“All is right!” cried Lady Cecilia. “O my dear mother, I am the happiest
creature in the world, if you were not going away; could not you stay--a
little, a very little longer--just till--”
“No, no, my dear, do not urge me to stay,” said Lady Davenant; “I
cannot--your father expects me to-morrow.”
All her preparations were made--in short, it must be so, and Lady
Davenant begged her daughter would not spend the short remaining time
they were to have together in entreaties, distressing and irritating
to the feelings of those who ask and of those who must refuse. “Let us
enjoy in peace,” said she, “all that is to be enjoyed this day before I
go.”
When Helen entered the drawing-room before dinner, knowing that she
was very late, she found assembled Lady Davenant, Beauclerc, and the
officers, but Cecilia was not there, nor did the punctual general make
his appearance; the dinner-hour was passed, a servant had twice looked
in to announce it, and, seeing neither my lady nor the general, had
in surprise retired. Silence prevailed--what could be the matter? So
unusual for the general to be late. The general came in, hurried--very
uncommon in him, and, after saying a few words in a low voice to Lady
Davenant, who immediately went up stairs, he begged pardon, was very
sorry he had kept dinner waiting, but Lady Cecilia had been taken
ill--had fainted--she was better--he hoped it was nothing that would
signify--she was lying down--he begged they would go to dinner. And to
dinner they went, and when Lady Davenant returned she put Helen’s mind
at ease by saying it was only a little faintishness from over-fatigue.
She had prescribed rest, and Cecilia had herself desired to be left
quite alone. After dinner Lady Davenant went up again to see her, found
her not so well--feverish; she would not let Helen go to her--they would
talk if they were together, and she thought it necessary to keep Cecilia
very quiet. If she would but submit to this, she would be well again
probably in the morning. At tea-time, and in the course of the evening
twice, Cecilia sent to beg to speak to Helen; but Lady Davenant and the
general joined in requesting her not to go. The general went himself
to Lady Cecilia to enforce obedience, and he reported that she had
submitted with a good grace.
Helen was happily engaged by Beauclerc’s conversation during the rest
of the evening. It was late before they retired, and when she went
up-stairs, Felicie said that her lady was asleep, and had been asleep
for the last two hours, and she was sure that after such good rest her
ladyship would be perfectly well in the morning. Without further anxiety
about her friend, therefore, Helen went to her own room. It was a fine
moonlight night, and she threw open the shutters, and stood for a long
time looking out upon the moonlight, which she loved; and even after she
had retired to bed it was long before she could sleep. The only painful
thought in her mind was of Lady Davenant’s approaching departure;
without her, all happiness would be incomplete; but still, hope and love
had much that was delightful to whisper, and, as she at last sank to
sleep, Beauclerc’s voice seemed still speaking to her in soft sounds.
Yet the dream which followed was uneasy; she thought that they were
standing together in the library, at the open door of the conservatory,
by moonlight, and he asked her to walk out, and when she did not comply,
all changed, and she saw him walking with another--with Lady Castlefort;
but then the figure changed to one younger--more beautiful--it must be,
as the beating of Helen’s heart in the dream told her--it must be Lady
Blanche. Without seeing Helen, however, they seemed to come on,
smiling and talking low to each other along the matted alley of the
conservatory, almost to the very door where she was still, as she
thought, standing with her hand upon the lock, and then they stopped,
and Beauclerc pulled from an orange-tree a blossom which seemed the very
same which Helen had given to him that evening, he offered it to Lady
Blanche, and something he whispered; but at this moment the handle of
the lock seemed to slip, and Helen awoke with a start; and when she was
awake, the noise of her dream seemed to continue; she heard the real
sound of a lock turning--her door slowly opened, and a white figure
appeared. Helen started up in her bed, and awaking thoroughly, saw that
it was only Cecilia in her dressing-gown.
“Cecilia! What’s the matter, my dear? are you worse?”
Lady Cecilia put her finger on her lips, closed the door behind her,
and said, “Hush! hush! or you’ll waken Felicie; she is sleeping in the
dressing-room to-night. Mamma ordered it, in case I should want her.”
“And how are you now? What can I do for you?”
“My dear Helen, you can do something for me indeed. But don’t get up.
Lie down and listen to me. I want to speak to you.”
“Sit down, then, my dear Cecilia, sit down here beside me.”
“No, no, I need not sit down, I am very well, standing. Only let me say
what I have to say. I am quite well.”
“Quite well! indeed you are not. I feel you all trembling. You must sit
down, indeed, my dear,” said Helen, pressing her.
She sat down. “Now listen to me--do not waste time, for I can’t stay.
Oh! if the general should awake and find me gone.”
“What is the matter, my dear Cecilia? Only tell me what I can do for
you.”
“That is the thing; but I am afraid, now it is come to the point.” Lady
Cecilia breathed quick and short. “I am almost afraid to ask you to do
this for me.”
“Afraid! my dear Cecilia, to ask me to do anything in this world for
you! How can you be afraid? Tell me only what it is at once.”
“I am very foolish--I am very weak. I know you love me--would do
anything for me, Helen. And this is the simplest thing in the world, but
the greatest favour--the greatest service. It is only just to receive a
packet, which the general will give you in the morning. He will ask if
it is for you. And you will just accept of it. I don’t ask you to say it
is yours, or to say a word about it--only receive it for me.”
“Yes, I will, to be sure. But why should he give it to me, and not to
yourself?”
“Oh, he thinks, and you must let him think, it is for you, that’s
all. Will you promise me?”--But Helen made no answer. “Oh, promise me,
promise me, speak, for I can’t stay. I will explain it all to you in the
morning.” She rose to go.
“Stay, stay! Cecilia,” cried Helen, stopping her; “stay!--you must,
indeed, explain it all to me now--you must indeed!”
Lady Cecilia hesitated--said she had not time. “You said, Helen, that
you would take the packet, and you know you must; but I will explain
it all as fast as I can. You know I fainted, but you do not know why? I
will tell you exactly how it all happened:--you recollect my coming into
the library after I was dressed, before you went up-stairs, and giving
you a sprig of orange flowers?”
“Oh yes, I was dreaming of it just now when you came in,” said Helen.
“Well, what of that?”
“Nothing, only you must have been surprised to hear so soon afterwards
that I had fainted.”
“Yes,” Helen said, she had been very much surprised and alarmed; and
again Lady Cecilia paused.
“Well, I went from you directly to Clarendon, to give him a rose, which
you may remember I had in my hand for him. I found him in the study,
talking to corporal somebody. He just smiled as I came in, took the
rose, and said, ‘I shall be ready this moment:’ and looking to a table
on which were heaps of letters and parcels which Granville had brought
from town, he added, ‘I do not know whether there is anything there for
you, Cecilia?’ I went to look, and he went on talking to his corporal.
He was standing with his back to the table.”
Helen felt that Lady Cecilia told all these minute details as if there
was some fact to which she feared to come. Cecilia went on very quickly.
“I did not find anything for myself; but in tossing over the papers I
saw a packet directed to General Clarendon. I thought it was a feigned
hand--and yet that I knew it--that I had seen it somewhere lately. There
was one little flourish that I recollected; it was like the writing of
that wretched Carlos.”
“Carlos!” cried Helen: “well!”
“The more I looked at it,” continued Lady Cecilia, “the more like I
thought it; and I was going to say so to the general, only I waited till
he had done his business: but as I was examining it through the outer
cover, of very thin foreign paper, I could distinguish the writing of
some of the inside, and it was like your hand or like mine. You know,
between our hands there is such a great resemblance, there is no telling
one from the other.”
Helen did not think so, but she remained silent.
“At least,” said Cecilia, answering her look of doubt, “at least the
general says so; he never knows our hands asunder. Well! I perceived
that there was something hard inside--more than papers; and as I felt
it, there came from it an uncommon perfume--a particular perfume, like
what I used to have once, at the time--that time that I can never bear
to think of, you know--”
“I know,” said Helen, and in a low voice she added, “you mean about
Colonel D’Aubigny.”
“The perfume, and altogether I do not know what, quite overcame me. I
had just sense enough to throw the packet from me: I made an effort, and
reached the window, and I was trying to open the sash, I remember; but
what happened immediately after that, I cannot tell you. When I came to
myself, I was in my husband’s arms; he was carrying me up-stairs--and so
much alarmed about me he was! Oh, Helen, I do so love him! He laid me on
the bed, and he spoke so kindly, reproaching me for not taking more care
of myself--but so fondly! Somehow I could not bear it just then, and I
closed my eyes as his met mine. He, I knew, could suspect nothing--but
still! He stayed beside me, holding my hand: then dinner was ready; he
had been twice summoned. It was a relief to me when he left me. Next,
I believe, my mother came up, and felt my pulse, and scolded me for
over-fatiguing myself, and for that leap; and I pleaded guilty, and it
was all very well. I saw she had not an idea there was anything else.
Mamma really is not suspicious, with all her penetration--she is not
suspicious.”
“And why did you not tell her all the little you had to tell, dear
Cecilia? If you had, long ago, when I begged of you to do so--if you had
told your mother all about--”
“Told her!” interrupted Cecilia; “told my mother!--oh no, Helen!”
Helen sighed, and feebly said, “Go on.”
“Well! when you were at dinner, it came into my poor head that the
general would open that parcel before I could see you again, and before
I could ask your advice and settle with you--before I could know what
was to be done. I was so anxious, I sent for you twice.”
“But Lady Davenant and the general forbade me to go to you.”
“Yes,”--Lady Cecilia said she understood that, and she had seen the
danger of showing too much impatience to speak to Helen; she thought it
might excite suspicion of her having something particular to say, she
had therefore refrained from asking again. She was not asleep when Helen
came to bed, though Felicie thought she was; she was much too anxious
to sleep till she had seen her husband again; she was awake when he came
into his room; she saw him come in with some letters and packets in his
hand; by his look she knew all was still safe--he had not opened _that_
particular packet--he held it among a parcel of military returns in
his hand as he came to the side of the bed on tiptoe to see if she
was asleep--to ask how she did; “He touched my pulse,” said Lady
Cecilia,--“and I am sure he might well say it was terribly quick.
“Every instant I thought he would open that packet. He threw it,
however, and all the rest, down on the table, to be read in the morning,
as usual, as soon as he awoke. After feeling my pulse again, the last
thing, and satisfying himself that it was better--‘Quieter now,’ said
he, he fell fast asleep, and slept so soundly, and I--”
Helen looked at her with astonishment, and was silent.
“Oh speak to me!” said Lady Cecilia, “what do you say, Helen?”
“I say that I cannot imagine why you are so much alarmed about this
packet.”
“Because I am a fool, I believe,” said Lady Cecilia, trying to laugh. “I
am so afraid of his opening it.”
“But why?” said Helen, “what do you think there is in it?”
“I have told you, surely! Letters--foolish letters of mine to that
D’Aubigny. Oh how I repent I ever wrote a line to him! And he told me,
he absolutely swore, he had destroyed every note and letter I ever wrote
to him. He was the most false of human beings!”
“He was a very bad man--I always thought so,” said Helen; “but, Cecilia,
I never knew that he had any letters of yours.”
“Oh yes, you did, my dear, at the time; do not you recollect I showed
you a letter, and it was you who made me break off the correspondence?”
“I remember your showing me several letters of his,” said Helen, “but
not of yours--only one or two notes--asking for that picture back again
which he had stolen from your portfolio.”
“Yes, and about the verses; surely you recollect my showing you another
letter of mine, Helen!”
“Yes, but these were all of no consequence; there must be more, or you
could not be so much afraid, Cecilia, of the general’s seeing these,
surely.” At this moment Lady Davenant’s prophecy, all she had said about
her daughter, flashed across Helen’s mind, and with increasing eagerness
she went on. “What is there in those letters that can alarm you so
much?”
“I declare I do not know,” said Cecilia, “that is the plain truth; I
cannot recollect--I cannot be certain what there is in them.”
“But it is not so long ago, Cecilia,--only two years?”
“That is true, but so many great events have happened since, and such
new feelings, all that early nonsense was swept out of my mind. I never
really loved that wretch--”
A gleam of joy came across Helen’s face.
“Never, never,” repeated Lady Cecilia.
“Oh, I am happy still,” cried Helen. “I told your mother I was sure of
this.”
“Good heavens!--Does she know about this packet?”
“No, no!--how could she? But what frightens you, my dear Cecilia? you
say there is nothing wrong in the letters?”
“Nothing--nothing.”
“Then make no wrong out of nothing,” cried Helen. “If you break
confidence with your husband, that confidence will never, never unite
again--your mother says so.”
“My mother!” cried Cecilia: “Good heavens!--so she does suspect?--tell
me, Helen, tell me what she suspects.”
“That you did not at first--before you were married, tell the general
the whole truth about Colonel D’Aubigny.”
Cecilia was silent.
“But it is not yet too late,” said Helen, earnestly; “you can set it all
right now--this is the moment, my dearest Cecilia. Do, do,” cried Helen,
“do tell him all--bid him look at the letters.”
“Look at them! Impossible! Impossible!” said Lady Cecilia. “Bid me die
rather.”
She turned quite away.
“Listen to me, Cecilia;” she held her fast. “You must do it, Cecilia.”
“Helen, I cannot.”
“You can, indeed you can,” said Helen; “only have courage _now_, and you
will be happier all your life afterwards.”
“Do not ask it--do not ask it--it is all in vain, you are wasting time.”
“No, no--not wasting time; and in short, Cecilia, you must do what I ask
of you, for it is right; and I will not do what you ask of me, for it is
wrong.”
“You will not!--You will not!” cried Lady Cecilia, breathless. “After
all! You will not receive the packet for me! you will not let the
general believe the letters to be yours! Then I am undone! You will
not do it!--Then do not talk to me--do not talk to me--you do not know
General Clarendon. If his jealousy were once roused, you have no idea
what it would be.”
“If the man were alive,” said Helen, “but since he is dead--”
“But Clarendon would never forgive me for having loved another--”
“You said you did not love him.”
“Nor did I ever _really_ love that man; but still Clarendon, from even
seeing those letters, might think I did. The very fact of having written
such letters would be destruction to me with Clarendon. You do not know
Clarendon. How can I convince you it is impossible for me to tell him?
At the time he first proposed for me--oh! how I loved him, and feared to
lose him. One day my mother, when I was not by, said something--I do
not know what, about a first love, let fall something about that hateful
D’Aubigny, and the general came to me in such a state! Oh, Helen, in
such a state! I thought it was all at an end. He told me he never would
marry any woman on earth who had ever loved another. I told him I
never had, and that was true, you know; but then I went a little beyond
perhaps. I said I had never THOUGHT of anybody else, for he made such
a point of that. In short, I was a coward--a fool; I little foresaw--I
laughed it off, and told him that what mamma had said was all a mistake,
all nonsense; that Colonel D’Aubigny was a sort of universal flirt--and
that was very true, I am sure: that he had admired us both, both you and
me, but you last, you most, Helen, I said.”
“Oh, Cecilia, how could you say so, when you knew he never cared for me
in the least?”
“Forgive me, my dear, for there was no other way; and what harm did it
do you, or what harm can it ever do you? It only makes it the easier for
you to help me--to save me now. And Granville,” continued Lady Cecilia,
thinking that was the obstacle in Helen’s mind, “and Granville need
never know it.”
Helen’s countenance suddenly changed--“Granville! I never thought of
that!” and now that she did think of it, she reproached herself with
the selfishness of that fear. Till this moment, she knew her motives had
been all singly for Cecilia’s happiness; now the fear she felt of this
some way hurting her with Beauclerc made her less resolute. Lady Cecilia
saw her giving way and hurried on----
“Oh, my dear Helen! I know I have been very wrong, but you would not
quite give me up, would you?--Oh! for my mother’s sake! Consider how it
would be with my mother, so ill as you saw her! I am sure if anything
broke out now in my mother’s state of health it would be fatal.”
Helen became excessively agitated.
“Oh, Helen! would you make me the death of that mother?--Oh, Helen, save
her! and do what you will with me afterwards. It will be only for a few
hours--only a few hours!” repeated Lady Cecilia, seeing that these words
made a great impression upon Helen,--“Save me, Helen! save my mother.”
She sank upon her knees, clasping her hands in an agony of supplication.
Helen bent down her head and was silent--she could no longer refuse.
“Then I must,” said she.
“Oh thank you! bless you!” cried Lady Cecilia in an ecstasy--“you will
take the letters?”
“Yes,” Helen feebly said; “yes, since it must be so.”
Cecilia embraced her, thanked her, blessed her, and hastily left the
room, but in an instant afterward she returned, and said, “One thing I
forgot, and I must tell you. Think of my forgetting it! The letters are
not signed with my real name, they are signed Emma--Henry and Emma!--Oh
folly, folly! My dear, dear friend! save me but now, and I never will
be guilty of the least deception again during my whole life; believe
me, believe me! When once my mother is safely gone I will tell Clarendon
all. Look at me, dear Helen, look at me and believe me.”
And Helen looked at her, and Helen believed her.