intrusion, and the suddenness of change, she was thus as far as
possible gradually and almost imperceptibly relieved. By their perfect
good-breeding, as well as good-nature, from their making no effort to
show her particular attention, she felt received at once into their
family as one of themselves; and yet, though there was no effort,
she perceived in the most minute circumstances the same sort of
consideration which would be shown to an intimate friend. They not only
did not expect, but did not wish, that she should make any exertion to
appear to be what she could not be; they knew the loneliness of heart
she must feel, the weight that must be upon her spirits. They left her,
then, quite at liberty to be with them or alone, as she might like, and
she was glad to be alone with her own thoughts; they soon fixed upon
Beauclerc. She considered how he would feel, what he would think, when
he should receive her letter: she pictured his looks while reading
it; considered whether he would write immediately, or attempt,
notwithstanding her prohibition, to see her. He would know from General
Clarendon, that is, if the general thought proper to tell him, where
she was, and that she would remain all this day in town. Though her
determination was fixed, whether he wrote or came, to abide by her
refusal, and for the unanswerable reasons which she had given, or which
she had laid down to herself; yet she could not, and who, loving as she
did, could help wishing that Beauclerc should desire to see her again;
she hoped that he would make every effort to change her resolution, even
though it might cost them both pain. Yet in some pain there is pleasure;
or, to be without it, is a worse kind of suffering. Helen was conscious
of the inconsistency in her mind, and sighed, and endeavoured to be
reasonable. And, to do her justice, there was not the slightest wavering
as to the main point. She thought that the general might, perhaps, have
some relenting towards her. Hope would come into her mind, though she
tried to keep it out; she had nothing to expect, she repeatedly said
to herself, except that either Cecilia would send, or the general would
call this morning, and Rose must come at all events.
The morning passed on, however, and no one came so soon as Helen had
expected. She was sitting in a back room where no knocks at the door
could be heard; but she would have been called, surely, if General
Clarendon had come. He had come, but he had not asked for her; he had at
first inquired only for his sister, but she was not at home, gone to the
dentist’s. The general then desired to see Mrs. Pennant, and when she
supposed that she had not heard rightly, and that Miss Stanley must
be the person he wished to see, he had answered, “By no means; I
particularly wish not to see Miss Stanley. I beg to see Mrs. Pennant
alone.”
It fell to the lot of this gentle-hearted lady to communicate to Helen
the dreadful intelligence he brought: a duel had taken place! When Helen
had seen the general riding off, he was on his way to Chalk Farm. Just
as the carriage was coming round for Miss Stanley, Mr. Beauclerc’s groom
had requested in great haste to see the general; he said he was sure
something was going wrong about his master; he had heard the words Chalk
Farm. The general was off instantly, but before he reached the spot
the duel had been fought. A duel between Beauclerc and Mr. Churchill.
Beauclerc was safe, but Mr. Churchill was dangerously wounded; the
medical people present could not answer for his life. At the time the
general saw him he was speechless, but when Beauclerc and his second,
Lord Beltravers, had come up to him, he had extended his hand in token
of forgiveness to one or the other, but to which he had addressed the
only words he had uttered could not be ascertained; the words were,
“_You_ are not to blame!--escape!--fly!” Both had fled to the Continent.
General Clarendon said that he had no time for explanations, he had not
been able to get any intelligible account of the cause of the affair.
Lord Beltravers had named Miss Stanley, but Beauclerc had stopped him,
and had expressed the greatest anxiety that Miss Stanley’s name should
not be implicated, should not be mentioned. He took the whole blame upon
himself--said he would write--there was no time for more.
Mrs. Pennant listened with the dread of losing a single word: but
however brief his expressions, the general’s manner of speaking,
notwithstanding the intensity of his emotion, was so distinct that every
word was audible, except the name of Lord Beltravers, which was not
familiar to her. She asked again the name of Mr. Beauclerc’s second?
“Lord Beltravers,” the general repeated with a forcible accent, and
loosening his neck-cloth with his finger, he added, “Rascal! as I always
told Beauclerc that he was, and so he will find him--too late.”
Except this exacerbation, the general was calmly reserved in speech, and
Mrs. Pennant felt that she could not ask him a single question beyond
what he had communicated. When he rose to go, which he did the moment
he had finished what he had to say, she had, however, courage enough
to hope that they should soon hear again, when the general should learn
something more of Mr. Churchill.
Certainly he would let her know whatever he could learn of Mr.
Churchill’s state.
Her eyes followed him to the door with anxious eagerness to penetrate
farther into what his own opinion of the danger might be. His rigidity
of composure made her fear that he had no hope, “otherwise certainly he
would have said something.”
He opened the door again, and returning, said, “Depend upon it you shall
hear how he is, my dear Mrs. Pennant, before you leave town to-morrow.”
“We will not go to-morrow,” she replied. “We will stay another day at
least. Poor Miss Stanley will be so anxious----”
“I advise you not to stay in town another day, my dear madam. You can do
no good by it. If Mr. Churchill survive this day, he will linger long
I am assured. Take Helen--take Miss Stanley out of town, as soon as may
be. Better go to-morrow, as you had determined.”
“But it will be so long, my dear general!--one moment--if we go, it will
be so long before we can hear any further news of your ward.”
“I will write.”
“To Miss Stanley--Oh, thank you.”
“To my sister,” he looked back to say, and repeated distinctly, “To my
sister.”
“Very well--thank you, at all events.”
Mrs. Pennant saw that, in General Clarendon’s present disposition
towards Miss Stanley, the less she said of him the better, and she
confined herself strictly to what she had been commissioned to say, and
all she could do was to prevent the added pain of suspense; it was told
to Helen in the simplest shortest manner possible:--but the facts were
dreadful. Beauclerc was safe!--safe! but under what circumstances?
“And it was for me, I am sure,” cried Helen, “I am sure it was for me!
I was the cause! I am the cause of that man’s death--of Beauclerc’s
agony.”
For some time Helen had not power or thought for any other idea. The
promise that they should hear as soon as they could learn any thing more
of Mr. Churchill’s state was all she could rely upon or recur to.
When her maid Rose arrived from General Clarendon’s, she said, that
when Lady Cecilia heard of the duel she had been taken very ill, but
had since recovered sufficiently to drive out with the general.
Miss Clarendon assured Helen there was no danger. “It is too deep a
misfortune for Lady Cecilia. Her feelings have not depth enough for it,
you will see. You need not be afraid for her, Helen.”
The circumstances which led to the duel were not clearly known till long
afterwards, but may be now related. The moment Beauclerc had parted from
Helen when he turned away at the carriage door after the party at Lady
Castlefort’s he went in search of one, who, as he hoped, could explain
the strange whispers he had heard. The person of whom he went in search
was his friend, his friend as he deemed him, Lord Beltravers. Churchill
had suggested that if any body knew the bottom of the matter, except
that origin of all evil Lady Katrine herself,--it must be Lord
Beltravers, with whom Lady Castlefort was, it was said, _fortement
éprise_, and as Horace observed, “the secrets of scandal are common
property between lovers, much modern love being cemented by hate.”
Without taking in the full force of this observation in its particular
application to the hatred which Lord Beltravers might feel to Miss
Stanley, as the successful rival of his sister Blanche, Beauclerc
hastened to act upon his suggestion. His lordship was not at home: his
people thought he had been at Lady Castlefort’s; did not know where he
might be if not there. At some gambling-house Beauclerc at last found
him, and Lord Beltravers was sufficiently vexed in the first place at
being there found, for he had pretended to his friend Granville that he
no longer played. His embarrassment was increased by the questions which
Beauclerc so suddenly put to him; but he had _nonchalante_ impudence
enough to brave it through, and he depended with good reason on
Beauclerc’s prepossession in his favour. He protested he knew nothing
about it; and he returned Churchill’s charge, by throwing the
whole blame upon him; said he knew he was in league with Lady
Katrine;--mentioned that one morning, sometime ago, he had dropped in
unexpectedly early at Lady Castlefort’s, and had been surprised to
find the two sisters, contrary to their wont, together--their heads and
Horace Churchill’s over some manuscript, which was shuffled away as
he entered. This was true, all but the shuffling away; and here it is
necessary to form a clear notion, clearer than Lord Beltravers
will give, of the different shares of wrong; of wrong knowingly and
unknowingly perpetrated by the several scandal-mongers concerned in this
affair.
Lord Beltravers could be in no doubt as to his own share, for he it was
who had furnished the editor of Colonel D’Aubigny’s Memoirs with the
famous letters. When Carlos, Lady Davenant’s runaway page, escaped from
Clarendon Park, having changed his name, he got into the service of
Sir Thomas D’Aubigny, who was just at this time arranging his brother’s
papers. Now it had happened that Carlos had been concealed behind the
screen in Lady Davenant’s room, the day of her first conversation with
Helen about Colonel D’Aubigny, and he had understood enough of it to
perceive that there was some mystery about the colonel with either
Helen or Lady Cecilia; and chancing one day, soon after he entered Sir
Thomas’s service, to find his escritoire open, he amused himself with
looking over his papers, among which he discovered the packet of Lady
Cecilia’s letters. Carlos was not perfectly sure of the handwriting; he
thought it was Lady Cecilia’s; but when he found the miniature of Miss
Stanley along with them, he concluded that the letters must be hers. And
having special reasons for feeling vengeance against Helen, and certain
at all events of doing mischief, he sent them to General Clarendon: not,
however, forgetting his old trade, he copied them first. This was just
at the time when Lord Beltravers returned from abroad after his sister’s
divorce. He by some accident found out who Carlos was, and whence he
came, and full of his own views for his sister, he cross-examined him as
to every thing he knew about Miss Stanley; and partly by bribes, partly
by threats of betraying him to Lady Davenant, he contrived to get from
him the copied letters. Carlos soon after returned with his master
to Portugal, and was never more heard of. Lord Beltravers took these
purloined copies of the letters, thus surreptitiously obtained, to the
editor, into whose hands Sir Thomas D’Aubigny (who knew nothing of books
or book-making) had put his brother’s memoirs. This editor, as has been
mentioned, had previously consulted Mr. Churchill, and in consequence
of his pepper and salt hint, Lord Beltravers himself made those
interpolations which he hoped would ruin his sister’s rival in the eyes
of her lover.
Mr. Churchill, however, except this hint, and except his vanity in
furnishing a good title, and his coxcombry of literary patronage,
and his general hope that Helen’s name being implicated in such a
publication would avenge her rejection of himself, had had nothing to do
with the business. This Lord Beltravers well knew, and yet when he found
that the slander made no impression upon Beauclerc, and that he was only
intent upon discovering the slanderer, he, with dexterous treachery,
contrived to turn the tables upon Churchill, and to direct all
Beauclerc’s suspicion towards him! He took his friend home with him, and
showed him all the newspaper paragraphs--paragraphs which he himself
had written! Yes, this man of romantic friendship, this blazé, this hero
oppressed with his own sensibility, could condescend to write anonymous
scandal, to league with newsmongers, and to bribe waiting-women to
supply him with information, for Mademoiselle Felicie had, through Lady
Katrine’s maid, told all, and more than all she knew, of what passed
at General Clarendon’s; and on this foundation did he construct those
paragraphs, which he hoped would blast the character of the woman to
whom his dearest friend was engaged. And now he contrived to say all
that could convince Beauclerc that Mr. Churchill was the author of
these very paragraphs. And hot and rash, Beauclerc rushed on to that
conclusion. He wrote, a challenge to Churchill, and as soon as it was
possible in the morning he sent it by Lord Beltravers. Mr. Churchill
named Sir John Luttrell as his friend: Lord Beltravers would enter
into no terms of accommodation; the challenge was accepted, Chalk Farm
appointed as the place of meeting, and the time fixed for eight o’clock
next morning. And thus, partly by his own warmth of temper, and partly
by the falsehood of others, was Beauclerc urged on to the action he
detested, to be the thing he hated. Duelling and duellists had, from
the time he could think, been his abhorrence, and now he was to end his
life, or to take the life of a fellow-creature perhaps, in a duel.
There was a dread interval. And it was during the remainder of this
day and night that Beauclerc felt most strongly compared with all other
earthly ties, his attachment, his passionate love for Helen. At every
pause, at every close of other thoughts forced upon him, his mind
recurred to Helen--what Helen would feel--what Helen would think--what
she would suffer--and in the most and in the least important things
his care was for her. He recalled the last look that he had seen at the
carriage-door when they parted, recollected that it expressed anxiety,
was conscious that he had turned away abruptly--that in the preoccupied
state of his mind he had not spoken one word of kindness--and that this
might be the last impression of him left on her mind. He knew that her
anxiety would increase, when all that day must pass without his return,
and it was then he thought of sending her those flowers which would, he
knew, reassure her better than any words he could venture to write.
Meanwhile his false friend coldly calculated what were the chances in
his sister’s favour; and when Churchill fell, and even in the hurry of
their immediate departure, Lord Beltravers wrote to Madame de St. Cymon,
over whom the present state of her affairs gave him command, to order
her to set out immediately, and to take Blanche with her to Paris,
without asking the consent of that fool and prude, her aunt Lady Grace.
It was well for poor Helen, even in the dreadful uncertainty in which
she left London, that she did not know _all_ these circumstances. It may
be doubted, indeed, whether we should be altogether happier in this life
if that worst of evils, as it is often called, suspense, were absolutely
annihilated, and if human creatures could clearly see their fate, or
even know what is most likely to happen.
CHAPTER XI.
According to the general’s advice, Mrs. Pennant did not delay her
journey, and Helen left London the next day with her and Miss Clarendon.
The last bulletin of Mr. Churchill had been that he was still in great
danger, and a few scarce legible lines Helen had received from Cecilia,
saying that the general would not allow her to agitate herself by going
to take leave of her, that she was glad that Helen was to be out of town
till all blew over, and that she was so much distracted by this horrible
event, she scarcely knew what she wrote.
As they drove out of town, Miss Clarendon, in hopes of turning Helen’s
thoughts, went on talking. “Unless,” said she, “we could like Madame de
Genlis, ‘promote the post-boys into agents of mystery and romance,’ we
have but little chance, I am afraid, of any adventures on our journey to
Llansillen, my dear Miss Stanley.”
She inveighed against the stupid safety, convenience, luxury, and
expedition of travelling now-a-days all over England, even in Wales, “so
that one might sleep the whole way from Hyde Park corner to Llansillen
gate,” said she, “and have no unconscionably long nap either. No
difficulties on the road, nothing to complain of at inns, no enjoying
one’s dear delight in being angry, no opportunity even of showing one’s
charming resignation. Dreadfully bad this for the nervous and bilious,
for all the real use and benefit of travelling is done away; all too
easy for my taste; one might as well be a doll, or a dolt, or a parcel
in the coach.”
Helen would have been glad to have been considered merely as a parcel
in the coach. During the whole journey, she took no notice of any thing
till they came within a few miles of Llansillen; then, endeavouring to
sympathise with her companions, she looked out of the carriage window at
the prospect which they admired. But, however charming, Llansillen had
not for Helen the chief charm of early, fond, old associations with a
happy home. To her it was to be, she doubted not, as happy as kindness
could make it, but still it was new; and in that thought, that feeling,
there was something inexpressibly melancholy; and the contrast, at this
moment, between her sensations and those of her companions, made the
pain the more poignant; they perceived this, and were silent. Helen was
grateful for this consideration for her, but she could not bear to be
a constraint upon them, therefore she now exerted herself, sat
forward--admired and talked when she was scarcely able to speak. By the
time they came to Llansillen gate, however, she could say no more; she
was obliged to acknowledge that she was not well; and when the carriage
at last stopped at the door, there was such a throbbing in her temples,
and she was altogether so ill, that it was with the greatest difficulty
she could, leaning on Miss Clarendon’s arm, mount the high steps to
the hall-door. She could scarcely stand when she reached the top, but,
making an effort, she went on, crossed the slippery floor of that great
hall, and came to the foot of the black oak staircase, of which the
steps were so very low that she thought she could easily go up, but
found it impossible, and she was carried directly up to Miss Clarendon’s
own room, no other having been yet prepared. The rosy Welsh maids looked
with pity on the pale stranger. They hurried to and fro, talking Welsh
to one another very fast; and Helen felt as if she were in a foreign
land, and in a dream. The end of the matter was, that she had a low
fever which lasted long. It was more dispiriting than dangerous--more
tedious than alarming. Her illness continued for many weeks, during
which time she was attended most carefully by her two new friends--by
Miss Clarendon with the utmost zeal and activity--by Mrs. Pennant with
the greatest solicitude and tenderness.
Her history for these weeks--indeed for some months afterwards--can
be only the diary of an invalid and of a convalescent. Miss Clarendon
meanwhile received from her brother, punctually, once a week, bulletins
of Churchill’s health; the surgical details, the fears of the formation
of internal abscess, reports of continual exfoliations of bone, were
judiciously suppressed, and the laconic general reported only “Much
the same--not progressing--cannot be pronounced out of danger.” These
bulletins were duly repeated to Helen, whenever she was able to hear
them; and at last she was considered well enough to read various
letters, which had arrived for her during her illness; several were from
Lady Cecilia, but little in them. The first was full only of expressions
of regret, and self-reproach; in the last, she said, _she hoped soon to
have a right to claim Helen back again_. This underlined passage Helen
knew alluded to the promise she had once made, that at the birth of her
child all should be told; but words of promise from Cecilia had lost all
value--all power to excite even hope, as she said to herself as she read
the words, and sighed.
One of her letters mentioned what she would have seen in the first
newspaper she had opened, that Lady Blanche Forrester was gone with her
sister, the Comtesse de St. Cymon, to Paris, to join her brother Lord
Beltravers. But Lady Cecilia observed, that Helen need not be alarmed
by this paragraph, which she was sure was inserted on purpose to plague
her. Lady Cecilia seemed to take it for granted that her rejection of
Beauclerc was only a _ruse d’amour_, and went on with her usual hopes,
now vague and more vague every letter--that things would end well
sometime, somehow or other.
Helen only sighed on reading these letters, and quick as she glanced her
eye over them, threw them from her on the bed; and Miss Clarendon said,
“Ay! you know her now, I see!”
Helen made no reply: she was careful not to make any comment which could
betray how much, or what sort of reason she had to complain of Lady
Cecilia; but Miss Clarendon, confident that she had guessed pretty
nearly the truth, was satisfied with her own penetration, and then,
after seeming to doubt for a few moments, she put another letter into
Helen’s hand, and with one of those looks of tender interest which
sometimes softened her countenance, she left the room.
The letter was from Beauclerc; it appeared to have been written
immediately after he had received Helen’s letter, and was as follows:--
“Not write to you, my dearest Helen! Renounce my claim to your hand!
submit to be rejected by you, my affianced bride! No, never--never!
Doubt! suspicion!--suspicion of you!--you, angel as you are--you, who
have devoted, sacrificed yourself to others. No, Helen, my admiration,
my love, my trust in you, are greater than they ever were. And do _I_
dare to say these words to you? _I_, who am perhaps a murderer! I ought
to imitate your generosity, I ought not to offer you a hand stained with
blood:--I ought at least to leave you free till I know when I may return
from banishment. I have written this at the first instant I have been
able to command during my hurried journey, and as you know something of
what led to this unhappy business, you shall in my next letter hear the
whole; till then, adieu! GRANVILLE BEAUCLERC.”
The next day, when she thought Helen sufficiently recovered from the
agitation of reading Beauclerc’s letter, aunt Pennant produced one
letter more, which she had kept for the last, because she hoped it
would give pleasure to her patient. Helen sat up in her bed eagerly, and
stretched out her hand. The letter was directed by General Clarendon,
but that was only the outer cover, they knew, for he had mentioned
in his last dispatch to his sister, that the letter enclosed for Miss
Stanley was from Lady Davenant. Helen tore off the cover, but the
instant she saw the inner direction, she sank hack, turned, and hid her
face on the pillow.
It was directed--“To Mrs. Granville Beauclerc.”
Lady Davenant had unfortunately taken it for granted, that nothing could
have prevented the marriage.
Aunt Pennant blamed herself for not having foreseen, and prevented
this accident, which she saw distressed poor Helen so much. But Miss
Clarendon wondered that she was so shocked, and supposed she would
get over it in a few minutes, or else she must be very weak. There was
nothing that tended to raise her spirits much in the letter itself, to
make amends for the shock the direction had given. It contained but a
few lines in Lady Davenant’s own handwriting, and a postscript from Lord
Davenant. She wrote only to announce their safe arrival at Petersburgh,
as she was obliged to send off her letter before she had received any
dispatches from England; and she concluded with, “I am sure the first
will bring me the joyful news of Beauclerc’s happiness and yours, my
dear child.”
Lord Davenant’s postscript added, that in truth Lady Davenant much
needed such a cordial, for that her health had suffered even more than
he had feared it would. He repented that he had allowed her to accompany
him to such a rigorous climate.
All that could be said to allay the apprehensions this postscript might
excite, was of course said in the best way by aunt Pennant. But it was
plain that Helen did not recover during the whole of this day from the
shock she had felt “from that foolish direction,” as Miss Clarendon
said. She could not be prevailed upon to rise this day, though Miss
Clarendon, after feeling her pulse, had declared that she was very well
able to get up. “It was very bad for her to remain in bed.” This was
true, no doubt. And Miss Clarendon remarked to her aunt that she was
surprised to find Miss Stanley so weak. Her aunt replied that it was not
surprising that she should be rather weak at present, after such a long
illness.
“Weakness of body and mind need not go together,” said Miss Clarendon.
“Need not, perhaps,” said her aunt, “but they are apt to do so.”
“It is to be hoped the weakness of mind will go with the weakness of
body, and soon,” said Miss Clarendon.
“We must do what we can to strengthen and fatten her, poor thing!” said
Mrs. Pennant.
“Fatten the body, rather easier than to strengthen the mind. Strength of
mind cannot be thrown in, as you would throw in the bark, or the chicken
broth.”
“Only have patience with her,” said Mrs. Pennant, “and you will find
that she will have strength of mind enough when she gets quite well.
Only have patience.”
During Helen’s illness Miss Clarendon had been patient, but now that she
was pronounced convalescent, she became eager to see her quite well.
In time of need Miss Clarendon had been not only the most active
and zealous, but a most gentle and--doubt it who may--soft-stepping,
soft-voiced nurse; but now, when Doctor Tudor had assured them that all
fever was gone, and agreed with her that the patient would soon be well,
if she would only think so, Miss Clarendon deemed it high time to use
something more than her milder influence, to become, if not a rugged, at
least a stern nurse, and she brought out some of her rigid lore.
“I intend that you should get up in seasonable time to-day, Helen,” said
she, as she entered her room.
“Do you?” said Helen in a languid voice.
“I do,” said Miss Clarendon; “and I hope you do not intend to do as you
did yesterday, to lie in bed all day.”
Helen turned, sighed, and Mrs. Pennant said, “Yesterday is over, my dear
Esther--no use in talking of yesterday.”
“Only to secure our doing better to-day, ma’am,” replied Miss Clarendon
with prompt ability.
Helen was all submission, and she got up, and that was well. Miss
Clarendon went in quest of arrow-root judiciously; and aunt Pennant
stayed and nourished her patient meanwhile with “the fostering dew of
praise;” and let her dress as slowly and move as languidly as she liked,
though Miss Clarendon had admonished her “not to _dawdle_.”
As soon as she was dressed, Helen went to the window and threw up the
sash for the first time to enjoy the fresh air, and to see the prospect
which she was told was beautiful; and she saw that it was beautiful,
and, though it was still winter, she felt that the air was balmy;
and the sun shone bright, and the grass began to be green, for spring
approached. But how different to her from the spring-time of former
years! Nature the same, but all within herself how changed! And all
which used to please, and to seem to her most cheerful, now came over
her spirits with a sense of sadness;--she felt as if all the life of
life was gone. Tears filled her eyes, large tears rolled slowly down as
she stood fixed, seeming to gaze from that window at she knew not
what. Aunt Pennant unperceived stood beside her, and let the tears flow
unnoticed. “They will do her good; they are a great relief sometimes.”
Miss Clarendon returned, and the tears were dried, but the glaze
remained, and Miss Clarendon saw it, and gave a reproachful look at her
aunt, as much as to say, “Why did you let her cry?” And her aunt’s look
in reply was, “I could not help it, my dear.”
“Eat your arrow-root,” was all that transpired to Helen. And she tried
to eat, but could not; and Miss Clarendon was not well pleased, for the
arrow-root was good, and she had made it; she felt Miss Stanley’s pulse,
and said that “It was as good a pulse as could be, only low and a little
fluttered.”
“Do not flutter it any more, then, Esther my dear,” said Mrs. Pennant.
“What am I doing or saying, ma’am, that should flutter anybody that has
common sense?”
“Some people don’t like to have their pulse felt,” said aunt Pennant.
“Those people have not common sense,” replied the niece.
“I believe I have not common sense,” said Helen.
“Sense you have enough--resolution is what you want, Helen, I tell you.”
“I know,” said Helen, “too true----”
“True, but not too true--nothing can be too true.”
“True,” said Helen, with languid submission. Helen was not in a
condition to chop logic, or ever much inclined to it; now less than
ever, and least of all with Miss Clarendon, so able as she was. There is
something very provoking sometimes in perfect submission, because it is
unanswerable. But the langour, not the submission, afforded some cause
for further remark and remonstrance.
“Helen, you are dreadfully languid to-day.”
“Sadly,” said Helen.
“If you could have eaten more arrow-root before it grew cold, you would
have been better.”
“But if she could not, my dear Esther,” said aunt Pennant.
“_Could_ not, ma’am! As if people could not eat if they pleased.”
“But if people have no appetite, my dear, I am afraid eating will not do
much good.”
“I am afraid, my dear aunt, you will not do Miss Stanley much good,”
said Miss Clarendon, shaking her head; “you will only spoil her.”
“I am quite spoiled, I believe,” said Helen; “you must unspoil me,
Esther.”
“Not so very easy,” said Esther; “but I shall try, for I am a sincere
friend.”
“I am sure of it,” said Helen.
Then what more could be said? Nothing at that time--Helen’s look was so
sincerely grateful, and “gentle as a lamb,” as aunt Pennant observed;
and Esther was not a wolf quite--at heart not at all.
Miss Clarendon presently remarked that Miss Stanley really did not seem
glad to be better--glad to get well. Helen acknowledged that instead of
being glad, she was rather sorry.
“If it had pleased Heaven, I should have been glad to die.”
“Nonsense about dying, and worse than nonsense,” cried Miss Clarendon,
“when you see that it did not please Heaven that you should die--”
“I am content to live,” said Helen.
“Content! to be sure you are,” said Miss Clarendon. “Is this your
thankfulness to Providence?”
“I am resigned--I am thankful--I will try to be more so--but cannot be
glad.”
General Clarendon’s bulletins continued with little variation for some
time; they were always to his sister--he never mentioned Beauclerc,
but confined himself to the few lines or words necessary to give his
promised regular accounts of Mr. Churchill’s state, the sum of which
continued to be for a length of time: “Much the same.”--“Not in
immediate danger.”--“Cannot be pronounced out of danger.”
Not very consolatory, Helen felt. “But while there is life, there is
hope,” as aunt Pennant observed.
“Yes, and fear,” said Helen; and her hopes and fears on this subject
alternated with fatiguing reiteration, and with a total incapacity of
forming any judgment.
Beauclerc’s letter of explanation arrived, and other letters came from
him from time to time, which, as they were only repetitions of hopes and
fears as to Churchill’s recovery, and of uncertainty as to what might
be his own future fate, only increased Helen’s misery; and as even their
expressions of devoted attachment could not alter her own determination,
while she felt how cruel her continued silence must appear, they only
agitated without relieving her mind. Mrs. Pennant sympathised with and
soothed her, and knew how to sooth, and how to raise, and to sustain a
mind in sorrow, suffering under disappointed affection, and sunk almost
to despondency; for aunt Pennant, besides her softness of manner, and
her quick intelligent sympathy, had power of consolation of a higher
sort, beyond any which this world can give. She was very religious, of a
cheerfully religious turn of mind--of that truly Christian spirit which
hopeth all things. When she was a child somebody asked her if she was
bred up in the fear of the Lord. She said no, but in the love of
God. And so she was, in that love which casteth out fear. And now the
mildness of her piety, and the whole tone and manner of her speaking and
thinking, reminded Helen of that good dear uncle by whom she had been
educated. She listened with affectionate reverence, and she truly and
simply said, “You do me good--I think you have done me a great deal of
good--and you shall see it.” And she did see it afterwards, and Miss
Clarendon thought it was her doing, and so her aunt let it pass, and was
only glad the good was done.
The first day Helen went down to the drawing-room, she found there a
man who looked, as she thought at first glance, like a tradesman--some
person, she supposed, come on business, standing waiting for Miss
Clarendon, or Mrs. Pennant. She scarcely looked at him, but passed on
to the sofa, beside which was a little table set for her, and on it a
beautiful work-box, which she began to examine and admire.
“Not nigh so handsome as I could have wished it, then, for you, Miss
Helen--I ask pardon, Miss Stanley.”
Helen looked up, surprised at hearing herself addressed by one whom she
had thought a stranger; but yet she knew the voice, and a reminiscence
came across her mind of having seen him somewhere before.
“Old David Price, ma’am. Maybe you forget him, you being a child at that
time. But since you grew up, you have been the saving of me and many
more----” Stepping quite close to her, he whispered that he had been
paid under her goodness’s order by Mr. James, along with _the other
creditors_ that had been _left_.
Helen by this time recollected who the poor Welshman was--an upholsterer
and cabinet-maker, who had been years before employed at the Deanery.
Never having been paid at the time, a very considerable debt had
accumulated, and having neither note nor bond, Price said that he had
despaired of ever obtaining the amount of his earnings. He had, however,
since the dean’s death, been paid in full, and had been able to retire
to his native village, which happened to be near Llansillen, and most
grateful he was; and as soon as he perceived that he was recognised, his
gratitude became better able to express itself. Not well, however, could
it make its way out for some time; between crying and laughing, and
between two languages, he was at first scarcely intelligible. Whenever
much moved, David Price had recourse to his native Welsh, in which he
was eloquent; and Mrs. Pennant, on whom, knowing that she understood
him, his eyes turned, was good enough to interpret for him. And when
once fairly set a-going, there was danger that poor David’s garrulous
gratitude should flow for ever. But it was all honest; not a word of
flattery; and his old face was in a glow and radiant with feeling,
and the joy of telling Miss Helen all, how, and about it; particularly
concerning the last day when Mr. James paid him, and them, and all of
them: that was a day Miss Stanley ought to have seen; pity she could not
have witnessed it; it would have done her good to the latest hour of
her life. Pity she should never see the faces of many, some poorer they
might have been than himself; many richer, that would have been ruined
for ever but for her. For his own part, he reckoned himself one of the
happiest of them all, in being allowed to see her face to face. And
he hoped, as soon as she was able to get out so far--but it was not so
far--she would come to see how comfortable he was in his own house. It
ended at last in his giving a shove to the work-box on the table,
which, though nothing worth otherwise, he knew she could not mislike, on
account it was made out of all the samples of wood the dean, her uncle,
had given to him in former times.
Notwithstanding the immoderate length of his speeches, and the
impossibility he seemed to find of ending his visit, Helen was not much
tired. And when she was able to walk so far, Mrs. Pennant took her to
see David Price, and in a most comfortable house she found him; and
every one in that house, down to the youngest child, gathered round her
by degrees, some more, some less shy, but all with gratitude beaming
and smiling in their faces. It was delightful to Helen; for there is no
human heart so engrossed by sorrow, so over whelmed by disappointment,
so closed against hope of happiness, that will not open to the touch of
gratitude.
CHAPTER XII.
But there was still in Helen’s inmost soul one deceitful hope. She
thought she had pulled it up by the roots many times, and the last time
completely; but still a little fibre lurked, and still it grew again.
It was the hope that Cecilia would keep that last promise, though at the
moment Helen had flung from her the possibility; yet now she took it up
again, and she thought it was possible that Cecilia might be true to her
word. If her child should be born alive, and if it should be a boy! It
became a heart-beating suspense as the time approached, and every day
the news might be expected. The post came in but three times a week at
Llansillen, and every post day Miss Clarendon repeated her prophecy to
her aunt, “You will see, ma’am, the child will be born in good time, and
alive. You who have always been so much afraid for Lady Cecilia, will
find she has not feeling enough to do her any harm.”
In due time came a note from the general. “A boy! child and mother doing
well. Give me joy.”
The joy to Miss Clarendon was much increased by the triumph, in her own
perfectly right opinion. Mrs. Pennant’s was pure affectionate joy for
the father, and for Lady Cecilia, for whom, all sinner as she was in
her niece’s eyes, this good soul had compassion. Helen’s anxiety to hear
again and again every post was very natural, the aunt thought; quite
superfluous, the niece deemed it: Lady Cecilia would do very well, no
doubt, she prophesied again, and laughed at the tremor, the eagerness,
with which Helen every day asked if there was any letter from Cecilia.
At last one came, the first in her own hand-writing, and it was to Helen
herself, and it extinguished all hope. Helen could only articulate,
“Oh! Cecilia!” Her emotion, her disappointment, were visible, but
unaccountable: she could give no reason for it to Miss Clarendon, whose
wondering eye was upon her; nor even to sympathising aunt Pennant could
she breathe a word without betraying Cecilia; she was silent, and there
was all that day, and many succeeding days, a hopelessness of languor
in her whole appearance. There was, as Miss Clarendon termed it, a
“backsliding in her recovery,” which grieved aunt Pennant, and Helen had
to bear imputation of caprice, and of indolence from Miss Clarendon; but
even that eye immediately upon her, that eye more severe than ever, had
not power to rouse her. Her soul was sunk within, nothing farther
to hope; there, was a dead calm, and the stillness and loneliness of
Llansillen made that calm almost awful. The life of great excitation
which she had led previous to her illness, rendered her more sensible of
the change, of the total want of stimulus. The walks to Price’s cottage
had been repeated, but, though it was a very bright spot, the eye could
not always be fixed upon it.
Bodily exertion being more easy to her now than mental, she took long
walks, and came in boasting how far she had been, and looking quite
exhausted. And Miss Clarendon wondered at her wandering out alone; then
she tried to walk with Miss Clarendon, and she was more tired, though
the walks were shorter--and that was observed, and was not agreeable
either to the observer, or to the observed. Helen endeavoured to make
up for it; she followed Miss Clarendon about in all her various
occupations, from flower-garden to conservatory, and from conservatory
to pheasantry, and to all her pretty cottages, and her schools, and she
saw and admired all the good that Esther did so judiciously, and with
such extraordinary, such wonderful energy.
“Nothing wonderful in it,” Miss Clarendon said: and as she ungraciously
rejected praise, however sincere, and required not sympathy, Helen was
reduced to be a mere silent, stupid, useless stander-by, and she could
not but feel this a little awkward. She tried to interest herself
for the poor people in the neighbourhood, but their language was
unintelligible to her, and her’s to them, and it is hard work trying to
make objects for oneself in quite a new place, and with a pre-occupying
sorrow in the mind all the time. It was not only hard work to Helen, but
it seemed labour in vain--bringing soil by handfulls to a barren rock,
where, after all, no plant will take root. Miss Clarendon thought that
labour could never be in vain.
One morning, when it must be acknowledged that Helen had been sitting
too long in the same position, with her head leaning on her hand, Miss
Clarendon in her abrupt voice asked, “How much longer, Helen, do you
intend to sit there, doing only what is the worst thing in the world for
you--thinking?”
Helen started, and said she feared she had been sitting too long idle.
“If you wish to know how long, I can tell you,” said Miss Clarendon;
“just one hour and thirteen minutes.”
“By the stop watch,” said Helen, smiling.
“By my watch,” said grave Miss Clarendon; “and in the mean time look at
the quantity of work I have done.”
“And done so nicely!” said Helen, looking at it with admiration.
“Oh, do not think to bribe me with admiration; I would rather see you do
something yourself than hear you praise my doings.”
“If I had anybody to work for. I have so few friends now in the world
who would care for anything I could do! But I will try--you shall see,
my dear Esther, by and bye.”
“By and bye! no, no--now. I cannot bear to see you any longer, in this
half-alive, half-dead state.”
“I know,” said Helen, “that all you say is for my good. I am sure your
only object is my happiness.”
“Your happiness is not in my power or in your’s, but it is in your
power to deserve to be happy, by doing what is right--by exerting
yourself:--that is my object, for I see you are in danger of being lost
in indolence. Now you have the truth and the whole truth.”
Many a truth would have come mended from Miss Clarendon’s tongue, if
it had been uttered in a softer tone, and if she had paid a little
more attention to times and seasons: but she held it the sacred duty
of sincerity to tell a friend her faults as soon as seen, and without
circumlocution.
The next day Helen set about a drawing. She made it an object to
herself, to try to copy a view of the dear Deanery in the same style as
several beautiful drawings of Miss Clarendon’s. While she looked over
her portfolio, several of her old sketches recalled remembrances which
made her sigh frequently; Miss Clarendon heard her, and said--“I wish
you would cure yourself of that habit of sighing; it is very bad for
you.”
“I know it,” said Helen.
“Despondency is not penitence,” continued Esther: “reverie is not
reparation.”
She felt as desirous as ever to make Helen happy at Llansillen, but she
was provoked to find it impossible to do so. Of a strong body herself,
capable of great resistance, powerful reaction under disappointment
or grief, she could ill make allowance for feebler health and
spirits--perhaps feebler character. For great misfortunes she had great
sympathy, but she could not enter into the details of lesser sorrows,
especially any of the sentimental kind, which she was apt to class
altogether under the head--“Sorrows of my Lord Plumcake!” an expression
which had sovereignly taken her fancy, and which her aunt did not
relish, or quite understand.
Mrs. Pennant was, indeed, as complete a contrast to her niece in these
points, as nature and habit joined could produce. She was naturally
of the most exquisitely sympathetic mimosa-sensibility, shrinking and
expanding to the touch of others’ joy or woe; and instead of having
by long use worn this out, she had preserved it wonderfully fresh
in advanced years. But, notwithstanding the contrast and seemingly
incompatible difference between this aunt and niece, the foundations
of their characters both being good, sound, and true, they lived on
together well, and loved each other dearly. They had seldom differed so
much on any point as in the present case, as to their treatment of their
patient and their guest. Scarcely a day passed in which they did not
come to some mutual remonstrance; and sometimes when she was by, which
was not pleasant to her, as may be imagined. Yet perhaps even these
little altercations and annoyances, though they tried Helen’s temper or
grieved her heart at the moment, were of use to her upon the whole, by
drawing her out of herself. Besides, these daily vicissitudes--made by
human temper, manner, and character--supplied in some sort the total
want of events, and broke the monotony of these tedious months.
The general’s bulletins, however, became at last more favourable: Mr.
Churchill was decidedly better; his physician hoped he might soon be
pronounced out of danger. The general said nothing of Beauclerc, but
that he was, he believed, still at Paris. And from this time forward no
more letters came from Beauclerc to Helen; as his hopes of Churchill’s
recovery increased, he expected every day to be released from his
banishment, and was resolved to write no more till he could say that he
was free. But Helen, though she did not allow it to herself, felt this
deeply: she thought that her determined silence had at last convinced
him that all pursuit of her was vain; and that he submitted to her
rejection: she told herself it was what should be, and yet she felt
it bitterly. Lady Cecilia’s letters did not mention him, indeed they
scarcely told anything; they had become short and constrained: the
general, she said, advised her to go out more, and her letters often
concluded in haste, with “Carriage at the door,” and all the usual
excuses of a London life.
One day when Helen was sitting intently drawing, Miss Clarendon said
“Helen!” so suddenly that she started and looked round; Miss Clarendon
was seated on a low stool at her aunt’s feet, with one arm thrown over
her great dog’s neck; he had laid his head on her lap, and resting on
him, she looked up with a steadiness, a fixity of repose, which brought
to Helen’s mind Raphael’s beautiful figure of Fortitude leaning on
her lion; she thought she had never before seen Miss Clarendon look
so handsome, so graceful, so interesting; she took care not to say so,
however.
“Helen!” continued Miss Clarendon, “do you remember the time when I
was at Clarendon Park and quitted it so abruptly? My reasons were good,
whatever my manner was; the opinion of the world I am not apt to fear
for myself, or even for my brother, but to the whispers of conscience I
do listen. Helen! I was conscious that certain feelings in my mind were
too strong,--in me, you would scarcely believe it--too tender. I had
no reason to think that Granville Beauclerc liked me; it was therefore
utterly unfit that I should think of him: I felt this, I left Clarendon
Park, and from that moment I have refused myself the pleasure of his
society, I have altogether ceased to think of him. This is the only
way to conquer a hopeless attachment. But you, Helen, though you have
commanded him never to attempt to see you again, have not been able to
command your own mind. Since Mr. Churchill is so much better, you expect
that he will soon be pronounced out of danger--you expect that Mr.
Beauclerc will come over--come here, and be at your feet!”
“I expect nothing,” said Helen in a faltering voice, and then added
resolutely, “I cannot foresee what Mr. Beauclerc may do, but of this be
assured, Miss Clarendon, that until I stand as I once stood, and as I
deserve to stand, in the opinion of your brother; unless, above all, I
can bring _proofs_ to Granville’s confiding heart, that I have ever been
unimpeachable of conduct and of mind, and in all but one circumstance
true--true as yourself, Esther--never, never, though your brother and
all the world consented, never till I myself felt that I was _proved_
to be as worthy to be his wife as I think I am, would I consent to marry
him--no, not though my heart were to break.”
“I believe it,” said Mrs. Pennant; “and I wish--oh, how I wish--”
“That Lady Cecilia were hanged, as she deserves,” said Miss Clarendon:
“so do I, I am sure; but that is nothing to the present purpose.”
“No, indeed,” said Helen.
“Helen!” continued Esther, “remember that Lady Blanche Forrester is at
Paris.”
Helen shrank.
“Lady Cecilia tells you there is no danger; I say there is.”
“Why should you say so, my dear Esther?” said her aunt.
“Has not this friend of yours always deceived, misled you, Helen?”
“She can have no motive for deceiving me in this,” said Helen: “I
believe her.”
“Believe her then!” cried Miss Clarendon; “believe her, and do not
believe me, and take the consequences: I have done.”
Helen sighed, but though she might feel the want of the charm of Lady
Cecilia’s suavity of manner, of her agreeable, and her agreeing temper,
yet she felt the safe solidity of principle in her present friend, and
admired, esteemed, and loved, without fear of change, her unblenching
truth. Pretty ornaments of gold cannot be worked out of the native ore;
to fashion the rude mass some alloy must be used, and when the slight
filigree of captivating manner comes to be tested against the sterling
worth of unalloyed sincerity, weighed in the just balance of adversity,
we are glad to seize the solid gold, and leave the ornaments to those
that they deceive.
The fear about Lady Blanche Forrester was, however, soon set at rest,
and this time Lady Cecilia was right. A letter from her to Helen
announced that Lady Blanche was married!--actually married, and not to
Granville Beauclerc, but to some other English gentleman at Paris, no
matter whom. Lord Beltravers and Madame de St. Cymon, disappointed, had
returned to London; Lady Cecilia had seen Lord Beltravers, and heard the
news from him. There could be no doubt of the truth of the intelligence,
and scarcely did Helen herself rejoice in it with more sincerity than
did Miss Clarendon, and Helen loved her for her candour as well as for
her sympathy.
Time passed on; week after week rolled away. At last General Clarendon
announced to his sister, but without one word to Helen, that Mr.
Churchill was pronounced out of danger. The news had been sent to his
ward, the general said, and he expected Granville would return from his
banishment immediately.
Quite taken up in the first tumult of her feelings at this intelligence,
Helen scarcely observed that she had no letter from Cecilia. But
even aunt Pennant was obliged to confess, in reply to her niece’s
observation, that this was “certainly very odd! but we shall soon hear
some explanation, I hope.”
Miss Clarendon shook her head; she said that she had always thought how
matters would end; she judged from her brother’s letters that he began
to find out that he was not the happiest of men. Yet nothing to that
effect was ever said by him; one phrase only excepted, in his letter to
her on her last birth-day, which began with, “In our happy days, my dear
Esther.”
Miss Clarendon said nothing to Helen upon this subject; she refrained
altogether from mentioning Lady Cecilia.
Two, three post-days passed without bringing any letter to Helen. The
fourth, very early in the morning, long before the usual time for the
arrival of the post, Rose came into her room with a letter in her hand,
saying, “From General Clarendon, ma’am. His own man, Mr. Cockburn, has
just this minute arrived, ma’am--from London.” With a trembling hand,
Helen tore the letter open: not one word from General Clarendon! It
was only a cover, containing two notes; one from Lord Davenant to the
general, the other from Lady Davenant to Helen.
Lord Davenant said that Lady Davenant’s health had declined so
alarmingly after their arrival at Petersburgh, that he had insisted upon
her return to England, and that as soon as the object of his mission
was completed, he should immediately follow her. A vessel, he said,
containing letters from England, had been lost, so that they were in
total ignorance of what had occurred at home; and, indeed, it appeared
from the direction of Lady Davenant’s note to Helen, written on her
landing in England, that she had left Russia without knowing that
the marriage had been broken off, or that Helen had quitted General
Clarendon’s. She wrote--“Let me see you and Granville once more before I
die. Be in London, at my own house, to meet me. I shall be there as soon
as I can be moved.”
The initials only of her name were signed. Elliot added a postscript,
saying that her lady had suffered much from an unusually long passage,
and that she was not sure what day they could be in town.
There was nothing from Lady Cecilia.--Cockburn said that her ladyship
had not been at home when he set out; that his master had ordered him to
travel all night, to get to Llansillen as fast as possible, and to make
no delay in delivering the letter to Miss Stanley.
To set out instantly, to be in town at her house to meet Lady Davenant,
was, of course, Helen’s immediate determination. General Clarendon had
sent his travelling carriage for her; and under the circumstances, her
friends could have no wish but to speed her departure. Miss Clarendon
expressed surprise at there being no letter from Lady Cecilia, and would
see and question Cockburn herself; but nothing more was to be learned
than what he had already told, that the packet from Lady Davenant had
come by express to his master after Lady Cecilia had driven out, as it
had been her custom of late, almost every day, to Kensington, to see her
child. Nothing could be more natural, Mrs. Pennant thought, and she only
wondered at Esther’s unconvinced look of suspicion. “Nothing, surely,
can be more natural, my dear Esther.” To which Esther replied, “Very
likely, ma’am.” Helen was too much hurried and too much engrossed by the
one idea of Lady Davenant to think of what they said. At parting she had
scarcely time even to thank her two friends for all their kindness, but
they understood her feelings, and, as Miss Clarendon said, words on that
point were unnecessary. Aunt Pennant embraced her again and again, and
then let her go, saying, “I must not detain you, my dear.”
“But I must,” said Miss Clarendon, “for one moment. There is one point
on which my parting words are necessary. Helen! keep clear of Lady
Cecilia’s affairs, whatever they may be. Hear none of her secrets.”
Helen wished she had never heard any; did not believe there were any
more to hear; but she promised herself and Miss Clarendon that she would
observe this excellent counsel.
And now she was in the carriage, and on her road to town. And now she
had leisure to breathe, and to think, and to feel. Her thoughts and
feelings, however, could be only repetitions of fears and hopes about
Lady Davenant, and uncertainty and dread of what would happen when she
should require explanation of all that had occurred in her absence. And
how would Lady Cecilia he able to meet her mother’s penetration?--ill
or well, Lady Davenant was so clear-sighted. “And how shall I,” thought
Helen, “without plunging deeper in deceit, avoid revealing the truth?
Shall I assist Cecilia to deceive her mother in her last moments; or
shall I break my promise, betray Cecilia’s secret, and at last be the
death of her mother by the shock?” It is astonishing how often the
mind can go over the same thoughts and feelings without coming to any
conclusion, any ease from racking suspense. In the mean time, on rolled
the carriage, and Cockburn, according to his master’s directions, got
her over the ground with all conceivable speed.
CHAPTER XIII
When they were within the last stage of London, the carriage suddenly
stopped, and Helen, who was sitting far back, deep in her endless
reverie, started forward--Cockburn was at the carriage-door.
“My lady, coming to meet you, Miss Stanley.”
It was Cecilia herself. But Cecilia so changed in her whole appearance,
that Helen would scarcely have known her. She was so much struck that
she hardly knew what was said; but the carriage-doors were opened,
and Lady Cecilia was beside her, and Cockburn shut the door without
permitting one moment’s delay, and on they drove.
Lady Cecilia was excessively agitated. Helen had not power to utter a
word, and was glad that Cecilia went on speaking very fast; though she
spoke without appearing to know well what she was saying: of Helen’s
goodness in coming so quickly, of her fears that she would never have
been in time--“but she was in time,--her mother had not yet arrived.
Clarendon had gone to meet her on the road, she believed--she was not
quite certain.”
That seemed very extraordinary to Helen. “Not quite certain?” said she.
“No, I am not,” replied Cecilia, and she coloured; her very pale cheek
flushed; but she explained not at all, she left that subject, and
spoke of the friends Helen had left at Llansillen--then suddenly of her
mother’s return--her hopes--her fears--and then, without going on to the
natural idea of seeing her mother, and of how soon they should see
her, began to talk of Beauclerc--of Mr. Churchill’s being quite out of
danger--of the general’s expectation of Beauclerc’s immediate return.
“And then, my dearest Helen,” said she, “all will be-----”
“Oh! I do not know how it will be!” cried she, her tone changing
suddenly; and, from the breathless hurry in which she had been running
on, sinking at once to a low broken tone, and speaking very slowly.
“I cannot tell what will become of any of us. We can never be happy
again--any one of us. And it is all my doing--and I cannot die. Oh!
Helen, when I tell you-----”
She stopped, and Miss Clarendon’s warning counsel, all her own past
experience, were full in Helen’s mind; and after a moment’s silence, she
stopped Cecilia just as she seemed to have gathered power to speak, and
begged that she would not tell her any thing that was to be kept secret.
She could not, would not hear any secrets; she turned her head aside,
and let down the glass, and looked out, as if determined not to be
compelled to receive this confidence.
“Have you, then, lost all interest, all affection for me, Helen? I
deserve it!--But you need not fear me now, Helen: I have done with
deception, would to Heaven I had never begun with it!”
It was the tone and look of truth--she steadily fixed her eyes upon
Helen--and instead of the bright beams that used to play in those eyes,
there was now a dark deep-seated sorrow, almost despair. Helen was
touched to the heart: it was indeed impossible for her, it would have
been impossible for any one who had any feeling, to have looked upon
Lady Cecilia Clarendon at that moment, and to have recollected what she
had so lately been, without pity. The friend of her childhood looked
upon her with all the poignant anguish of compassion--
“Oh! my dear Cecilia! how changed!”
Helen was not sensible that she uttered the words “how changed!”
“Changed! yes! I believe I am,” said Lady Cecilia, in a calm voice,
“very much changed in appearance, but much more in reality; my mind is
more altered than my person. Oh! Helen! if you could see into my mind
at this moment, and know how completely it is changed;--but it is all
in vain now! You have suffered, and suffered for me! but your sufferings
could not equal mine. You lost love and happiness, but still conscious
of deserving both: I had both at my command, and I could enjoy neither
under the consciousness, the torture of remorse.”
Helen threw her arms round her, and exclaimed, “Do not think of me!--all
will be well--since you have resolved on the truth, all will yet be
well.”
Cecilia sighed deeply and went on.--“I am sure, Helen, you were
surprised that my child was born alive; at least I was. I believe its
mother had not feeling enough to endanger its existence. Well, Clarendon
has that comfort at all events, and, as a boy, it will never put him
in mind of his mother. Well, Helen, I had hopes of myself to the last
minute; I really and truly hoped, as I told you, that I should have
had courage to tell him all when I put the child into his arms. But his
joy!--I could not dash his joy--I could not!--and then I thought I never
could. I knew you would give me up; I gave up all hope of myself. I was
very unhappy, and Clarendon thought I was very ill; and I acknowledge
that I was anxious about you, and let all the blame fall on you,
innocent, generous creature!--I heard my husband perpetually upbraiding
you when he saw me ill--all, he said, the consequences of your
falsehood--and all the time I knew it was my own.
“My dear Helen, it is impossible to tell you all the daily, hourly
necessities for dissimulation which occurred. Every day, you know, we
were to send to inquire for Mr. Churchill; and every day when Clarendon
brought me the bulletin, he pitied me, and blamed you; and the double
dealing in my countenance he never suspected--always interpreted
favourably. Oh, such confidence as he had in me--and how it has been
wasted, abused! Then letters from Beauclerc--how I bore to hear them
read I cannot conceive: and at each time that I escaped, I rejoiced and
reproached myself--and reproached myself and rejoiced. I succeeded in
every effort at deception, and was cursed by my own success. Encouraged
to proceed, I soon went on without shame and without fear. The general
heard me defending you against the various reports which my venomous
cousin had circulated, and he only admired what he called ‘my amiable
zeal.’ His love for me increased, but it gave me no pleasure: for,
Helen, now I am going to tell you an extraordinary turn which my mind
took, for which I cannot account--I can hardly believe it--it seems out
of human nature--my love for him decreased!--not only because I felt
that he would hate me if he discovered my deceit, but because he was
lowered in my estimation! I had always had, as every body has, even
my mother, the highest opinion of his judgment. To that judgment I had
always looked up; it had raised me in my own opinion; it was a motive to
me to be equal to what he thought me: but now that motive was gone, I
no longer looked up to him; his credulous affection had blinded his
judgment--he was my dupe! I could not reverence--I could not love one
who was my dupe. But I cannot tell you how shocked I was at myself when
I felt my love for him decrease every time I saw him.
“I thought myself a monster; I had grown use to every thing but
that--that I could not endure; it was a darkness of the mind--a
coldness; it was as if the sun had gone out of the universe; it was
more--it was worse--it was as if I was alone in the world. Home was a
desert to me. I went out every evening; sometimes, but rarely, Clarendon
accompanied me: he had become more retired; his spirits had declined
with mine; and though he was glad I should go out and amuse myself,
yet he was always exact as to the hours of my return. I was often
late--later than I ought to have been, and I made a multitude of paltry
excuses; this it was, I believe, which first shook his faith in my
truth; but I was soon detected in a more decided failure.
“You know I never had the least taste for play of any kind: you may
remember I used to be scolded for never minding what I was about at
ecarté: in short, I never had the least love for it--it wearied me; but
now that my spirits were gone, it was a sort of intoxication in which
I cannot say I indulged--for it was no indulgence, but to which I had
recourse. Louisa Castlefort, you know, was always fond of play--got into
her first difficulties by that means--she led me on. I lost a good deal
of money to her, and did not care about it as long as I could pay; but
presently it came to a time when I could not pay without applying to the
general: I applied to him, but under false pretences--to pay this bill
or that, or to buy something, which I never bought: this occurred so
often and to such extent, that he suspected--he discovered how it went;
he told me so. He spoke in that low, suppressed, that terrible voice
which I had heard once before; I said, I know not what, in deprecation
of his anger. ‘I am not angry, Cecilia,’ said he. I caught his hand,
and would have detained him; he withdrew that hand, and, looking at
me, exclaimed, ‘Beautiful creature! half those charms would I give for
_truth!_’ He left the room, and there was contempt in his look.
“All my love--all my reverence, returned for him in an instant; but what
could I say? He never recurred to the subject; and now, when I saw the
struggle in his mind, my passion for him returned in all its force.
“People who flattered me often, you know, said I was fascinating, and I
determined to use my powers of fascination to regain my husband’s heart;
how little I knew that heart! I dressed to please him--oh! I never
dressed myself with such care in my most coquettish days;--I gave a
splendid ball; I dressed to please him--he used to be delighted with
my dancing: he had said, no matter what, but I wanted to make him say
it--feel it again; he neither said nor felt it. I saw him standing
looking at me, and at the close of the dance I heard from him one sigh.
I was more in love with him than when first we were married, and he saw
it, but that did not restore me to his confidence--his esteem; nothing
could have done that, but--what I had not. One step in dissimulation led
to another.
“After Lord Beltravers returned from Paris on Lady Blanche’s marriage,
I used to meet him continually at Louisa Castlefort’s. As for play, that
was over with me for ever, but I went to Louisa’s continually, because
it was the gayest house I could go to; I used to meet Lord Beltravers
there, and he pretended to pay me a vast deal of attention, to which
I was utterly indifferent, but his object was to push his sister into
society again by my means. He took advantage of that unfortunate note
which I had received from Madame de St. Cymon, when she was at Old
Forest; he wanted me to admit her among my acquaintance; he urged it in
every possible way, and was excessively vexed that it would not do: not
that he cared for her; he often spoke of her in a way that shocked me,
but it hurt his pride that she should be excluded from the society to
which her rank entitled her. I had met her at Louisa’s once or twice;
but when I found that for her brother’s sake she was always to be
invited, I resolved to go there no more, and I made a merit of this with
Clarendon. He was pleased; he said, ‘That is well, that is right, my
dear Cecilia.’ And he went out more with me. One night at the Opera, the
Comtesse de St. Cymon was in the box opposite to us, no lady with her,
only some gentlemen. She watched me; I did all I could to avoid her
eye, but at an unlucky moment she caught mine, bent forward, and had
the assurance to bow. The general snatched the opera-glass from my hand,
made sure who it was, and then said to me,
“‘How does that woman dare to claim your notice, Lady Cecilia? I am
afraid there must have been some encouragement on your part.’
“‘None,’ said I, ‘nor ever shall be; you see I take no notice.’
“‘But you must have taken notice, or this could never be?’
“‘No indeed!’ persisted I. ‘Helen! I really forgot at the moment that
first unfortunate note. An instant afterwards I recollected it, and the
visit about the cameos, but that was not my fault. I had, to be sure,
dropped a card in return at her door, and I ought to have mentioned
that, but I really did not recollect it till the words had passed my
lips, and then it was too late, and I did not like to go back and spoil
my case by an exception. The general did not look quite satisfied; he
did not receive my assertions as implicitly as formerly. He left the
box afterwards to speak to some one, and while he was gone in came Lord
Beltravers. After some preliminary nothings, he went directly to the
point; and said in an assured manner, ‘I believe you do not know my
sister at this distance. She has been endeavouring to catch your eye.’
“‘The Comtesse de St. Cymon does me too much honour,’ said I with a
slight inclination of the head, and elevation of the eyebrow, which
spoke sufficiently plainly.
“Unabashed, and with a most provoking, almost sneering look, he replied,
‘Madame de St. Cymon had wished to say a few words to your ladyship on
your own account; am I to understand this cannot be?’
“‘On my own account?’ said I, ‘I do not in the least understand your
lordship.’ ‘I am not sure,’ said he, ‘that I perfectly comprehend it.
But I know that you sometimes drive to Kensington, and sometimes take a
turn in the gardens there. My sister lives at Kensington, and could not
she, without infringing etiquette, meet you in your walk, and have the
honour of a few words with you? Something she wants to say to you,’ and
here he lowered his voice, ‘about a locket, and Colonel D’Aubigny.’
“Excessively frightened, and hearing some one at the door, I answered,
‘I do not know, I believe I shall drive to Kensington to-morrow.’ He
bowed delighted, and relieved me from his presence that instant. The
moment afterwards General Clarendon came in. He asked me, ‘Was not that
Lord Beltravers whom I met?’
“‘Yes,’ said I; ‘he came to reproach me for not noticing his sister, and
I answered him in such a manner as to make him clear that there was no
hope.’
“‘You did right,’ said he, ‘if you did so.’ My mind was in such
confusion that I could not quite command my countenance, and I put up my
fan as if the lights hurt me. “‘Cecilia,’ said he, ‘take care what you
are about. Remember, it is not my request only, but my command to my
wife’ (he laid solemn stress on the words) ‘that she should have no
communication with this woman.’
“‘My dear Clarendon, I have not the least wish.’
“‘I do not ask what your wishes may be; I require only your obedience.’
“Never have I heard such austere words from him. I turned to the stage,
and I was glad to seize the first minute I could to get away. But what
was to be done? If I did not go to Kensington, there was this locket,
and I knew not what, standing out against me. I knew that this wretched
woman had had Colonel D’Aubigny in her train abroad, and supposed that
he must--treacherous profligate as he was--have given the locket to her,
and now I was so afraid of its coming to Clarendon’s eyes or ears!--and
yet why should I have feared his knowing about it? Colonel D’Aubigny
stole it, just as he stole the picture. I had got it for you, do you
recollect?”
“Perfectly,” said Helen, “and your mother missed it.”
“Yes,” continued Lady Cecilia. “O that I had had the sense to do nothing
about it! But I was so afraid of its somehow bringing everything to
light: my cowardice--my conscience--my consciousness of that first
fatal falsehood before my marriage, has haunted me at the most critical
moments: it has risen against me, and stood like an evil spirit
threatening me from the right path.
“I went to Kensington, trusting to my own good fortune, which had so
often stood me in stead; but Madame de St. Cymon was too cunning for
me, and so interested, so mean, she actually bargained for giving up the
locket. She hinted that she knew Colonel D’Aubigny had never been your
lover, and ended by saying she had not the locket with her; and though I
made her understand that the general would never allow me to receive her
at my own house, yet she ‘hoped I could manage an introduction for her
to some of my friends, and that she would bring the locket on Monday, if
I would in the mean time try, at least with Lady Emily Greville and Mrs.
Holdernesse.’
“I felt her meanness, and yet I was almost as mean myself, for I agreed
to do what I could. Monday came, Clarendon saw me as I was going out,
and, as he handed me into the carriage, he asked me where I was going.
To Kensington I said, and added--oh! Helen, I am ashamed to tell you,
I added,--I am going to see my child. And there I found Madame de St.
Cymon, and I had to tell her of my failure with Lady Emily and Mrs.
Holdernesse. I softened their refusal as much as I could, but I might
have spared myself the trouble, for she only retorted by something
about English prudery. At this moment a shower of rain came on, and she
insisted upon my taking her home; ‘Come in,’ said she, when the carriage
stopped at her door: ‘if you will come in, I will give it to you now,
and you need not have the trouble of calling again.’ I had the folly to
yield, though I saw that it was a trick to decoy me into her house, and
to make it pass for a visit. It all flashed upon me, and yet I could
not resist, for I thought I must obtain the locket at all hazards. I
resolved to get it from her before I left the house, and then I thought
all would be finished.
“She looked triumphant as she followed me into her saloon, and gave a
malicious smile, which seemed to say, ‘You see you are visiting me after
all.’ After some nonsensical conversation, meant to detain me, I pressed
for the locket, and she produced it: it was indeed the very one that had
been made for you--But just at that instant, while she still held it in
her band, the door suddenly opened, and Clarendon stood opposite to me!
“I heard Madame de St. Cymon’s voice, but of what she said, I have
no idea. I heard nothing but the single word ‘rain’ and with scarcely
strength to articulate, I attempted to follow up that excuse.
Clarendon’s look of contempt!--But he commanded himself, advanced calmly
to me, and said, ‘I came to Kensington with these letters; they have
just arrived by express. Lady Davenant is in England--she is ill.’ He
gave me the packet, and left the room, and I heard the sound of his
horses’ feet the next instant as he rode off. I broke from Madame de St.
Cymon, forgetting the locket and everything. I asked my servants which
way the general had gone? ‘To Town.’ I perceived that he must have been
going to look for me at the nurse’s, and had seen the carriage at Madame
de St. Cymon’s door. I hastened after him, and then I recollected that
I had left the locket on the table at Madame de St. Cymon’s, that locket
for which I had hazarded--lost--everything! The moment I reached home,
I ran to Clarendon’s room; he was not there, and oh! Helen, I have not
seen him since!
“From some orders which he left about horses, I suppose he went to meet
my mother. I dared not follow him. She had desired me to wait for her
arrival at her own house. All yesterday, all last night, Helen, what
I have suffered! I could not bear it any longer, and then I thought
of coming to meet you. I thought I must see you before my mother
arrived--my mother! but Clarendon will not have met her till to-day. Oh,
Helen! you feel all that I fear--all that I foresee.”
Lady Cecilia sank back, and Helen, overwhelmed with all she had heard,
could for some time only pity her in silence; and at last could
only suggest that the general would not have time for any private
communication with Lady Davenant, as her woman would be in the carriage
with her, and the general was on horseback.
It was late in the day before they reached town. As they came near
Grosvenor Square, Cockburn inquired whether they were to drive home, or
to Lady Davenant’s?
“To my mother’s, certainly, and as fast as you can.”
Lady Davenant had not arrived, but there were packages in the hall, her
courier, and her servants, who said that General Clarendon was with
her, but not in the carriage; he had sent them on. No message for Lady
Cecilia, but that Lady Davenant would be in town this night.
To night--some hours still of suspense! As long as there were
arrangements to be made, anything to do or to think of but that meeting
of which they dared not think, it was endurable, but too soon all
was settled; nothing to be done, but to wait and watch, to hear the
carriages roll past, and listen, and start, and look at each other, and
sink back disappointed. Lady Cecilia walked from the sofa to the window,
and looked out, and back again---continually, continually, till at last
Helen begged her to sit down. She sat down before an old piano-forte of
her mother’s, on which her eyes fixed; it was one on which she had often
played with Helen when they were children. “Happy, innocent days,” said
she; “I never shall we be so happy again, Helen! But I cannot think of
it;” she rose hastily, and threw herself on the sofa.
A servant, who had been watching at the hall-door, came in--“The
carriage, my lady! Lady Davenant is coming.”
Lady Cecilia started up; they ran down stairs; the carriage stopped, and
in the imperfect light they saw the figure of Lady Davenant, scarcely
altered, leaning upon General Clarendon’s arm. The first sound of her
voice was feebler, softer, than formerly--quite tender, when she said,
as she embraced them both by turns, “My dear children!”
“You have accomplished your journey, Lady Davenant, better than you
expected,” said the general.
Something struck her in the tone of his voice. She turned quickly, saw
her daughter lay her hand upon his arm, and saw that arm withdrawn!
They all entered the saloon--it was a blaze of light; Lady Davenant,
shading her eyes with her hand, looked round at the countenances, which
she had not yet seen. Lady Cecilia shrank back. The penetrating eyes
turned from her, glanced at Helen, and fixed upon the general.
“What is all this?” cried she.
Helen threw her arms round Lady Davenant. “Let us think of you first,
and only--be calm.”
Lady Davenant broke from her, and pressing forwards exclaimed, “I must
see my daughter--if I have still a daughter! Cecilia!”
The general moved. Lady Cecilia, who had sunk upon a chair behind him,
attempted to rise. Lady Davenant stood opposite to her; the light
was now full upon her face and figure; and her mother saw how it was
changed! and looking back at Helen, she said in a low, awful tone, “I
see it; the black spot has spread!”
Scarcely had Lady Davenant pronounced these words, when she was seized
with violent spasms. The general had but just time to save her from
falling; he could not leave her. All was terror! Even her own woman, so
long used to these attacks, said it was the worst she had ever seen,
and for some time evidently feared it would terminate fatally. At
last slowly she came to herself, but perfectly in possession of her
intellects, she sat up, looked round, saw the agony in her daughter’s
countenance, and holding out her hand to her, said, “Cecilia, if there
is anything that I ought to know, it should be said now.” Cecilia caught
her mother’s hand, and threw herself upon her knees. “Helen, Helen,
stay!” cried she, “do not go, Clarendon!”
He stood leaning against the chimney-piece, motionless, while Cecilia,
in a faltering voice, began; her voice gaining strength, she went on,
and poured out all--even from the very beginning, that first suppression
of the truth, that first cowardice, then all that followed from that one
falsehood--all--even to the last degradation, when in the power, in
the presence of that bad woman, her husband found and left her. She
shuddered as she came to the thought of that look of his, and not
daring, not having once dared while she spoke, to turn towards him, her
eyes fixed upon her mother’s; but as she finished speaking, her head
sank, she laid her face on the sofa beside her; she felt her mother’s
arm thrown over her and she sobbed convulsively.
There was silence.
“I have still a daughter!” were the first words that broke the silence.
“Not such as I might have had, but that is my own fault.”
“Oh mother!”
“I have still a daughter,” repeated Lady Davenant. “There is,” continued
she, turning to General Clarendon, “there is a redeeming power in truth.
She may yet be more worthy to be your wife than she has ever yet been!”
“Never!” exclaimed the general. His countenance was rigid as iron; then
suddenly it relaxed, and going up to Helen, he said,
“I have done you injustice, Miss Stanley. I have been misled. I have
done you injustice, and by Heaven! I will do you public justice, cost me
what it will. Beauclerc will be in England in a few days, at the altar I
will give you to him publicly; in the face of all the world, will I mark
my approbation of his choice; publicly will I repair the wrong I have
done you. I will see his happiness and yours before I leave England for
ever!”
Lady Cecilia started up: “Clarendon!” was all she could say.
“Yes, Lady Cecilia Clarendon,” said he, all the stern fixedness of his
face returning at once--“Yes, Lady Cecilia Clarendon, we separate, now
and for ever.”
Then turning from her, he addressed Lady Davenant. “I shall be ordered
on some foreign service. Your daughter, Lady Davenant, will remain with
you, while I am still in England, unless you wish otherwise----”
“Leave my daughter with me, my dear general, till my death,” said Lady
Davenant. She spoke calmly, but the general, after a respectful--an
affectionate pressure of the hand she held out to him, said, “That may
be far distant, I trust in God, and we shall at all events meet again
the day of Helen’s marriage.”
“And if that day is to be a happy day to me,” cried Helen, “to me or to
your own beloved ward, General Clarendon, it must be happy to Cecilia!”
“As happy as she has left it in my power to make her. When I am gone, my
fortune----”
“Name it not as happiness for my daughter,” interrupted Lady Davenant,
“or you do her injustice, General Clarendon.”
“I name it but to do her justice,” said he. “It is all that she has left
it in my power to give;” and then his long suppressed passion suddenly
bursting forth, he turned to Cecilia. “All I can give to one so
false--false from the first moment to the last--false to me--to me! who
so devotedly, fondly, blindly loved her!” He rushed out of the room.
Then Lady Davenant, taking her daughter in her arms, said, “My child,
return to me!”
She sank back exhausted. Mrs. Elliott was summoned, she wished them all
out of the room, and said so; but Lady Davenant would have her daughter
stay beside her, and with Cecilia’s hand in hers, she fell into a
profound slumber.
CHAPTER XIV.
On awaking in the morning, after some long-expected event has happened,
we feel in doubt whether it has really occurred, or whether it is all
a dream. Then comes the awful sense of waking truth, and the fear that
what has been done, or said, is irremediable, and then the astonishment
that it really is done. “It is over!” Helen repeated to herself,
repeated aloud, before she could well bring herself from that state of
half belief, before she could recover her stunned faculties.
Characters which she thought she perfectly understood, had each
appeared, in these new circumstances, different from what she had
expected. From Cecilia she had scarcely hoped, even at the last moment,
for such perfect truth in her confession. From Lady Davenant not so much
indulgence, not all that tenderness for her daughter. From the general,
less violence of expression, more feeling for Cecilia; he had not
allowed the merit of her candour, her courage at the last. It was a
perfectly voluntary confession, all that concerned Colonel D’Aubigny,
and the letters could never have been known to the general by any other
means. Disappointed love, confidence duped, and his pride of honour,
had made him forget himself in anger, even to cruelty. Helen thought he
would feel this hereafter, fancied he must feel it even now, but that,
though he might relent, he would not recede; though he might regret
that he had made the determination, he would certainly abide by it; that
which he had resolved to do, would certainly be done,--the separation
between him and Cecilia would take place. And though all was clear and
bright in Helen’s own prospects, the general’s esteem restored, his
approbation to be publicly marked, Beauclerc to be convinced of her
perfect innocence! Beauclerc, freed from all fear and danger, returning
all love and joy; yet she could not be happy--it was all mixed with
bitterness, anguish for Cecilia.
She had so often so forcibly urged her to this confession! and now it
was made, did Helen regret that it was made? No, independently of her
own cleared character, she was satisfied, even for Cecilia’s sake, for
it was right, whatever were the consequences; it was right, and in the
confusion and discordance of her thoughts and feelings, this was the
only fixed point. To this conclusion she had come, but had not been able
farther to settle her mind, when she was told that Lady Davenant was now
awake, and wished to see her.
Lady Davenant, renovated by sleep, appeared to Helen, even when she saw
her by daylight, scarcely altered in her looks. There was the same life,
and energy, and elasticity, and strength, Helen hoped, not only of mind,
but of body, and quick as that hope rose, as she stood beside her
bed, and looked upon her, Lady Davenant marked it, and said, “You are
mistaken, my dear Helen, I shall not last long; I am now to consider how
I am to make the most of the little life that remains. How to repair
as far as may be, as far as can be, in my last days, the errors of my
youth! You know, Helen, what I mean, and it is now no time to waste
words, therefore I shall not begin by wasting upon you, Helen, any
reproaches. Foolish, generous, weak creature that you are, and as the
best of human beings will ever be--I must be content with you as you
are; and so,” continued she, in a playful tone, “we must love one
another, perhaps all the better, for not being too perfect. And indeed,
my poor child, you have been well punished already, and the worst of
criminals need not be punished twice. Of the propensity to sacrifice
your own happiness for others you will never be cured, but you will, I
trust, in future, when I am gone never to return, be true to yourself.
Now as to my daughter--”
Lady Davenant then went over with Helen every circumstance in Cecilia’s
confession, and showed how, in the midst of the shock she had felt at
the disclosure of so much falsehood, hope for her daughter’s future
truth had risen in her mind even from the courage, and fulness, and
exactness of her confession. “And it is not,” continued she, “a sudden
reformation; I have no belief in sudden reformations. I think I see that
this change in Cecilia’s mind has been some time working out by her own
experience of the misery, the folly, the degradation of deceit.”
Helen earnestly confirmed this from her own observations, and from the
expressions which had burst forth in the fulness of Cecilia’s heart and
strength of her conviction, when she told her all that had passed in her
mind.
“That is well!” pursued Lady Davenant; “but principles cannot be
depended upon till confirmed by habit; and Cecilia’s nature is so
variable--impressions on her are easily, even deeply made, but all in
sand; they may shift with the next tide--may be blown away by the next
wind.”
“Oh no,” exclaimed Helen, “there is no danger of that. I see the
impression deepening every hour, from your kindness and--” Helen
hesitated, “And besides--”
“_Besides_,” said Lady Davenant, “usually comes as the _arrière-ban_
of weak reasons: you mean to say that the sight of my sufferings must
strengthen, must confirm all her principles--her taste for truth. Yes,”
continued she, in her most firm tone, “Cecilia’s being with me during my
remaining days will be painful but salutary to her. She sees, as you do,
that all the falsehood meant to save me has been in vain; that at last
the shock has only hastened my end: it must be so, Helen. Look at it
steadily, in the best point of view--the evil you cannot avert; take the
good and be thankful for it.”
And Cecilia--how did she feel? Wretched she was, but still in her
wretchedness there was within her a relieved conscience and the
sustaining power of truth; and she had now the support of her mother’s
affection, and the consolation of feeling that she had at last done
Helen justice! To her really generous, affectionate disposition,
there was in the return of her feelings to their natural course, an
indescribable sense of relief. Broken, crushed, as were all her own
hopes, her sympathy, even in the depths of her misery, now went pure,
free from any windings of deceit, direct to Helen’s happy prospects, in
which she shared with all the eagerness of her warm heart.
Beauclerc arrived, found the general at home expecting him, and in his
guardian’s countenance and voice he saw and heard only what was natural
to the man. The general was prepared, and Beauclerc was himself in too
great impatience to hear the facts, to attend much to the manner in
which things were told.
“Lady Davenant has returned ill; her daughter is with her, and
Helen----”
“And Helen----”
“And you may be happy, Beauclerc, if there be truth in woman,” said the
general. “Go to her--you will find I can do justice. Go, and return
when you can tell me that your wedding-day is fixed. And, Beauclerc,” he
called after him, “let it be as soon as possible.”
“The only unnecessary advice my dear guardian has ever given me,”
Beauclerc, laughing, replied.
The general’s prepared composure had not calculated upon this laugh,
this slight jest; his features gave way. Beauclerc, struck with a
sudden change in the general’s countenance, released his hand from the
congratulatory shake in which its power failed. The general turned away
as if to shun inquiry, and Beauclerc, however astonished, respected
his feelings, and said no more. He hastened to Lady Davenant with all
a lover’s speed--with all a lover’s joy saw the first expression in
Helen’s eyes; and with all a friend’s sorrow for Lady Davenant and for
the general, heard all that was to be told of Lady Cecilia’s affairs:
her mother undertook the explanation, Cecilia herself did not appear.
In the first rush of Beauclerc’s joy in Helen’s cleared fame, he was
ready to forgive all the deceit; yes, to forgive all; but it was such
forgiveness as contempt can easily grant, which can hardly be received
by any soul not lost to honour. This Lady Davenant felt, and felt so
keenly, that Helen trembled for her: she remained silent, pressing her
hand upon her heart, which told her sense of approaching danger. It was
averted by the calmness, the truth, the justice with which Helen spoke
to Beauclerc of Cecilia. As she went on, Lady Davenant’s colour returned
and Beauclerc’s ready sympathy went with her as far as she pleased,
till she came to one point, from which he instantly started back. Helen
proposed, if Beauclerc would consent, to put off their marriage till the
general should be reconciled to Cecilia.
“Attempt it not, Helen,” cried Lady Davenant; “delay not for any
consideration. Your marriage must be as soon as possible, for my sake,
for Cecilia’s--mark me!--for Cecilia’s sake, as soon as possible let it
be; it is but justice that her conscience should be so far relieved,
let her no longer obstruct your union. Let me have the satisfaction
of seeing it accomplished; name the day, Helen, I may not have many to
live.”
The day, the earliest possible, was named by Helen; and the moment it
was settled, Lady Davenant hurried Beauclerc away, saying--“Return to
General Clarendon--spare him suspense--it is all we can do for him.”
The general’s wishes in this, and in all that followed, were to be
obeyed. He desired that the marriage should be public, that all should
be bidden of rank, fashion, and note--all their family connections. Lady
Katrine Hawksby, he especially named. To do justice to Helen seemed the
only pleasurable object now remaining to him. In speaking to Beauclerc,
he never once named Lady Cecilia; it seemed a tacit compact between him
and Beauclerc, that her name should not be pronounced. They talked of
Lady Davenant; the general said he did not think her in such danger
as she seemed to consider herself to be: his opinion was, he declared,
confirmed by his own observation; by the strength of mind and of body
which she had shown since her arrival in England. Beauclerc could only
hope that he was right; and the general went on to speak of the service
upon which he was to be employed: said that all _arrangements_, laying
an emphasis upon the word, would be transacted by his man of business.
He spoke of what would happen after he quitted England, and left his
ward a legacy of some favourite horse which he used to ride at Clarendon
Park, and seemed to take it for granted that Beauclerc and Helen would
be sometimes there when he was gone. Then, having cleared his throat
several times, the general desired that Lady Cecilia’s portrait, which
he designated only as “the picture over the chimney-piece in my room,”
should be sent after him. And taking leave of Beauclerc, he set off
for Clarendon Park, where he was to remain till the day before the
wedding;--the day following he had fixed for his departure from England.
When Beauclerc was repeating this conversation to Helen, Lady Davenant
came into the room just as he was telling these last particulars. She
marked the smile, the hope that was excited, but shook her head, and
said, “Raise no false hopes in my daughter’s mind, I conjure you;” and
she turned the conversation to other subjects. Beauclerc had been to see
Mr. Churchill, and of that visit Lady Davenant wished to hear.
As to health, Beauclerc said that Mr. Churchill had recovered almost
perfectly; “but there remains, and I fear will always remain, a little
lameness, not disabling, but disfiguring--an awkwardness in moving,
which, to a man of his personal pretensions, is trying to the temper;
but after noticing the impediment as he advanced to meet me, he shook my
hand cordially, and smiling, said, ‘You see I am a marked man; I always
wished to be so, you know, so pray do not repent, my good friend.’ He
saw I was too much moved for jesting, then he took it more seriously,
but still kindly, assuring me that I had done him real service; it is
always of service, he said, to be necessitated to take time for quiet
reflection, of which he had had sufficient in his hours of solitary
confinement--this little adversity had left him leisure to be good.
“And then,” continued Beauclerc, “Churchill adverting to our foolish
quarrel, to clear that off my mind, threw the whole weight of the blame
at once comfortably upon the absent--on Beltravers. Churchill said
we had indeed been a couple of bravely blind fools; he ought, as he
observed, to have recollected in time, that
‘A full hot horse, who being allowed his way,
Self-mettle tires him.’
“So that was good, and Horace, in perfect good-humour with me and
himself, and all the world, played on with the past and the future, glad
he had no more of his bones to exfoliate; glad, after so many months of
failure in ‘the first intention,’ to find himself in a whole skin, and
me safe returned from transportation--spoke of Helen seriously; said
that his conduct to her was the only thing that weighed upon his mind,
but he hoped that his sincere penitence, and his months of suffering,
would be considered as sufficient atonement for his having brought
her name before the public; and he finished by inviting himself to our
wedding, if it were only for the pleasure of seeing what sort of a face
Lady Katrine Hawksby will have upon the occasion.--It was told of a
celebrated statesman, jealous of his colleagues, Horace says, that every
commonly good speech cost him a twinge of the gout; and every uncommonly
good one sent him to bed with a regular fit. Now Horace protests that
every commonly decent marriage of her acquaintance costs Lady Katrine at
least a sad headache; but Miss Stanley’s marriage, likely as it is to be
so happy after all, as he politely said, foredooms poor Lady Katrine to
a month’s heartache at the least, and a face full ell long.”
Whether in his penitence he had forsworn slander or not, it was plain
that Churchill had not lost either his taste, talent, or power of
sarcasm, and of this Beauclerc could have given, and in time gave,
further illustrations; but it was in a case which came home to him
rather too nearly, and on which his reports did not flow quite so
fluently--touching Lord Beltravers, it was too tender a subject.
Beauclerc was ashamed of himself for having been so deceived when, after
all his guardian had done to save his fortune, after all that noble
sacrifice had been made, he found that it was to no good end, but for
the worst purpose possible. Lord Beltravers, as it was now clear, never
had the slightest intention of living in that house of his ancestors on
which Beauclerc had lavished his thousands, ay, and tens of thousands:
but while he was repairing, and embellishing, and furnishing Old Forest,
fit for an English aristocrat of the first water, the Lord Beltravers at
the gaming-table, pledged it, and lost it, and sold it; and it went to
the hammer. This came out in the first fury of Lord Beltravers upon his
sister’s marriage at Paris: and then and there Beauclerc first came to
the perception that his good friend had predestined him and his fortune
for the Lady Blanche, whom, all the time, he considered as a fool and a
puppet, and for whom he had not the slightest affection: it was all for
his own interested purposes.
Beauclerc suddenly opened his eyes wide, and saw it all at once: how
it had happened that they had never seen it before, notwithstanding all
that the general on one side, and Lady Davenant on the other, had
done to force them open, was incomprehensible; but, as Lady Davenant
observed, “A sort of cataract comes over the best eyes for a time, and
the patient will not suffer himself to be couched; and if you struggle
to perform the operation that is to do him good against his will, it is
odds but you blind him for life.”
Helen could not, however, understand how Granville could have been
so completely deceived, except that it had been impossible for him to
imagine the exquisite meanness of that man’s mind.
“There,” cried Beauclerc, “you see my fault was having too little,
instead of too much imagination.”
Lady Davenant smiled, and said, “It has been admirably observed, that
it is among men as among certain tribes of animals, it is sometimes only
necessary that one of the herd should step forward and lead the way, to
make all the others follow with alacrity and submission; and I solve the
whole difficulty thus: I suppose that Lord Beltravers, just following
Beauclerc’s lead, succeeded in persuading him that he was a man of
genius and a noble fellow, by allowing all Beauclerc’s own paradoxes,
adopting all his ultra-original opinions, and, in short, sending him
back the image of his own mind, till Granville had been caught by it,
and had fairly fallen in love with it--a mental metaphysical Narcissus.”
[Footnote: Lord Mahon.] “After all,” continued Lady Davenant, smiling,
“of all the follies of youth, the dangerous folly of trying to do
good--that for which you stand convicted, may be the most easily
pardoned, the most safely left to time and experience to cure. You
know, Granville, that ever since the time of Alexander the Great’s great
tutor, the characteristic faults of youth and age have been the ‘_too
much_’ and the ‘_too little_.’ In youth, the too much confidence in
others and in themselves, the too much of enthusiasm--too much of
benevolence;--in age, alas! too little. And with this youth, who has the
too much in every thing--what shall we do with him, Helen? Take him, for
better for worse, you must; and I must love him as I have done from his
childhood, a little while longer--to the end of my life.”
“A little longer, to the end of her life!” said Beauclerc to himself,
as leaning on the back of Helen’s chair he looked at Lady Davenant. “I
cannot believe that she whom I see before me is passing away, to be
with us but a little longer; so full of life as she appears; such energy
divine! No, no, she will live, live long!”
And as his eyes looked that hope, Helen caught it, and yet she doubted,
and sighed, but still she had hope. Cecilia had none; she was sitting
behind her mother; she looked up at Helen, and shook her head; she had
seen more of her mother’s danger, she had been with her in nights of
fearful struggle. She had been with her just after she had written to
Lord Davenant what she must have felt to be a farewell letter--letter,
too, which contained the whole history of Cecilia’s deception and
Helen’s difficulties, subjects so agitating that the writing of them had
left her mother in such a state of exhaustion that Cecilia could think
only with terror for her, yet she exerted all her power over herself to
hide her anguish, not only for her mother’s but for Helen’s sake.
The preparations for the wedding went on, pressed forward by Lady
Davenant as urgently as the general could desire. The bridesmaids were
to be Lady Emily Greville’s younger sister, Lady Susan, and, at Helen’s
particular request, Miss Clarendon. Full of joy, wonder, and sympathy,
in wedding haste Miss Clarendon and Mrs. Pennant arrived both delighted
that it was all happily settled for Helen: which most, it was scarcely
possible to say; but which most curious as to the means by which it
had been settled, it was very possible to see. When Miss Clarendon had
secured a private moment with Helen, she began.
“Now tell me--tell me everything about yourself.”
Helen could only repeat what the general had already written to her
sister--that he was now convinced that the reports concerning Miss
Stanley were false, his esteem restored, his public approbation to be
given, Beauclerc satisfied, and her rejection honourably retracted.
“I will ask you no more, Helen, by word or look,” said Esther; “I
understand it all, my brother and Lady Cecilia are separated for
life. And now let us go to aunt Pennant: she will not annoy you by her
curiosity, but how she will be able to manage her sympathy amongst you
with these crossing demands I know not; Lady Cecilia’s wretchedness will
almost spoil my aunt’s joy for you--it cannot be pure joy.”
Pure joy! how far from it Helen’s sigh told; and Miss Clarendon had
scarcely patience enough with Lady Cecilia to look at her again; had
scarcely seconded, at least with good grace, a suggestion of Mrs.
Pennant’s that they should prevail on Lady Cecilia to take a turn in the
park with them, she looked so much in want of fresh air.
“We can go now, my dear Esther, you know, before it is time for that
picture sale, at which you are to be before two o’clock.” Lady Davenant
desired Cecilia to go. “Helen will be with me, do, my dear Cecilia, go.”
She went, and before the awkwardness of Miss Clarendon’s silence ceased,
and before Mrs. Pennant had settled which glass or which blind was best
up or down, Lady Cecilia burst into tears, thanked aunt Pennant for her
sympathy, and now, above the fear of Miss Clarendon--above all fear but
that of doing further wrong by concealment, she at once told the whole
truth, that they might, as well as the general, do full justice
to Helen, and that they might never, never blame Clarendon for the
separation which was to be.
That he should have mentioned nothing of her conduct even to his sister,
was not surprising. “I know his generous nature,” said Cecilia.
“But I never knew yours till this moment, Cecilia,” cried Miss
Clarendon, embracing her; “my sister, now,--separation or not.”
“But there need be no separation,” said kind aunt Pennant. Cecilia
sighed, and Miss Clarendon repeated, “You will find in me a sister at
all events.”
She now saw Cecilia as she really was--faults and virtues. Perhaps
indeed in this moment of revulsion of feeling, in the surprise of
gratified confidence, she overvalued Lady Cecilia’s virtues, and was
inclined to do her more than justice, in her eagerness to make generous
reparation for unjust suspicion.
CHAPTER XV.
After setting down Lady Cecilia at her mother’s, the aunt and niece
proceeded to the picture sale which Miss Clarendon was eager to attend,
as she was in search of a pendant to a famous Berghem she possessed; and
while she was considering the picture, she had the advantage of hearing
a story, which seemed, indeed, to be told for the amusement of the
whole room, by a party of fashionables who were standing near her:--a
wonderful story of a locket, which was going about; it was variously
told, but all agreed in one point--that a young married lady of high
rank had never dared to appear in the World since her husband had seen
this locket in her hands--it had brought out something--something
which had occurred before marriage;--and here mysterious nods were
interchanged.
Another version stated that the story had not yet been fully explained
to the husband, that he had found the locket on the table in a room that
he had suddenly entered, where he discovered her kneeling to the person
in question,--“the person in question” being sometimes a woman and
sometimes a man.
Then leaned forward, stretching her scraggy neck, one who had good
reason to believe that the husband would soon speak out--the public
would soon hear of a separation: and everybody must be satisfied that
there could not be a separation without good grounds.
Miss Clarendon inquired from a gentleman near them, who the lady was
with the outstretched scraggy neck--Lady Katrine Hawksby. Miss Clarendon
knew her only by reputation. She did not know Miss Clarendon either by
reputation or by sight; and she went on to say, she would “venture any
wager that the separation would take place within a month. In short,
there could be no doubt that before marriage,”--and she ended with a
look which gave a death-blow to the reputation.
Exceedingly shocked, Miss Clarendon, not only from a sense of justice to
Lady Cecilia, but from feeling for her brother’s honour, longed to
reply in defence; but she constrained herself for once, and having been
assured by Lady Cecilia that all had been confessed to her mother, she
thought that Lady Davenant must be the best person to decide what should
be done. She went to her house immediately, sent in word that she begged
to see Lady Davenant for two or three minutes alone, was admitted;
Cecilia immediately vacated the chair beside her mother’s bed, and left
the room. Miss Clarendon felt some difficulty in beginning, but she
forced herself to repeat all she had heard. Then Lady Davenant started
up in her bed, and the colour of life spread over her face--
“Thank you, thank you, Miss Clarendon! a second time I have to thank
you for an inestimable service. It is well for Cecilia that she made the
whole truth known to us both--made you her friend; now we _can_ act for
her. I will have that locket from Madame de St. Cymon before the sun
goes down.”
Now Lady Davenant had Madame de St. Cymon completely in her power, from
her acquaintance with a disgraceful transaction which had come to her
knowledge at Florence. The locket was surrendered, returned with humble
assurances that Madame de St. Cymon now perfectly understood the thing
in its true light, and was quite convinced it had been stolen, not
given. Lady Davenant glanced over her note with scorn, and was going to
throw it from her into the fire, but did not. When Miss Clarendon called
upon her again that evening as she had appointed, she showed it to her,
and desired that she would, when her brother arrived next day, tell him
what she had heard, what Lady Davenant had done, and how the locket was
now in her possession.
Some people who pretend to know, maintain that the passion of love is of
such an all-engrossing nature that it swallows up every other feeling;
but we who judge more justly of our kind, hold differently, and rather
believe that love in generous natures imparts a strengthening power,
a magnetic touch, to every good feeling. Helen was incapable of being
perfectly happy while her friend was miserable; and even Beauclerc, in
spite of all the suffering she had caused, could not help pitying Lady
Cecilia, and he heartily wished the general could be reconciled to her;
yet it was a matter in which he could not properly interfere; he did not
attempt it.
Lady Davenant determined to give a breakfast to all the bridal
party after the marriage. In her state of health, Helen and Cecilia
remonstrated, but Lady Davenant had resolved upon it, and at last they
agreed it would be better than parting at the church-door--better that
she should at her own house take leave of Helen and Beauclerc, who would
set out immediately after the breakfast for Thorndale.
And now equipages were finished, and wedding paraphernalia sent
home--the second time that wedding-dresses had been furnished for Miss
Stanley;--and never once were these looked at by the bride elect, nor
even by Cecilia, but to see that all was as it should be--that seen, she
sighed, and passed on.
Felicie’s ecstasies were no more to be heard: we forgot to mention that
she had, before Helen’s return from Llansillen, departed, dismissed in
disgrace; and happy was it for Lady Cecilia and Helen to be relieved
from her jabbering, and not exposed to her spying and reporting.
Nevertheless, the gloom that hung over the world above could not but be
observed by the world below; it was, however, naturally accounted for by
Lady Davenant’s state of health, and by the anxiety which Lady Cecilia
must feel for the general, who, as it had been officially announced
by Mr. Cockburn, was to set out on foreign service the day after the
marriage.
Lady Cecilia, notwithstanding the bright hopefulness of her temper, and
her habits of sanguine belief that all would end well in which she and
her good fortune had any concern, seemed now, in this respect, to have
changed her nature; and ever since her husband’s denunciations, had
continued quite resigned to misery, and submissive to the fate which she
thought she had deserved. She was much employed in attendance upon
her mother, and thankful that she was so permitted to be. She never
mentioned her husband’s name, and if she alluded to him, or to what had
been decreed by him, it was with an emotion that scarcely dared to touch
the point. She spoke most of her child, and seemed to look to the care
of him as her only consolation. The boy had been brought from Kensington
for Lady Davenant to see, and was now at her house. Cecilia once said
she thought he was very like his father, and hoped that he would at
least take leave of his boy at the last. To that last hour--that hour
when she was to see her husband once more, when they were to meet but
to part, to meet first at the wedding ceremony, and at a breakfast in
a public company,--altogether painful as it must be, yet she looked
forward to it with a sort of longing ardent impatience. “True, it will
be dreadful, yet still--still I shall see him again, see him once again,
and he cannot part with his once so dear Cecilia without some word--some
look, different from his last.”
The evening before the day on which the wedding was to be, Lady Cecilia
was in Lady Davenant’s room, sitting beside the bed while her mother
slept. Suddenly she was startled from her still and ever the same
recurring train of melancholy thoughts, by a sound which had often made
her heart beat with joy--her husband’s knock; she ran to the window,
opened it, and was out on the balcony in an instant. His horse was at
the door, he had alighted, and was going up the steps; she leaned over
the rails of the balcony, and as she leaned, a flower she wore broke
off--it fell at the general’s feet: he looked up, and their eyes met.
There he stood, waiting on those steps, some minutes, for an answer to
his inquiry how Lady Davenant was: and when the answer was brought out
by Elliott, whom, as it seemed, he had desired to see, he remounted his
horse, and rode away without ever again looking up to the balcony.
Lady Davenant had awakened, and when Cecilia returned on hearing her
voice, her mother, as the light from the half-open shutters shone upon
her face, saw that she was in tears; she kneeled down by the side of the
bed, and wept bitterly; she made her mother understand how it had been.
“Not that I hoped more, but still--still to feel it so! Oh! mother, I am
bitterly punished.”
Then Lady Davenant seizing those clasped hands, and raising herself in
her bed, fixed her eyes earnestly upon Cecilia, and asked,--“Would
you, Cecilia--tell me, would you if it were now, this moment, in your
power--would you retract your confession?”
“Retract! impossible!”
“Do you repent--regret having made it, Cecilia?”
“Repent--regret having made it. No, mother, no!” replied Cecilia firmly.
“I only regret that it was not sooner made. Retract!--impossible I could
wish to retract the only right thing I have done, the only thing that
redeems me in my inmost soul from uttermost contempt. No! rather would
I be as I am, and lose that noble heart, than hold it as I did,
unworthily. There is, mother, as you said--as I feel, a sustaining--a
redeeming power in truth.”
Her mother threw her arms round her.
“Come to my heart, my child, close--close to my heart Heaven bless you!
You have my blessing--my thanks, Cecilia. Yes, my thanks,--for now I
know--I feel, my dear daughter, that my neglect of you in childhood has
been repaired. You make me forgive myself, you make me happy, you have
my thanks--my blessing--my warmest blessing!”
A smile of delight was on her pale face, and tears ran down as Cecilia
answered--“Oh, mother, mother! blind that I have been. Why did not I
sooner know this tenderness of your heart?”
“And why, my child, did I not sooner know you? The fault was mine, the
suffering has been yours,--not yours alone, though.”
“Suffer no more for me, mother, for now, after this, come what may, I
can bear it. I can be happy, even if----” There she paused, and then
eagerly looking into her mother’s eyes she asked,--
“What do you say, mother, about him? do you think I may hope?”
“I dare not bid you hope,” replied her mother.
“Do you bid me despair?”
“No, despair in this world is only for those who have lost their own
esteem, who have no confidence in themselves, for those who cannot
repent, reform, and trust. My child, you must not despair. Now leave me
to myself,” continued she “Open a little more of the shutter, and put
that book within my reach.”
As soon as Miss Clarendon heard that her brother had arrived in town she
hastened to him, and, as Lady Davenant had desired, told him of all
the reports that were in circulation, and of all that Lady Cecilia had
spontaneously confided to her. Esther watched his countenance as she
spoke, and observed that he listened with eager attention to the proofs
of exactness in Cecilia; but he said nothing, and whatever his feelings
were, his determination, she could not doubt, was still unshaken; even
she did not dare to press his confidence.
Miss Clarendon reported to Lady Davenant that she had obeyed her
command, and she described as nearly as she could all that she thought
her brother’s countenance expressed. Lady Davenant seemed satisfied, and
this night she slept, as she told Cecilia in the morning, better than
she had done since she returned to England. And this was the day of
trial----
The hour came, and Lady Davenant was in the church with her daughter.
This marriage was to be, as described in olden times, “celebrated with
all the lustre and pomp imaginable;” and so it was, for Helen’s sake,
Helen, the pale bride---
“Beautiful!” the whispers ran as she appeared, “but too pale.” Leaning
on General Clarendon’s arm she was led up the aisle to the altar. He
felt the tremor of her arm on his, but she looked composed and almost
firm. She saw no one individual of the assembled numbers, not even
Cecilia or Lady Davenant. She knelt at the altar beside him to whom she
was to give her faith, and General Clarendon, in the face of all the
world, proudly gave her to his ward, and she, without fear, low and
distinctly pronounced the sacred vow. And as Helen rose from her knees,
the sun shone out, and a ray of light was on her face, and it was
lovely. Every heart said so--every heart but Lady Katrine Hawksby’s--And
why do we think of her at such a moment? and why does Lady Davenant
think of her at such a moment? Yet she did; she looked to see if she
were present, and she bade her to the breakfast.
And now all the salutations were given and received, and all the murmur
of congratulations rising, the living tide poured out of the church; and
then the noise of carriages, and all drove off to Lady Davenant’s; and
Lady Davenant had gone through it all so far, well. And Lady Cecilia
knew that it had been; and her eyes had been upon her husband, and her
heart had been full of another day when she had knelt beside him at
the altar. And did he, too, think of that day? She could not tell, his
countenance discovered no emotion, his eyes never once turned to the
place where she stood. And she was now to see him for one hour, but one
hour longer, and at a public breakfast! but still she was to see him.
And now they are all at breakfast. The attention of some was upon the
bride and bridegroom; of others, on Lady Cecilia and on the general; of
others, on Lady Davenant; and of many, on themselves. Lady Davenant had
Beauclerc on one side, General Clarendon on the other, and her daughter
opposite to him. Lady Katrine was there, with her “_tristeful_ visage,”
as Churchill justly called it, and more _tristeful_ it presently became.
When breakfast was over, seizing her moment when conversation flagged,
and when there was a pause, implying “What is to be said or done
next?” Lady Davenant rose from her seat with an air of preparation, and
somewhat of solemnity.--All eyes were instantly upon her. She drew out a
locket, which she held up to public view; then, turning to Lady Katrine
Hawksby, she said--“This bauble has been much talked of, I understand,
by your ladyship, but I question whether you have ever yet seen it, or
know the truth concerning it. This locket was _stolen_ by a worthless
man, given by him to a worthless woman, from whom I have obtained it;
and now I give it to the person for whom it was originally destined.”
She advanced towards Helen and put it round her neck. This done, her
colour flitted--her hand was suddenly pressed to her heart; yet she
commanded--absolutely commanded, the paroxysm of pain. The general
was at her side; her daughter, Helen, and Beauclerc, were close to her
instantly. She was just able to walk: she slowly left the room--and was
no more seen by the world!
She suffered herself to be carried up the steps into her own apartment
by the general, who laid her on the sofa in her dressing-room. She
looked round on them, and saw that all were there whom she loved; but
there was an alteration in her appearance which struck them all, and
most the general, who had least expected it. She held out her hand
to him, and fixing her eyes upon him with deathful expression, calmly
smiled, and said--“You would not believe this could be; but now you
see it must be, and soon. We have no time to lose,” continued she, and
moving very cautiously and feebly, she half-raised herself--“Yes,” said
she, “a moment is granted to me, thank Heaven!” She rose with sudden
power and threw herself on her knees at the general’s feet: it was done
before he could stop her.
“For God’s sake!” cried he, “Lady Davenant!--I conjure you---”
She would not be raised. “No,” said she, “here I die if I appeal to you
in vain--to your justice, General Clarendon, to which, as far as I know
none ever appealed in vain--and shall I be the first?--a mother for her
child--a dying mother for your wife--for my dear Cecilia, once dear to
you.”
His face was instantly covered with his hands.
“Not to your love,” continued she--“if that be gone--to your justice I
appeal, and MUST be heard, if you are what I think you: if you are not,
why, go--go, instantly--go, and leave your wife, innocent as she is, to
be deemed guilty--Part from her, at the moment when the only fault she
committed has been repaired--Throw her from you when, by the sacrifice
of all that was dear to her, she has proved her truth--Yes, you know
that she has spoken the whole, the perfect truth---”
“I know it,” exclaimed he.
“Give her up to the whole world of slanderers!--destroy her character!
If now her husband separate from her, her good name is lost for ever! If
now her husband protect her not---”
Her husband turned, and clasped her in his arms. Lady Davenant rose and
blessed him--blessed them both: they knelt beside her, and she joined
their hands.
“Now,” said she, “I give my daughter to a husband worthy of her, and she
more worthy of that noble heart than when first his. Her only fault was
mine--my early neglect: it is repaired--I die in peace! You make my last
moments the happiest! Helen, my dearest Helen, now, and not till now,
happy--perfectly happy in Love and Truth!”