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