Of the regatta, of the fineness of the weather, the beauty of the
spectacle, and the dresses of the ladies, a full account appeared in
the papers of the day, of which it would be useless here to give a
repetition, and shameful to steal or seem to steal a description. We
shall record only what concerns Helen.
With the freshness of youth and of her naturally happy temper, she was
delighted with the whole, to her a perfectly new spectacle, and every
body was pleased except Lady Katrine, who, in the midst of every
amusement, always found something that annoyed her, something that
“should not have been so.” She was upon this occasion more cross than
usual, because this morning’s uniform was not becoming to her, and was
most particularly so to Miss Stanley, as all the gentlemen observed.
Just in time before the ladies went to dress for the ball at night, the
precious box arrived, containing the set of sapphires. Cecilia opened
it eagerly, to see that all was right. Helen was not in the room. Lady
Katrine stood by, and when she found that these were for Helen, her
envious indignation broke forth. “The poor daughters of peers cannot
indulge in such things,” cried she; “they are fit only for rich
heiresses! I understood,” continued she, “that Miss Stanley had given
away her fortune to pay her uncle’s debts, but I presume she has thought
better of that, as I always prophesied she would----generosity is
charming, but, after all, sapphires are so becoming!”
Helen came into the room just as this speech was ended. Lady Katrine had
one of the bracelets in her hand. She looked miserably cross, for she
had been disappointed about some ornaments she had expected by the
same conveyance that brought Miss Stanley’s. She protested that she
had nothing fit to wear to-night. Helen looked at Cecilia; and though
Cecilia’s look gave no encouragement, she begged that Lady Katrine would
do her the honour to wear these sapphires this night, since she had not
received what her ladyship had ordered. Lady Katrine suffered herself to
be prevailed on, but accepted with as ill a grace as possible. The
ball went on, and Helen at least was happier than if she had worn the
bracelets. She had no pleasure in being the object of envy, and now,
when she found that Cecilia could be and was satisfied, though their
ornaments were not exactly alike, it came full upon her mind that she
had done foolishly in bespeaking these sapphires: it was at that moment
only a transient self-reproach for extravagance, but before she went to
rest this night it became more serious.
Lady Davenant had been expected all day, but she did not arrive till
late in the midst of the ball, and she just looked in at the dancers for
a few minutes before she retired to her own apartment. Helen would have
followed her, but that was not allowed. After the dancing was over,
however, as she was going to her room, she heard Lady Davenant’s voice,
calling to her as she passed by; and, opening the door softly, she found
her still awake, and desiring to see her for a few minutes, if she was
not too much tired.
“Oh no, not in the least tired; quite the contrary,” said Helen.
After affectionately embracing her, Lady Davenant held her at arms’
length, and looked at her as the light of the lamp shone full upon
her face and figure. Pleased with her whole appearance, Lady Davenant
smiled, and said, as she looked at her--“You seem, Helen, to have shared
the grateful old fairy’s gift to Lady Georgiana B. of the never-fading
rose in the cheek. But what particularly pleases me, Helen, is the
perfect simplicity of your dress. In the few minutes that I was in the
ball-room to-night, I was struck with that over-dressed duchess: her
figure has been before my eyes ever since, hung round with jewellery,
and with that _auréole_ a foot and a-half high on her head: like the
Russian bride’s headgear, which Heber so well called ‘the most costly
deformity he ever beheld.’ Really, this passion for baubles,” continued
Lady Davenant, “is the universal passion of our sex. I will give you an
instance to what extravagance it goes. I know a lady of high rank, who
hires a certain pair of emerald earrings at fifteen hundred pounds per
annum. She rents them in this way from some German countess in whose
family they are an heir-loom, and cannot be sold.” Helen expressed her
astonishment. “This is only one instance, my dear; I could give you
hundreds. Over the whole world, women of all ages, all ranks, all
conditions, have been seized with this bauble insanity--from the counter
to the throne. Think of Marie Antoinette and the story of her necklace;
and Josephine and her Cisalpine pearls, and all the falsehoods she told
about them to the emperor she reverenced, the husband she loved--and
all for what?--a string of beads! But I forget,” cried Lady Davenant,
interrupting herself, “I must not forget how late it is: and I am
keeping you up, and you have been dancing: forgive me! When once my
mind is moved, I forget all hours. Good night--or good morning, my dear
child; go, and rest.” But just as Helen was withdrawing her hand, Lady
Davenant’s eye fixed on her pearl bracelets--“Roman pearls, or real?
Real, I see, and very valuable!--given to you, I suppose, by your poor
dear extravagant uncle?”
Helen cleared her uncle’s memory from this imputation, and explained
that the bracelets were a present from General Clarendon. She did not
know they were so “very valuable,” but she hoped she had not done wrong
to accept of them in the circumstances; and she told how she had been
induced to take them.
Lady Davenant said she had done quite right. The general was no
present-maker, and this exception in his favour could not lead to
any future inconvenience. “But Cecilia,” continued she, “is too much
addicted to trinket giving, which ends often disagreeably even between
friends, or at all events fosters a foolish taste, and moreover
associates it with feelings of affection in a way particularly deceitful
and dangerous to such a little, tender-hearted person as I am speaking
to, whose common sense would too easily give way to the pleasure of
pleasing or fear of offending a friend. Kiss me, and don’t contradict
me, for your conscience tells you that what I say is true.”
The sapphires, the ruby brooch, and all her unsettled accounts, came
across Helen’s mind; and if the light had shone upon her face at that
moment, her embarrassment must have been seen; but Lady Davenant, as she
finished the last words, laid her head upon the pillow, and she turned
and settled herself comfortably to go to sleep. Helen retired with a
disordered conscience; and the first thing she did in the morning was
to look in the red case in which the sapphires came, to see if there was
any note of their price; she recollected having seen some little bit
of card--it was found on the dressing-table. When she beheld the price,
fear took away her breath--it was nearly half her whole year’s
income; still she _could_ pay it. But the ruby brooch that had not yet
arrived--what would that cost? She hurried to her accounts; she had let
them run on for months unlooked at, but she thought she must know the
principal articles of expense in dress by her actual possessions. There
was a heap of little crumpled bills which, with Felicie’s griffonage,
Helen had thrown into her table-drawer. In vain did she attempt to
decipher the figures, like apothecaries’ marks, linked to quarters and
three-quarters, and yards, of gauzes, silks, and muslins, altogether
inextricably puzzling. They might have been at any other moment
laughable, but now they were quite terrible to Helen; the only thing she
could make clearly out was the total; she was astonished when she saw to
how much little nothings can amount, an astonishment felt often by the
most experienced--how much more by Helen, all unused to the arithmetic
of economy! At this instant her maid came in smiling with a packet, as
if sure of being the bearer of the very thing her young lady most wished
for; it was the brooch--the very last thing in the world she desired to
see. With a trembling hand she opened the parcel, looked at the note of
the price, and sank upon her chair half stupified, with her eyes fixed
upon the sum. She sat she knew not how long, till, roused by the opening
of Cecilia’s door, she hastened to put away the papers. “Let me see
them, my dear, don’t put away those papers,” cried Cecilia; “Felicie
tells me that you have been at these horrid accounts these two hours,
and--you look--my dear Helen, you must let me see how much it is!” She
drew the total from beneath Helen’s hand. It was astounding even to
Cecilia, as appeared by her first unguarded look of surprise. But,
recovering herself immediately, she in a playfully scolding tone told
Helen that all this evil came upon her in consequence of her secret
machinations. “You set about to counteract me, wrote for things that
I might not get them for you, you see what has come of it! As to these
bills, they are all from tradespeople who cannot be in a hurry to be
paid; and as to the things Felicie has got for you, she can wait, is not
she a waiting-woman by profession? Now, where is the ruby-brooch? Have
you never looked at it?--I hope it is pretty--I am sure it is handsome,”
cried she as she opened the case. “Yes; I like it prodigiously, I will
take it off your hands, my dear; will that do?”
“No, Cecilia, I cannot let you do that, for you have one the same, I
know, and you cannot want another--no, no.”
“You speak like an angel, my dear, but you do not look like one,” said
Cecilia. “So woe-begone, so pale a creature, never did I see! do look at
yourself in the glass; but you are too wretched to plague. Seriously, I
want this brooch, and mine it must be--it is mine: I have a use for it,
I assure you.”
“Well, if you have a use for it, really,” said Helen, “I should indeed
be very glad----”
“Be glad then, it is mine,” said Cecilia; “and now it is yours, my dear
Helen, now, not a word! pray, if you love me!”
Helen could not accept of it; she thanked Cecilia with all her
heart, she felt her kindness--her generosity, but even the hitherto
irresistible words, “If you love me,” were urged in vain. If she had not
been in actual need of money, she might have been over-persuaded, but
now her spirit of independence strengthened her resolution, and she
persisted in her refusal. Lady Davenant’s bell rang, and Helen, slowly
rising, took up the miserable accounts, and said, “Now I must go----”
“Where!” said Cecilia; “you look as if you had heard a knell that
summoned you--what are you going to do?”
“To tell all my follies to Lady Davenant.”
“Tell your follies to nobody but me,” cried Lady Cecilia. “I have enough
of my own to sympathise with you, but do not go and tell them to my
mother, of all people; she, who has none of her own, how can you expect
any mercy?”
“I do not; I am content to bear all the blame I so richly deserve, but
I know that after she has heard me, she will tell me what I ought to do,
she will find out some way of settling it all rightly, and if that can
but be, I do not care how much I suffer. So the sooner I go to her the
better,” said Helen.
“But you need not be in such a hurry; do not be like the man who said,
‘Je veux être l’enfant prodigue, je veux être l’enfant perdu.’ L’enfant
prodigue, well and good, but why l’enfant perdu?”
“My dear Cecilia, do not play with me now--do not stop me,” said Helen
anxiously. “It is serious with me now, and it is as much as I can
do----”
Cecilia let her go, but trembled for her, as she looked after her, and
saw her stop at her mother’s door.
Helen’s first knock was too low, it was unheard, she was obliged to
wait; another, louder, was answered by, “Come in.” And in the presence
she stood, and into the middle of things she rushed at once; the
accounts, the total, lay before Lady Davenant. There it was: and the
culprit, having made her confession, stood waiting for the sentence.
The first astonished change of look, was certainly difficult to sustain.
“I ought to have foreseen this,” said Lady Davenant; “my affection has
deceived my judgment. Helen, I am sorry for your sake, and for my own.”
“Oh do not speak in that dreadful calm voice, as if--do not give me up
at once,” cried Helen.
“What can I do for you? what can be done for one who has no strength
of mind?” I have some, thought Helen, or I should not be here at this
moment. “Of what avail, Helen, is your good heart--your good intentions,
without the power to abide by them? When you can be drawn aside from
the right by the first paltry temptation--by that most contemptible of
passions--the passion for baubles! You tell me it was not that, what
then? a few words of persuasion from any one who can smile, and fondle,
and tell you that they love you;--the fear of offending Cecilia! how
absurd! Is this what you both call friendship? But weaker still, Helen,
I perceive that you have been led blindfold in extravagance by a
prating French waiting-maid--to the brink of ruin, the very verge of
dishonesty.”
“Dishonesty! how?”
“Ask yourself, Helen: is a person honest, who orders and takes from the
owner that for which he cannot pay? Answer me, honest or dishonest.”
“Dishonest! if I had intended not to pay. But I did intend to pay, and I
will.”
“You will! The weak have no will--never dare to say I will. Tell me how
you will pay that which you owe. You have no means--no choice, except to
take from the fund you have already willed to another purpose. See what
good intentions, come to, Helen, when you cannot abide by them!”
“But I can,” cried Helen; “whatever else I do, I will not touch that
fund, destined for my dear uncle--I have not touched it. I could pay it
in two years, and I will--I will give up my whole allowance.”
“And what will you live upon in the mean time?”
“I should not have said my whole allowance, but I can do with very
little, I will buy nothing new.”
“Buy nothing--live upon nothing!” repeated Lady Davenant; “how often
have I heard these words said by the most improvident, in the moment
of repentance, even then as blind and uncalculating as ever! And you,
Helen, talk to me of your powers of forbearance,--you, who, with the
strongest motive your heart could feel, have not been able for a few
short months to resist the most foolish--the most useless fancies.”
Helen burst into tears. But Lady Davenant, unmoved, at least to all
outward appearance, coldly said, “It is not feeling that you want, or
that I require from you; I am not to be satisfied by words or tears.”
“I deserve it all,” said Helen; “and I know you are not cruel. In the
midst of all this, I know you are my best friend.”
Lady Davenant was now obliged to be silent, lest her voice should betray
more tenderness than her countenance chose to show.
“Only tell me what I can do now,” continued Helen; “what can I do?”
“What you CAN do, I will tell you, Helen. Who was the man you were
dancing with last night?”
“I danced with several; which do you mean?”
“Your partner in the quadrille you were dancing when I came in.”
“Lord Estridge: but you know him--he has been often here.”
“Is he rich?” said Lady Davenant.
“Oh yes, very rich, and very self-sufficient: he is the man Cecilia used
to call ‘_Le prince de mon mérite._’”
“Did she? I do not remember. He made no impression on me, nor on you, I
dare say.”
“Not the least, indeed.”
“No matter, he will do as well as another, since he is rich. You can
marry him, and pay your present debts, and contract new, for thousands
instead of hundreds:--this is what you CAN do, Helen.”
“Do you think I can?” said Helen.
“You can, I suppose, as well as others. You know that young ladies often
marry to pay their debts?”
“So I once heard,” said Helen, “but is it possible?”
“Quite. You might have been told more--that they enter into regular
partnerships, joint-stock companies with dress-makers and jewellers, who
make their ventures and bargains on the more or less reputation of
the young ladies for beauty or for fashion, supply them with finery,
speculate on their probabilities of matrimonial success, and trust to
being repaid after marriage. Why not pursue this plan next season in
town? You must come to it like others, whose example you follow--why not
begin it immediately?”
There is nothing so reassuring to the conscience as to hear, in the
midst of blame that we do deserve, suppositions of faults, imputations
which we know to be unmerited--impossible. Instead of being hurt or
alarmed by what Lady Davenant had said, the whole idea appeared to
Helen so utterly beneath her notice, that the words made scarcely any
impression on her mind, and her thoughts went earnestly back to the
pressing main question--“What can I do, honestly to pay this money that
I owe?” She abruptly asked Lady Davenant if she thought the jeweller
could be prevailed upon to take back the sapphires and the brooch?
“Certainly not, without a considerable loss to you,” replied Lady
Davenant; but with an obvious change for the better in her countenance,
she added, “Still the determination to give up the bauble is good;
the means, at whatever loss, we will contrive for you, if you are
determined.”
“Determined!--oh yes.” She ran for the bracelets and brooch, and eagerly
put them into Lady Davenant’s hand. And now another bright idea came
into her mind: she had a carriage of her own--a very handsome carriage,
almost new; she could part with it--yes, she would, though it was
a present from her dear uncle--his last gift; and he had taken such
pleasure in having it made perfect for her. She was very, very fond of
it, but she would part with it; she saw no other means of abiding by her
promise, and paying his debts and her own. This passed rapidly through
her mind; and when she had expressed her determination, Lady Davenant’s
manner instantly returned to all its usual kindness, and she exclaimed
as she embraced her, drew her to her, and kissed her again and
again--“You are my own Helen! These are deeds, Helen, not words: I am
satisfied--I may be satisfied with you now!
“And about that carriage, my dear, it shall not go to a stranger, it
shall be mine. I want a travelling chaise--I will purchase it from you:
I shall value it for my poor friend’s sake, and for yours, Helen. So now
it is settled, and you are clear in the world again. I will never spoil
you, but I will always serve you, and a greater pleasure I cannot have
in this world.”
After this happy termination of the dreaded confession, how much did
Helen rejoice that she had had the courage to tell all to her friend.
The pain was transient--the confidence permanent.
As Helen was going into her own room, she saw Cecilia flying up stairs
towards her, with an open letter in her hand, her face radiant with joy.
“I always knew it would all end well! Churchill might well say that
all the sand in my hour-glass was diamond sand. There, my dear
Helen--there,” cried Cecilia, embracing her as she put the letter into
her hand. It was from Beauclerc, his answer to Lady Cecilia’s letter,
which had followed him to Naples. It was written the very instant he had
read her explanation, and, warm from his heart, he poured out all the
joy he felt on hearing the truth, and, in his transport of delight, he
declared that he quite forgave Lady Cecilia, and would forget, as
she desired, all the misery she had made him feel. Some confounded
quarantine he feared might detain him, but he would certainly be at
Clarendon Park in as short a time as possible. Helen’s first smile, he
said, would console him for all he had suffered, and make him forget
everything.
Helen’s first smile he did not see, nor the blush which spread and rose
as she read. Cecilia was delighted. “Generous, affectionate Cecilia!”
thought Helen; “if she has faults, and she really has but one, who could
help loving her?” Not Helen, certainly, or she would have been the most
ungrateful of human beings. Besides her sympathy in Helen’s happiness,
Cecilia was especially rejoiced at this letter, coming, as it did, the
very day after her mother’s return; for though she had written to Lady
Davenant on Beauclerc’s departure, and told her that he was gone only
on Lord Beltravers’ account, yet she dreaded that, when it came to
speaking, her mother’s penetration would discover that something
extraordinary had happened. Now all was easy. Beauclerc was coming
back: he had finished his friend’s business, and, before he returned
to Clarendon Park he wished to know if he might appear there as the
acknowledged admirer of Miss Stanley--if he might with any chance of
success pay his addresses to her. Secure that her mother would never ask
to see the letter, considering it either as a private communication to
his guardian, or as a love letter to Helen, Cecilia gave this version
of it to Lady Davenant; and how she settled it with the general, Helen
never knew, but it seemed all smooth and right.
And now, the regatta being at an end, the archery meetings over, and
no hope of further gaiety for this season at Clarendon Park, the
Castleforts and Lady Katrine departed. Lady Katrine’s last satisfaction
was the hard haughty look with which she took leave of Miss Stanley--a
look expressing, as well as the bitter smile and cold form of good
breeding could express it, unconquered, unconquerable hate.