination, he could not
conceive: the power which his indomitable will could not conquer.
Beauclerc pointed to the account of that famous inscription on the
iron gate of a church which the French found still standing, the words
written by Rostopchin after the burning of his “delightful home.”
“_Frenchmen, I have been eight years in embellishing this residence; I
have lived in it happily in the bosom of my family. The inhabitants of
this estate (amounting to seventeen hundred and twenty) have quitted
it at your approach; and I have, with my own hands, set fire to my own
house, to prevent it from being polluted by your presence._”
“See what one, even one, magnanimous individual can do for his country,”
exclaimed Beauclerc. “How little did this sacrifice cost him! Sacrifice
do I say? it was a pride--a pleasure.”
Churchill did not at all like the expression of Helen’s countenance, for
he perceived she sympathised with Beauclerc’s enthusiasm. He saw that
romantic enthusiasm had more charm for her than wit or fashion; and now
he meditated another change of style. He would try a noble style. He
resolved that the first convenient opportunity he would be a little
romantic, and perhaps, even take a touch at chivalry, a burst like
Beauclerc, but in a way of his own, at the degeneracy of modern times.
He tried it--but it was quite a failure; Lady Cecilia, as he overheard,
whispered to Helen what was once so happily said--“_Ah! le pauvre homme!
comme il se batte les flancs d’un enthousiasme de commande._”
Horace was too clever a man to persist in a wrong line, or one in which
his test of right _success_ did not crown his endeavours. If this did
not do, something else would--should. It was impossible that with all
his spirit of resource he should ultimately fail. To please, and to make
an impression on Helen, a greater impression than Beauclerc--to annoy
Beauclerc, in short, was still, independently of all serious thoughts,
the utmost object of Churchill’s endeavours.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
VOLUME THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
About this time a circumstance occurred, which seemed to have nothing to
do with Churchill, or Beauclerc, but which eventually brought both their
characters into action and passion.
Lord Davenant had purchased, at the sale of Dean Stanley’s pictures,
several of those which had been the dean’s favourites, and which,
independently of their positive merit, were peculiarly dear to Helen. He
had ordered that they should be sent down to Clarendon Park; at first,
he only begged house-room for them from the general while he and Lady
Davenant were in Russia; then he said that in case he should never
return he wished the pictures should be divided between his two dear
children, Cecilia and Helen; and that, to prevent disputes, he would
make the distribution of them himself now, and in the kindest and most
playful manner he allotted them to each, always finding some excellent
reason for giving to Helen those which he knew she liked best; and then
there was to be a _hanging committee_, for hanging the pictures, which
occasioned a great deal of talking, Beauclerc always thinking most of
Helen, or of what was really best for the paintings; Horace most of
himself and his amateurship.
Among these pictures were some fine Wouvermans, and other hunting and
hawking pieces, and one in particular of the duchess and her ladies,
from Don Quixote. Beauclerc, who had gone round examining and admiring,
stood fixed when he came to this picture, in which he fancied he
discovered in one of the figures some likeness to Helen; the lady had a
hawk upon her wrist. Churchill came up eagerly to the examination, with
glass at eye. He could not discern the slightest resemblance to Miss
Stanley; but he was in haste to bring out an excellent observation of
his own, which he had made his own from a Quarterly Review, illustrating
the advantage it would be to painters to possess knowledge, even of
kinds seemingly most distant from the line of their profession.
“For instance, now _à priori_, one should not insist upon a great
painter’s being a good ornithologist, and yet, for want of being
something of a bird-fancier, look here what he has done--quite absurd,
a sort of hawk introduced, such as never was or could be at any hawking
affair in nature: would not sit upon lady’s wrist or answer to her
call--would never fly at a bird. Now you see this is a ridiculous
blunder.”
While Churchill plumed himself on this critical remark Captain Warmsley
told of who still kept hawks in England, and of the hawking parties
he had seen and heard of--“even this year, that famous hawking in
Wiltshire, and that other in Norfolk.”
Churchill asked Warmsley if he had been at Lord Berner’s when Landseer
was there studying the subject of his famous hawking scene. “Have you
seen it, Lady Cecilia?” continued he; “it is beautiful; the birds seem
to be absolutely coming out of the picture;” and he was going on with
some of his connoisseurship, and telling of his mortification in having
missed the purchase of that picture; but Warmsley got back to the
hawking he had seen, and he became absolutely eloquent in describing the
sport.
Churchill, though eager to speak, listened with tolerably polite
patience till Warmsley came to what he had forgot to mention,--to the
label with the date of place and year that is put upon the heron’s leg;
to the heron brought from Denmark, where it had been caught, with the
label of having been let fly from Lord Berner’s; “for,” continued he,
“the heron is always to be saved if possible, so, when it is down, and
the hawk over it, the falconer has some raw beef ready minced, and lays
it on the heron’s back, or a pigeon, just killed, is sometimes used; the
hawk devours it, and the heron, quite safe, as soon as it recovers from
its fright, mounts slowly upward and returns to its heronry.”
Helen listened eagerly, and so did Lady Cecilia, who said, “You know,
Helen, our favourite Washington Irving quotes that in days of yore, ‘a
lady of rank did not think herself completely equipped in riding forth,
unless she had her tassel-gentel held by jesses on her delicate hand.’”
Before her words were well finished, Beauclerc had decided what he would
do, and the business was half done that is well begun. He was at the
library table, writing as fast as pen could go, to give carte blanche
to a friend, to secure for him immediately a whole hawking establishment
which Warmsley had mentioned, and which was now upon public sale, or
privately to be parted with by the present possessor.
At the very moment when Beauclerc was signing and sealing at one end of
the room, at the other Horace Churchill, to whom something of the same
plan had occurred, was charming Lady Cecilia Clarendon, by hinting to
her his scheme--anticipating the honour of seeing one of his hawks borne
upon her delicate wrist.
Beauclerc, after despatching his letter, came up just in time to catch
the sound and the sense, and took Horace aside to tell him what he had
done. Horace looked vexed, and haughtily observed, that he conceived his
place at Erlesmede was better calculated for a hawking party than most
places in England; and he had already announced his intentions to the
ladies. The way was open to him--but Beauclerc did not see why he should
recede; the same post might carry both their letters--both their orders!
“How far did your order go, may I ask?” said Churchill.
“Carte blanche.”
Churchill owned, with a sarcastic smile, that he was not prepared to go
quite so far. He was not quite so young as Granville; he, unfortunately,
had arrived at years of discretion--he said unfortunately; without
ironical reservation, he protested from the bottom of his heart he
considered it as a misfortune to have become that slow circumspect sort
of creature which looks before it leaps. Even though this might save him
from the fate of the man who was in Sicily, still he considered it as
unfortunate to have lost so much of his natural enthusiasm.
“Natural enthusiasm!” Beauclerc could not help repeating to himself, and
he went on his own way. It must be confessed, as even Beauclerc’s best
friends allowed, counting among them Lady Davenant and his guardian,
that never was man of sense more subject to that kind of temporary
derangement of the reasoning powers which results from being what is
called bit by a fancy; he would then run on straight forward, without
looking to the right or the left, in pursuit of his object, great or
small. That hawking establishment now in view, completely shut out, for
the moment, all other objects; “of tercels and of lures he talks;” and
before his imagination were hawking scenes, and Helen with a hawk on her
wrist, looking most graceful--a hawk of his own training it should be.
Then, how to train a hawk became the question. While he was waiting for
the answer to his carte blanche, nothing better, or so good, could be
done, as to make himself master of the whole business, and for this
purpose he found it essential to consult every book on falconry that
could be found in the library, and a great plague he became to everybody
in the course of this book-hunt.
“What a bore!” Warmsley might be excused for muttering deep and low
between the teeth. General Clarendon sighed and groaned. Lady Davenant
bore and forebore philosophically--it was for Beauclerc; and to her
great philosophy she gave all the credit of her indulgent partiality.
Lady Cecilia, half-annoyed yet ever good-natured, carried her
complaisance so far as to consult the catalogue and book-shelves sundry
times in one hour; but she was not famous for patience, and she soon
resigned him to a better friend--Helen, the most indefatigable of
book-hunters. She had been well trained to it by her uncle; had been
used to it all her life; and really took pleasure in the tiresome
business. She assured Beauclerc it was not the least trouble, and he
thought she looked beautiful when she said so. Whosoever of the male
kind, young, and of ardent, not to say impatient, spirit, has ever been
aided and abetted in a sudden whim, assisted, forwarded, above all,
sympathised with, through all the changes and chances of a reigning
fancy, may possibly conceive how charming, and more charming every hour,
perhaps minute, Helen became in Beauclerc’s eyes. But, all in the way
of friendship observe. Perfectly so--on her part, for she could not have
another idea, and it was for this reason she was so much at her ease. He
so understood it, and, thoroughly a gentleman, free from coxcombry,
as he was, and interpreting the language and manners of women with
instinctive delicacy, they went on delightfully. Churchill was on the
watch, but he was not alarmed; all was so undisguised and frank, that
now he began to feel assured that love on her side not only was, but
ever would be, quite out of the question.
Beauclerc was, indeed, in the present instance, really and truly intent
upon what he was about; and he pursued the History of Falconry, with all
its episodes, from the olden time of the Boke of St. Alban’s down to
the last number of the Sporting Magazine, including Colonel Thornton’s
latest flight, with the adventures of his red falcons, Miss M’Ghee
and Lord Townsend, and his red tercels, Messrs. Croc Franc and
Craignon;--not forgetting that never-to-be forgotten hawking of the
Emperor Arambombamboberus with Trebizonian eagles, on the authority of a
manuscript in the Grand Signior’s library.
Beauclerc had such extraordinary dependence upon the sympathy of his
friends, that, when he was reading any thing that interested him, no
matter what they might be doing, he must have their admiration for what
charmed him. He brought his book to Lord Davenant, who was writing
a letter. “Listen, oh listen! to this pathetic lament of the
falconer,--‘Hawks, heretofore the pride of royalty, the insignia of
nobility, the ambassador’s present, the priest’s indulgence, companion
of the knight, and nursling of the gentle mistress, are now uncalled-for
and neglected.’”
“Ha! very well that,” said good-natured Lord Davenant, stopping his pen,
dipping again, dotting, and going on.
Then Beauclerc passaged to Lady Davenant, and, interrupting her in
Scott’s Lives of the Novelists, on which she was deeply intent, “Allow
me, my dear Lady Davenant, though you say you are no great
topographer, to show you this, it is so curious; this royal falconer’s
proclamation--Henry the Eighth’s--to preserve his partridges, pheasants,
and herons, from his palace at Westminster to St. Giles’s _in the
Fields_, and from thence to Islington, Hampstead, and Highgate, under
penalty for every bird killed of imprisonment, or whatever other
punishment to his highness may seem meet.”
Lady Davenant vouchsafed some suitable remark, consonant to expectation,
on the changes of times and places, and men and manners, and then
motioned the quarto away with which motion the quarto reluctantly
complied; and then following Lady Cecilia from window to window, as
she _tended_ her flowers, he would insist upon her hearing the table of
precedence for hawks. She, who never cared for any table of precedence
in her life, even where the higher animals were concerned, would only
undertake to remember that the merlin was a lady’s hawk, and this only
upon condition, that she should have one to sit upon her wrist like
the fair ladies in Wouvermans’ pictures. But further, as to Peregrine,
Gerfalcon, or Gerkin, she would hear nought of them, nor could she
listen, though Granville earnestly exhorted, to the several good reasons
which make a falcon dislike her master--
1st. If he speak rudely to her. 2nd. If he feed her carelessly.
Before he could get thirdly out, Lady Cecilia stopped him, declaring
that in all her life she never could listen to any thing that began with
_first_ and _secondly_--reasons especially.
Horace, meanwhile, looked superior down, and thought with ineffable
contempt of Beauclerc’s little skill in the arts of conversation, thus
upon unwilling ears to squander anecdotes which would have done him
credit at some London dinner.
“What I could have made of them! and may make of them yet,” thought he;
“but some there are, who never can contrive, as other some cleverly
do, to ride their hobby-horses to good purpose and good effect;--now
Beauclerc’s hobbies, I plainly see, will always run away with him
headlong, cost him dear certainly, and, may be, leave him in the mire at
last.”
What this fancy was to cost him, Beauclerc did not yet know. Two or
three passages in the Sporting Magazine had given some hints of the
expense of this “most delectable of all country contentments,” which he
had not thought it necessary to read aloud. And he knew that the late
Lord Orford, an ardent pursuer of this “royal and noble” sport, had
expended one hundred a-year on every hawk he kept, each requiring a
separate attendant, and being moreover indulged in an excursion to
the Continent every season during moulting-time: but Beauclerc said to
himself he had no notion of humouring his hawks to that degree; they
should, aristocratic birds though they be, content themselves in
England, and not pretend to “damn the climate like a lord.” And he
flattered himself that he should be able to pursue his fancy more
cheaply than any of his predecessors; but as he had promised his
guardian that, after the indulgence granted him in the Beltravers’
cause, he would not call upon him for any more extraordinary supplies,
he resolved, in case the expense exceeded his ways and means, to sell
his hunters, and so indulge in a new love at the expense of an old one.
The expected pleasure of the first day’s hawking was now bright in
his imagination; the day was named, the weather promised well, and the
German cadgers and trainers who had been engaged, and who, along with
the whole establishment, were handed over to Beauclerc, were to come
down to Clarendon Park, and Beauclerc was very happy teaching the
merlins to sit on Lady Cecilia’s and on Miss Stanley’s wrist. Helen’s
voice was found to be peculiarly agreeable to the hawk, who, as
Beauclerc observed, loved, like Lear, that excellent thing in woman, a
voice ever soft, gentle, and low.
The ladies were to wear some pretty dresses for the occasion, and all
was gaiety and expectation; and Churchill was mortified when he saw how
well the thing was likely to take, that he was not to be the giver
of the fête, especially as he observed that Helen was particularly
pleased--when, to his inexpressible surprise, Granville Beauclerc came
to him, a few days before that appointed for the hawking-party, and said
that he had changed his mind, that he wished to get rid of the whole
concern--that he should be really obliged to Churchill if he would take
his engagement off his hands. The only reason he gave was, that the
establishment would altogether be more than he could afford, he found he
had other calls for money, which were incompatible with his fancy, and
therefore he would give it up.
Churchill obliged him most willingly by taking the whole upon himself,
and he managed so to do in a very ingenious way, without incurring any
preposterous expense. He was acquainted with a set of rich, fashionable
young men, who had taken a sporting lodge in a neighbouring county,
who desired no better than to accede to the terms proposed, and to
distinguish themselves by giving a fête out of the common line, while
Churchill, who understood, like a true man of the world, the worldly
art of bargaining, contrived, with off-hand gentleman-like jockeying,
to have every point settled to his own convenience, and he was to be the
giver of the entertainment to the ladies at Clarendon Park. When
this change in affairs was announced, Lady Cecilia, the general, Lady
Davenant, and Helen, were all, in various degrees, surprised, and each
tried to guess what could have been the cause of Beauclerc’s sudden
relinquishment of his purpose. He was--very extraordinary for
him--impenetrable: he adhered to the words “I found I could not afford
it.” His guardian could not believe in this wonderful prudence, and was
almost certain “there must be some imprudence at the bottom of it all.”
Granville neither admitted nor repelled that accusation. Lady Cecilia
worked away with perpetual little strokes, hoping to strike out the
truth, but, as she said, you might as well have worked at an old flint.
Nothing was elicited from him, even by Lady Davenant; nor did the
collision of all their opinions throw any light upon the matter.
Meanwhile the day for the hawking-party arrived. Churchill gave the
fete, and Beauclerc, as one of the guests, attended and enjoyed it
without the least appearance even of disappointment; and, so far from
envying Churchill, he assisted in remedying any little defects, and did
all he could to make the whole go off well.
The party assembled on a rising ground; a flag was displayed to give
notice of the intended sport; the falconers appeared, picturesque
figures in their green jackets and their long gloves, and their caps
plumed with herons’ feathers--some with the birds on their wrists--one
with the frame over his shoulder upon which to set the hawk. _Set_, did
we say?--no: “_cast_ your hawk on the perch” is, Beauclerc observed, the
correct term; for, as Horace sarcastically remarked, Mr. Beauclerc
might be detected as a novice in the art by his over-exactness; his too
correct, too attic, pronunciation of the hawking language. But Granville
readily and gaily bore all this ridicule and raillery, sure that it
would neither stick nor stain, enjoying with all his heart the amusement
of the scene--the assembled ladies, the attendant cavaliers; the
hood-winked hawks, the ringing of their brass bells; the falconers
anxiously watching the clouds for the first appearance of the bird;
their skill in loosening the hoods, as, having but one hand at liberty,
they used their teeth to untie the string:----And now the hoods are off,
and the hawks let fly.
They were to fly many castes of hawks this day; the first flight was
after a curlew; and the riding was so hard, so dangerous, from the
broken nature of the ground, that the ladies gave it up, and were
contented to view the sport from the eminence where they remained.
And now there was a question to be decided among the sportsmen as to
the comparative rate of riding at a fox chase, and in “the short, but
terrifically hard gallop, with the eyes raised to the clouds, which is
necessary for the full enjoyment of hawking;” and then the gentlemen,
returning, gathered round the ladies, and the settling the point,
watches in hand, and bets depending, added to the interest of flight the
first, and Churchill, master of the revels, was in the highest spirits.
But presently the sky was overcast, the morning lowered, the wind rose,
and changed was Churchill’s brow; there is no such thing as hawking
against the wind--that capricious wind!
“Curse the wind!” cried Churchill; “and confusion seize the fellow who
says there is to be no more hawking to-day!”
The chief falconer, however, was a phlegmatic German, and
proper-behaved, as good falconers should be, who, as “Old Tristram’s
booke” has it, even if a bird should be lost, he should never swear, and
only say, “_Dieu soit loué_,” and “remember that the mother of hawks is
not dead.”
But Horace, in the face of reason and in defiance of his German
counsellors, insisted upon letting fly the hawks in this high wind; and
it so fell out that, in the first place, all the terms he used in his
haste and spleen were wrong; and in the next, that the quarry taking
down the wind, the horsemen could not keep up with the hawks: the
falconers in great alarm, called to them by the names they gave
them--“Miss Didlington,” “Lord Berners.” “Ha! Miss Didlington’s
off;--off with Blucher, and Lady Kirby, and Lord Berners, and all of ‘em
after her.” Miss Didlington flew fast and far, and further still, till
she and all the rest were fairly out of sight--lost, lost, lost!
“And as fine a caste of hawks they were as ever came from Germany!”--the
falconers were in despair, and Churchill saw that the fault was his;
and it looked so like cockney sportsmanship! If Horace had been in a
towering rage, it would have been well enough; but he only grew pettish,
snappish, waspish: now none of those words ending in _ish_ become a
gentleman; ladies always think so, and Lady Cecilia now thought so, and
Helen thought so too, and Churchill saw it, and he grew pale instead of
red, and that looks ugly in an angry man.
But Beauclerc excused him when he was out of hearing; and when others
said he had been cross, and crosser than became the giver of a gala,
Beauclerc pleaded well for him, that falconry has ever been known to
be “an extreme stirrer-up of the passions, being subject to mischances
infinite.”
However, a cold and hot collation under the trees for some, and under a
tent for others, set all to rights for the present. Champagne sparkled,
and Horace pledged and was pledged, and all were gay; even the Germans
at their own table, after their own fashion, with their Rhenish and
their foaming ale, contrived to drown the recollection of the sad
adventure of the truant hawks.
And when all were refreshed and renewed in mind and body, to the hawking
they went again. For now that
“The wind was laid, and all their fears asleep,”
there was to be a battle between heron and hawk, one of the finest
sights that can be in all falconry.
“Look! look! Miss Stanley,” cried Granville; “look! follow that
high-flown hawk--that black speck in the clouds. Now! now! right over
the heron; and now she will _canceleer_--turn on her wing, Miss Stanley,
as she comes down, whirl round, and balance herself--_chanceler_. Now!
now look! cancelleering gloriously!”
But Helen at this instant recollected what Captain Warmsley had said of
the fresh-killed pigeon, which the falconer in the nick of time is to
lay upon the heron’s back; and now, even as the cancelleering was going
on--three times most beautifully, Helen saw only the dove, the white
dove, which that black-hearted German held, his great hand round the
throat, just raised to wring it. “Oh, Beauclerc, save it, save it!”
cried Lady Cecilia and Helen at once.
Beauclerc sprang forward, and, had it been a tiger instead of a dove,
would have done the same no doubt at that moment; the dove was saved,
and the heron killed. If Helen was pleased, so was not the chief
falconer, nor any of the falconers, the whole German council in
combustion! and Horace Churchill deeming it “Rather extraordinary that
any gentleman should so interfere with other gentlemen’s hawks.”
Lady Cecilia stepped between, and never stepped in vain. She drew a ring
from her finger--a seal; it was the seal of peace--no great value--but
a well-cut bird--a bird for the chief falconer--a guinea-hen, with its
appropriate cry, its polite motto, “Come back, come back;” and she gave
it as a pledge that the ladies would come back another day, and see
another hawking; and the gentlemen were pleased, and the aggrieved
attendant falconers pacified by a promise of another heron from the
heronry at Clarendon Park; and the clouded faces brightened, and “she
smoothed the raven down of darkness till it smiled,” whatever that may
mean; but, as Milton said it, it must be sense as well as sound.
At all events, in plain prose, be it understood that every body was
satisfied, even Mr. Churchill; for Beauclerc had repaired for him, just
in time, an error which would have been a blot on his gallantry of the
day. He had forgotten to have some of the pretty grey hairs plucked
from the heron, to give to the ladies to ornament their bonnets, but
Beauclerc had secured them for him, and also two or three of those
much-valued, smooth, black feathers, from the head of the bird, which
are so much prized that a plume of them is often set with pearls and
diamonds. Horace presented these most gracefully to Lady Cecilia and
Helen, and was charmed with Lady Cecilia’s parting compliments, which
finished with the words “Quite chivalrous.”
And so, after all the changes and chances of weather, wind, and humour,
all ended well, and no one rued the hawking of this day.