Tales and Novels — Volume 10
by Maria Edgeworth · English · Gutenberg #8531 · 1,020,291 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Tales and Novels — Volume 10
Author: Maria Edgeworth
Release date: July 1, 2005 [eBook #8531]
Most recently updated: December 20, 2016
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES AND NOVELS — VOLUME 10 ***
Text file produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Widger and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
HELEN
By Maria Edgeworth
Tales And Novels
In Ten Volumes
With Engravings On Steel
Vol. X.
1857
CONTENTS
HELEN
VOLUME THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
VOLUME THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
VOLUME THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
HELEN
VOLUME THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
“There is Helen in the lime-walk,” said Mrs. Collingwood to her husband,
as she looked out of the window. The slight figure of a young person in
deep mourning appeared between the trees,--“How slowly she walks! She
looks very unhappy!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Collingwood, with a sigh, “she is young to know sorrow,
and to struggle with difficulties to which she is quite unsuited both
by nature and by education, difficulties which no one could ever have
foreseen. How changed are all her prospects!”
“Changed indeed!” said Mrs. Collingwood, “pretty young creature!--Do
you recollect how gay she was when first we came to Cecilhurst? and
even last year, when she had hopes of her uncle’s recovery, and when he
talked of taking her to London, how she enjoyed the thoughts of going
there! The world was bright before her then. How cruel of that uncle,
with all his fondness for her, never to think what was to become of her
the moment he was dead: to breed her up as an heiress, and leave her a
beggar!”
“But what is to be done, my dear?” said her husband.
“I am sure I do not know; I can only feel for her, you must think for
her.”
“Then I think I must tell her directly of the state in which her uncle’s
affairs are left, and that there is no provision for her.”
“Not yet, my dear,” said Mrs. Collingwood: “I don’t mean about there
being no provision for herself, that would not strike her, but her
uncle’s debts,--there is the point: she would feel dreadfully the
disgrace to his memory--she loved him so tenderly!”
“Yet it must be told,” said Mr. Collingwood, resolutely “and perhaps it
will be better now; she will feel it less, while her mind is absorbed by
grief for him.”
Helen was the only daughter of colonel and Lady Anne Stanley; her
parents had both died when she was too young to know her loss, nor had
she ever felt till now that she was an orphan, for she had been adopted
and brought up with the greatest tenderness by her uncle, Dean Stanley,
a man of genius, learning, and sincere piety, with the most affectionate
heart, and a highly cultivated understanding. But on one subject he
really had not common sense; in money matters he was inconceivably
imprudent and extravagant; extravagant from charity, from taste, from
habit. He possessed rich benefices in the church, and an ample private
fortune, and it was expected that his niece would be a great heiress--he
had often said so himself, and his fondness for her confirmed every one
in this belief. But the dean’s taste warred against his affection: his
too hospitable, magnificent establishment had exceeded his income; he
had too much indulged his passion for all the fine arts, of which he
was a liberal patron: he had collected a magnificent library, and had
lavished immense sums of money on architectural embellishments. Cursed
with too fine a taste, and with too soft a heart--a heart too well
knowing how to yield, never could he deny himself, much less any other
human being, any gratification which money could command; and soon the
necessary consequence was, that he had no money to command, his affairs
fell into embarrassment--his estate was sold; but, as he continued to
live with his accustomed hospitality and splendour, the world believed
him to be as rich as ever.
Some rise superior from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, but that
was not the case with Dean Stanley, not from want of elasticity of mind;
but perhaps because his ingenuity continually suggested resources, and
his sanguine character led him to plunge into speculations--they failed,
and in the anxiety and agitation which his embarrassments occasioned
him, he fell into bad health, his physicians ordered him to Italy.
Helen, his devoted nurse, the object upon which all his affections
centered, accompanied him to Florence. There his health and spirits
seemed at first, by the change of climate, to be renovated; but in Italy
he found fresh temptations to extravagance, his learning and his fancy
combined to lead him on from day to day to new expense, and he satisfied
his conscience by saying to himself that all the purchases which he now
made were only so much capital, which would, when sold in England,
bring more than their original price, and would, he flattered himself,
increase the fortune he intended for his niece. But one day, while he
was actually bargaining for an antique, he was seized with a fit of
apoplexy. From this fit he recovered, and was able to return to England
with his niece. Here he found his debts and difficulties had been
increasing; he was harassed with doubts as to the monied value of his
last-chosen chef-d’oeuvres; his mind preyed upon his weakened frame, he
was seized with another fit, lost his speech, and, after struggles the
most melancholy for Helen to see, conscious as she was that she could
do nothing for him--he expired--his eyes fixed on her face, and his
powerless hand held between both hers.
All was desolation and dismay at the deanery; Helen was removed to the
vicarage by the kindness of the good vicar and his wife, Mr. and Mrs.
Collingwood.
It was found that the dean, instead of leaving a large fortune, had
nothing to leave. All he had laid out at the deanery was sunk and
gone; his real property all sold; his imaginary wealth, his pictures,
statues--his whole collection, even his books, his immense library,
shrunk so much in value when estimated after his death, that the demands
of the creditors could not be nearly answered: as to any provision for
Miss Stanley, that was out of the question.
These were the circumstances which Mrs. Collingwood feared to reveal,
and which Mr. Collingwood thought should be told immediately to Helen;
but hitherto she had been so much absorbed in sorrow for the uncle she
had loved, that no one had ventured on the task.
Though Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood had not known her long (for they had but
lately come to the neighbourhood), they had the greatest sympathy for
her orphan state; and they had seen enough of her during her uncle’s
illness to make them warmly attached to her. Every body loved her that
knew her, rich or poor, for in her young prosperity, from her earliest
childhood, she had been always sweet-tempered and kind-hearted; for
though she had been bred up in the greatest luxury, educated as
heiress to a large fortune, taught every accomplishment, used to every
fashionable refinement, she was not spoiled--she was not in the least
selfish. Indeed, her uncle’s indulgence, excessive though it was, had
been always joined with so much affection, that it had early touched her
heart, and filled her whole soul with ardent gratitude.
It is said, that the ill men do, lives after them--the good is oft
interred with their bones. It was not so with Dean Stanley: the good he
had intended for Helen, his large fortune, was lost and gone; but the
real good he had done for his niece remained in full force, and to the
honour of his memory: the excellent education he had given her--it was
excellent not merely in the worldly meaning of the word, as regards
accomplishments and elegance of manners, but excellent in having given
her a firm sense of duty, as the great principle of action, and as the
guide of her naturally warm generous affections.
And now, when Helen returned from her walk, Mr. Collingwood, in the
gentlest and kindest manner he was able, informed her of the confusion
in her uncle’s affairs, the debts, the impossibility of paying the
creditors, the total loss of all fortune for herself.
Mrs. Collingwood had well foreseen the effect this intelligence would
have on Helen. At first, with fixed incredulous eyes, she could not
believe that her uncle could have been in any way to blame. Twice she
asked--“Are you sure--are you certain--is there no mistake?” And when
the conviction was forced upon her, still her mind did not take in any
part of the facts, as they regarded herself. Astonished and, shocked,
she could feel nothing but the disgrace that would fall upon the memory
of her beloved uncle.
Then she exclaimed--“One part of it is not true, I am certain:” and
hastily leaving the room, she returned immediately with a letter in
her hand, which, without speaking, she laid before Mr. Collingwood, who
wiped his spectacles quickly, and read.
It was addressed to the poor dean, and was from an old friend of his,
Colonel Munro, stating that he had been suddenly ordered to India,
and was obliged to return a sum of money which the dean had many years
before placed in his hands, to secure a provision for his niece, Miss
Stanley.
This letter had arrived when the dean was extremely ill. Helen had been
afraid to give it to him, and yet thought it right to do so. The moment
her uncle had read the letter, which he was still able to do, and to
comprehend, though he was unable to speak, he wrote on the back with
difficulty, in a sadly trembling hand, yet quite distinctly, these
words:--“That money is yours, Helen Stanley: no one has any claim
upon it. When I am gone consult Mr. Collingwood; consider him as your
guardian.”
Mr. Collingwood perceived that this provision had been made by the dean
for his niece before he had contracted his present debts--many years
before, when he had sold his paternal estate, and that knowing his own
disposition to extravagance, he had put this sum out of his own power.
“Right--all right, my dear Miss Stanley,” said the vicar; “I am very
glad--it is all justly yours.”
“No,” said Helen, “I shall never touch it: take it, my dear Mr.
Collingwood, take it, and pay all the debts before any one can
complain.”
Mr. Collingwood pressed her to him without speaking; but after a
moment’s recollection he replied:--“No, no, my dear child, I cannot let
you do this: as your guardian, I cannot allow such a young creature as
you are, in a moment of feeling, thus to give away your whole earthly
fortune--it must not be.”
“It must, indeed it must, my dear sir. Oh, pay everybody at
once--directly.”
“No, not directly, at all events,” said Mr. Collingwood--“certainly not
directly: the law allows a year.”
“But if the money is ready,” said Helen, “I cannot understand why the
debt should not be paid at once. Is there any law against paying people
immediately?”
Mr. Collingwood half smiled, and on the strength of that half smile
Helen concluded that he wholly yielded. “Yes, do,” cried she, “send this
money this instant to Mr. James, the solicitor: he knows all about it,
you say, and he will see everybody paid.”
“Stay, my dear Miss Stanley,” said the vicar, “I cannot consent to this,
and you should be thankful that I am steady. If I were at this minute
to consent, and to do what you desire--pay away your whole fortune,
you would repent, and reproach me with my folly before the end of the
year--before six months were over.”
“Never, never,” said Helen.
Mrs. Collingwood strongly took her husband’s side of the question. Helen
could have no idea, she said, how necessary money would be to her. It
was quite absurd to think of living upon air; could Miss Stanley think
she was to go on in this world without money?
Helen said she was not so absurd; she reminded Mrs. Collingwood that she
should still have what had been her mother’s fortune. Before Helen had
well got out the words, Mrs. Collingwood replied,
“That will never do, you will never be able to live upon that; the
interest of Lady Anne Stanley’s fortune, I know what it was, would just
do for pocket-money for you in the style of life for which you have been
educated. Some of your uncle’s great friends will of course invite you
presently, and then you will find what is requisite with that set of
people.”
“Some of my uncle’s friends perhaps will,” said Helen; “but I am not
obliged to go to great or fine people, and if I cannot afford it I will
not, for I can live independently on what I have, be it ever so little.”
Mrs. Collingwood allowed that if Helen were to live always in the
country in retirement, she might do upon her mother’s fortune.
“Wherever I live--whatever becomes of me, the debts must be paid--I will
do it myself;” and she took up a pen as she spoke--“I will write to Mr.
James by this day’s post.”
Surprised at her decision of manner and the firmness of one in general
so gentle, yielding, and retired, and feeling that he had no legal power
to resist, Mr. Collingwood at last gave way, so far as to agree that he
would in due time use this money in satisfying her uncle’s creditors;
_provided she lived for the next six months within her income_.
Helen smiled, as if that were a needless proviso.
“I warn you,” continued Mr. Collingwood, “that you will most probably
find before six months are over, that you will want some of this money
to pay debts of your own.”
“No, no, no,” cried she; “of that there is not the slightest chance.”
“And now, my dear child,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “now that Mr.
Collingwood has promised to do what you wish, will you do what we
wish? Will you promise to remain with us? to live here with us, for the
present at least; we will resign you whenever better friends may claim
you, but for the present will you try us?”
“Try!” in a transport of gratitude and affection she could only repeat
the words “Try! oh, my dear friends, how happy I am, an orphan, without
a relation, to have such a home.”
But though Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, childless as they were, felt real
happiness in having such a companion--such an adopted daughter, yet they
were sure that some of Dean Stanley’s great friends and acquaintance in
high life would ask his niece to spend the spring in town, or the summer
in the country with them; and post after post came letters of condolence
to Miss Stanley from all these personages of high degree, professing
the greatest regard for their dear amiable friend’s memory, and for Miss
Stanley, his and their dear Helen; and these polite and kind expressions
were probably sincere at the moment, but none of these dear friends
seemed to think of taking any trouble on her account, or to be in the
least disturbed by the idea of never seeing their dear Helen again in
the course of their lives.
Helen, quite touched by what was said of her uncle, thought only of him;
but when she showed the letters to Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, they marked
the oversight, and looked significantly as they read, folded the letters
up and returned them to Helen in silence. Afterwards between themselves,
they indulged in certain comments.
“Lady C---- does not invite her, for she has too many daughters, and
they are too ugly, and Helen is too beautiful,” said Mrs. Collingwood.
“Lady L---- has too many sons,” said Mr. Collingwood, “and they are too
poor, and Helen is not an heiress now.”
“But old Lady Margaret Dawe, who has neither sons nor daughters, what
stands in the way there? Oh! her delicate health--delicate health is
a blessing to some people--excuses them always from doing anything for
anybody.”
Then came many, who hoped, in general, to see Miss Stanley as soon as
possible; and some who were “very anxious indeed” to have their dear
Helen with them; but when or where never specified--and a general
invitation, as every body knows, means nothing but “Good morning to
you.”
Mrs. Coldstream ends with, “I forbear to say more at present,” without
giving any reason.
“And here is the dean’s dear duchess, always in the greatest haste, with
‘You know my heart,’ in a parenthesis, ‘ever and ever most sincerely and
affec’--yours.’”
“And the Davenants,” continued Mrs. Collingwood, “who were such near
neighbours, and who were so kind to the dean at Florence; they have not
even written!”
“But they are at Florence still,” said Mr. Collingwood, “they can hardly
have heard of the poor dean’s death.”
The Davenants were the great people of this part of the country; their
place, Cecilhurst, was close to the deanery and to the vicarage, but
they were not known to the Collingwoods, who had come to Cecilhurst
during the dean’s absence abroad.
“And here is Mrs. Wilmot too,” continued Mrs. Collingwood, “wondering
as usual, at everybody else, wondering that Lady Barker has not invited
Miss Stanley to Castleport; and it never enters into Mrs. Wilmot’s head
that she might invite her to Wilmot’s fort. And this is friendship, as
the world goes!”
“And as it has been ever since the beginning of the world and will be
to the end,” replied Mr. Collingwood. “Only I thought in Dean Stanley’s
case--however, I am glad his niece does not see it as we do.”
No--with all Helen’s natural quickness of sensibility, she suspected
nothing, saw nothing in each excuse but what was perfectly reasonable
and kind; she was sure that her uncle’s friends could not mean to
neglect her. In short, she had an undoubting belief in those she loved,
and she loved all those who she thought had loved her uncle, or who
had ever shown her kindness. Helen had never yet experienced neglect or
detected insincerity, and nothing in her own true and warm heart could
suggest the possibility of double-dealing, or even of coldness in
friendship. She had yet to learn that--
“No after-friendship e’er can raze
Th’ endearments of our early days,
And ne’er the heart such fondness prove,
As when it first began to love;
Ere lovely nature is expelled,
And friendship is romantic held.
But prudence comes with hundred eyes,
The veil is rent, the vision flies,
The dear illusions will not last,
The era of enchantment’s past:
The wild romance of life is done,
The real history begun!”
CHAPTER II.
Some time after this, Mr. Collingwood, rising from the breakfast-table,
threw down the day’s paper, saying there was nothing in it; Mrs.
Collingwood glancing her eye over it exclaimed--
“Do you call this nothing? Helen, hear this!
“Marriage in high life--At the ambassador’s chapel, Paris, on the 16th
instant, General Clarendon to Lady Cecilia Davenant, only daughter of
Earl and Countess Davenant.”
“Married! absolutely married!” exclaimed Helen: “I knew it was to
be, but so soon I did not expect. Ambassador’s chapel--where did
you say?--Paris? No, that must be a mistake, they are all at
Florence--settled there, I thought their letters said.”
Mrs. Collingwood pointed to the paragraph, and Helen saw it was
certainly Paris--there could be no mistake. Here was a full account of
the marriage, and a list of all “the fashionables who attended the fair
bride to the hymeneal altar. Her father gave her away.”
“Then certainly it is so,” said Helen; and she came to the joyful
conclusion that they must all be on their way home:--“Dear Lady Davenant
coming to Cecilhurst again!”
Lady Cecilia, “the fair bride,” had been Helen’s most intimate friend;
they had been when children much together, for the deanery was so close
to Cecilhurst, that the shrubbery opened into the park. “But is it not
rather extraordinary, my dear. Helen,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “that
you should see this account of your dear Lady Cecilia’s marriage in the
public papers only, without having heard of it from any of your friends
themselves--not one letter, not one line from any of them?”
A cloud came over Helen’s face, but it passed quickly, and she was sure
they had written--something had delayed their letters. She was certain
Lady Davenant or Lady Cecilia had written; or, if they had not, it was
because they could not possibly, in such a hurry, such agitation as they
must have been in. At all events, whether they had written or not, she
was certain they could not mean anything unkind; she could not change
her opinion of her friend for a letter more or less. “Indeed!” said Mrs.
Collingwood, “how long is it since you have seen them?”
“About two years; just two years it is since I parted from them at
Florence.”
“And you have corresponded with Lady Cecilia constantly ever since?”
asked Mrs. Collingwood.
“Not constantly.”
“Not constantly--oh!” said Mrs. Collingwood, in a prolonged and somewhat
sarcastic tone.
“Not constantly--so much the better,” said her husband: “a constant
correspondence is always a great burthen, and moreover, sometimes a
great evil, between young ladies especially--I hate the sight of ladies’
long cross-barred letters.”
Helen said that Lady Cecilia’s letters were never cross-barred, always
short and far between.
“You seem wonderfully fond of Lady Cecilia,” said Mrs. Collingwood.
“Not wonderfully,” replied Helen, “but very fond, and no wonder, we were
bred up together. And”--continued she, after a little pause, “and
if Lady Cecilia had not been so generous as she is, she might have
been--she must have been, jealous of the partiality, the fondness, which
her mother always showed me.”
“But was not Lady Davenant’s heart large enough to hold two?” asked Mrs.
Collingwood. “Was not she fond of her daughter?”
“Yes, as far as she knew her, but she did not know Lady Cecilia.”
“Not know her own daughter!” Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood both at once
exclaimed, “How could that possibly be?”
“Very easily,” Helen said, “because she saw so little of her.”
“Was not Lady Cecilia educated at home?”
“Yes, but still Lady Cecilia, when a child, was all day long with her
governess, and at Cecilhurst the governess’s apartments were quite out
of the way, in one of the wings at the end of a long corridor, with a
separate staircase; she might as well have been in another house.”
“Bad arrangement,” said Mr. Collingwood, speaking to himself as he stood
on the hearth. “Bad arrangement which separates mother and daughter.”
“At that time,” continued Helen, “there was always a great deal of
company at Cecilhurst. Lord Davenant was one of the ministers then. I
believe--I know he saw a great many political people, and Lady Davenant
was forced to be always with them talking.”
“Talking! yes, yes!” said Mr. Collingwood, “I understand it all--Lady
Davenant is a great politician, and female politicians, with their heads
full of the affairs of Europe, cannot have time to think of the affairs
of their families.”
“What is the matter, my dear Helen?” said Mrs. Collingwood, taking her
hand. Helen had tears in her eyes and looked unhappy.
“I have done very wrong,” said she; “I have said something that has
given you a bad, a false opinion of one for whom I have the greatest
admiration and love--of Lady Davenant. I am excessively sorry; I have
done very wrong.”
“Not the least, my dear child; you told us nothing but what everybody
knows--that she is a great politician; you told us no more.”
“But I should have told you more, and what nobody knows better than I
do,” cried Helen, “that Lady Davenant is a great deal more, and a great
deal better than a politician. I was too young to judge, you may think,
but young as I was, I could see and feel, and children can and do often
see a great deal into character, and I assure you Lady Davenant’s is a
sort of deep, high character, that you would admire.”
Mrs. Collingwood observed with surprise, that Helen spoke of her with
even more enthusiasm than of her dear Lady Cecilia. “Yes, because she is
a person more likely to excite enthusiasm.”
“You did not feel afraid of her, then?”
“I do not say that,” replied Helen; “yet it was not fear exactly, it was
more a sort of awe, but still I liked it. It is so delightful to have
something to look up to. I love Lady Davenant all the better, even for
that awe I felt of her.”
“And I like you all the better for everything you feel, think, and say
about your friends,” cried Mrs. Collingwood; “but let us see what they
will do; when I see whether they can write, and what they write to you,
I will tell you more of my mind--if any letters come.”
“If!--” Helen repeated, but would say no more--and there it rested, or
at least stopped. By common consent the subject was not recurred to
for several days. Every morning at post-time Helen’s colour rose with
expectation, and then faded with disappointment; still, with the same
confiding look, she said, “I am sure it is not their fault.”
“Time will show,” said Mrs. Collingwood.
At length, one morning when she came down to breakfast, “Triumph, my
dear Helen!” cried Mrs. Collingwood, holding up two large letters,
all scribbled over with “Try this place and try that, mis-sent to
Cross-keys--Over moor, and heaven knows where--and--no matter.”
Helen seized the packets and tore them open; one was from Paris, written
immediately after the news of Dean Stanley’s death; it contained two
letters, one from Lady Davenant, the other from Lady Cecilia--“written,
only think!” cried she, “how kind!--the very day before her marriage;
signed ‘Cecilia Davenant, for the last time,’--and Lady Davenant,
too--to think of me in all their happiness.”
She opened the other letters, written since their arrival in England,
she read eagerly on,--then stopped, and her looks changed.
“Lady Davenant is not coming to Cecilhurst. Lord Davenant is to be
sent ambassador to Petersburgh, and Lady Davenant will go along
with him!--Oh! there is an end of everything, I shall never see her
again!--Stay--she is to be first with Lady Cecilia at Clarendon Park,
wherever that is, for some time--she does not know how long--she
hopes to see me there--oh! how kind, how delightful!” Helen put Lady
Davenant’s letter proudly into Mrs. Collingwood’s hand, and eagerly
opened Lady Cecilia’s.
“So like herself! so like Cecilia,” cried she. Mrs. Collingwood read and
acknowledged that nothing could be kinder, for here was an invitation,
not vague or general, but particular, and pressing as heart could wish
or heart could make it. “We shall be at Clarendon Park on Thursday, and
shall expect you, dearest Helen, on Monday, just time, the general says,
for an answer; so write and say where horses shall meet you,” &c. &c.
“Upon my word, this is being in earnest, when it comes to horses
meeting,” cried Mr. Collingwood. “Of course you will go directly?”
Helen was in great agitation.
“Write--write--my dear, directly,” said Mrs. Collingwood, “for the
post-boy waits.”
And before she had written many lines the cross-post boy sent up word
that he could wait no longer.
Helen wrote she scarcely knew what, but in short an acceptance, signed,
sealed, delivered, and then she took breath. Off cantered the boy with
the letters bagged, and scarcely was he out of sight, when Helen saw
under the table the cover of the packet, in which were some lines
that had not yet been read. They were in Lady Cecilia’s handwriting--a
postscript.
“I forgot, dear Helen, the thing that is most essential, (you remember
our friend Dumont’s definition of _une betîse: c’est d’oublier la chose
essentielle;_) I forgot to tell you that the general declares he will
not hear of a mere _visit_ from you. He bids me tell you that it must be
‘till death or marriage.’ So, my dear friend, you must make up your mind
in short to live with us till you find a General Clarendon of your own.
To this postscript no reply--silence gives consent.”
“If I had seen this!” said Helen, as she laid it before Mr. and Mrs.
Collingwood, “I ought to have answered, but, indeed, I never saw it;”
she sprang forward instantly to ring the bell, exclaiming, “It is time
yet--stop the boy--‘silence gives consent.’ I must write. I cannot
leave you, my dear friends, in this way. I did not see that postscript,
believe me I did not.”
They believed her, they thanked her, but they would not let her ring
the bell; they said she had better not bind herself in any way either
to themselves or to Lady Cecilia. Accept of the present invitation she
must--she must go to see her friend on her marriage; she must take leave
of her dear Lady Davenant before her departure.
“They are older friends than we are,” said Mr. Collingwood, “they have
the first claim upon you; but let us think of it as only a visit now. As
to a residence for life, that you can best judge of for yourself after
you have been some time at Clarendon Park; if you do not like to remain
there, you know how gladly we shall welcome you here again, my child;
or, if you decide to live with those you have known so long and loved so
much, we cannot be offended at your choice.”
This generous kindness, this freedom from jealous susceptibility,
touched Helen’s heart, and increased her agitation. She could not bear
the thoughts of either the reality or appearance of neglecting these
kind good people, the moment she had other prospects, and frequently
in all the hurry of her preparations, she repeated, “It will only be a
visit at Clarendon Park. I will return to you, I shall write to you, my
dear Mrs. Collingwood, at all events, constantly.”
When Mr. Collingwood gave her his parting blessing he reminded her of
his warning about her fortune. Mrs. Collingwood reminded her of her
promise to write. The carriage drove from the door. Helen’s heart was
full of the friends she was leaving, but by degrees the agitation of
the parting subsided, her tears ceased, her heart grew lighter, and the
hopes of seeing her friends at Clarendon Park arose bright in her mind,
and her thoughts all turned upon Cecilia, and Lady Davenant.
CHAPTER III.
Helen looked eagerly out of the carriage-window for the first view of
Clarendon Park. It satisfied--it surpassed her expectations. It was a
fine, aristocratic place:--ancestral trees, and a vast expanse of park;
herds of deer, yellow and dark, or spotted, their heads appearing in the
distance just above the fern, or grazing near, startled as the carriage
passed. Through the long approach, she caught various views of the
house, partly gothic, partly of modern architecture; it seemed of great
extent and magnificence.
All delightful so far; but now for her own reception. Her breath grew
quick and quicker as she came near and nearer to the house. Some one was
standing on the steps. Was it General Clarendon? No; only a servant. The
carriage stopped, more servants appeared, and as Helen got out, a very
sublime-looking personage informed her, that “Lady Cecilia and the
General were out riding--only in the park--would be in immediately.”
And as she crossed the great hall, the same sublime person informed
her that there would be still an hour before dinner-time, and inquired
whether she would be pleased to be shown to her own apartment, or to
the library? Helen felt chilled and disappointed, because this was not
exactly the way she had expected things would be upon her arrival. She
had pictured to herself Cecilia running to meet her in the hall.
Without answering the groom of the chambers, she asked, “Is Lady
Davenant out too?”
“No; her ladyship is in the library.”
“To the library then.”
And through the antechamber she passed rapidly, impatient of a momentary
stop of her conductor to open the folding-doors, while a man, with a
letter-box in hand, equally impatient, begged that Lady Davenant might
be told, “The General’s express was waiting.”
Lady Davenant was sealing letters in great haste for this express, but
when the door opened, and she saw Helen, she threw wax and letter from
her, and pushing aside the sofa-table, came forward to receive her with
open arms.
All was in an instant happy in Helen’s heart; but there was the man
of the letter-box; he must be attended to. “Beg your pardon, Helen, my
dear--one moment. Letters of consequence--must not be delayed.”
By the time the letters were finished, before they were gone, Lady
Cecilia came in. The same as ever, with affectionate delight in her
eyes--her beautiful eyes. The same, yes, the same Cecilia as ever; yet
different: less of a girl, less lively, but more happy. The moment
she had embraced her, Lady Cecilia turned quick to present General
Clarendon, thinking he had followed, but he had stopped in the hall.
“Send off the letters,” were the first words of his which Helen heard.
The tone commanding, the voice remarkably gentlemanlike. An instant
afterwards he came in. A fine figure, a handsome man; in the prime
of life; with a high-born, high-bred military air. English
decidedly--proudly English. Something of the old school--composed
self-possession, with voluntary deference to others--rather distant.
Helen felt that his manner of welcoming her to Clarendon Park was
perfectly polite, yet she would have liked it better had it been less
polite--more cordial. Lady Cecilia, whose eyes were anxiously upon her,
drew her arm within hers, and hurried her out of the room. She stopped
at the foot of the stairs, gathered up the folds of her riding-dress,
and turning suddenly to Helen, said,--
“Helen, my dear, you must not think _that_”----
“Think what?” said Helen.
“Think _that_--for which you are now blushing. Oh, you know what I mean!
Helen, your thoughts are just as legible in your face, as they always
were to me. His manner is reserved--cold, may be--but not his heart.
Understand this, pray--once for all. Do you? will you, dearest Helen?”
“I do, I will,” cried Helen; and every minute she felt that she better
understood and was more perfectly pleased with her friend. Lady Cecilia
showed her through the apartment destined for her, which she had taken
the greatest pleasure in arranging; everything there was not only most
comfortable, but particularly to her taste; and some little delicate
proofs of affection, recollections of childhood, were there;--keepsakes,
early drawings, nonsensical things, not worth preserving, but still
preserved.
“Look how near we are together,” said Cecilia, opening a door into her
own dressing-room. “You may shut this up whenever you please, but I hope
you will never please to do so. You see how I leave you your own free
will, as friends usually do, with a proviso, a hope at least, that
you are never to use it on any account--like the child’s half guinea
pocket-money, never to be changed.” Her playful tone relieved, as she
intended it should, Helen’s too keen emotion; and this too was felt with
the quickness with which every touch of kindness ever was felt by her.
Helen pressed her friend’s hand, and smiled without speaking.
They were to be some time alone before the commencement of bridal
visits, and an expected succession of troops of friends. This was a time
of peculiar enjoyment to Helen: she had leisure to grow happy in the
feeling of reviving hopes from old associations.
She did not forget her promise to write to Mrs. Collingwood; nor
afterwards (to her credit be it here marked)--even when the house was
full of company, and when, by amusement or by feeling, she was most
pressed for time--did she ever omit to write to those excellent friends.
Those who best know the difficulty will best appreciate this proof of
the reality of her gratitude.
As Lady Cecilia was a great deal with her husband riding or walking,
Helen had opportunities of being much alone with Lady Davenant, who now
gave her a privilege that she had enjoyed in former times at Cecilhurst,
that of entering her apartment in the morning at all hours without fear
of being considered an intruder.
The first morning, however, on seeing her ladyship immersed in papers
with a brow of care, deeply intent, Helen paused on the threshold, “I am
afraid I interrupt--I am afraid I disturb you.”
“Come in, Helen, come in,” cried Lady Davenant, looking up, and the
face of care was cleared, and there was a radiance of
pleasure--“Interrupt--yes: disturb--no. Often in your little life,
Helen, you have interrupted--never disturbed me. From the time you were
a child till this moment, never did I see you come into my room without
pleasure.”
Then sweeping away heaps of papers, she made room for Helen on the sofa
beside her.
“Now tell me how things are with you--somewhat I have heard reported of
my friend the dean’s affairs--tell me all.”
Helen told all as briefly as possible; she hurried on through her
uncle’s affairs with a tremulous voice, and before she could come to a
conclusion Lady Davenant exclaimed,
“I foresaw it long since: with all my friend’s virtues, all his
talents--but we will not go back upon the painful past. You, my
dear Helen, have done just what I should have expected from
you,--right;--right, too, the condition Mr. Collingwood has made--very
right. And now to the next point:--where are you to live, Helen? or
rather with whom?”
Helen was not quite sure yet, she said she had not quite determined.
“Am I to understand that your doubt lies between the Collingwoods and my
daughter?”
“Yes; Cecilia most kindly invited me, but I do not know General
Clarendon yet, and he does not know me yet. Cecilia might wish most
sincerely that I should live with her, and I am convinced she does; but
her husband must be considered.”
“True,” said Lady Davenant--“true; a husband is certainly a thing _to
be cared for_--in Scottish phrase, and General Clarendon is no doubt
a person to be considered,--but it seems that I am not a person to be
considered in your arrangements.”
Even the altered, dry, and almost acrid tone in which Lady Davenant
spoke, and the expression of disappointment in her countenance--were,
as marks of strong affection, deeply gratifying to Helen. Lady Davenant
went on.
“Was not Cecilhurst always a home to you, Helen Stanley?”
“Yes, yes,--always a most happy home!”
“Then why is not Cecilhurst to be your home?”
“My dear Lady Davenant! how kind!--how very, very kind of you to wish
it--but I never thought of----”
“And why did you not think of it, Helen?’”
“I mean--I thought you were going to Russia.”
“And have you settled, my dear Helen,” said Lady Davenant, smiling,
“have you settled that I am never to come back from Russia? Do not
you know that you are--that you ever were--you ever will be to me a
daughter?” and drawing Helen fondly towards her, she added, “as my own
very dear--I must not say dearest child,--must not, because as I well
remember once--little creature as you were then---you whispered to me,
‘Never call me dearest,’--generous-hearted child!” And tears started
into her eyes as she spoke; but at that moment came a knock at the door.
“A packet from Lord Davenant, by Mr. Mapletofft, my lady.” Helen rose
to leave the room, but Lady Davenant laid a detaining hand upon her,
saying, “You will not be in my way in the least;” and she opened her
packet, adding, that while she read, Helen might amuse herself “with
arranging the books on that table, or in looking over the letters in
that portfolio.”
Helen had hitherto seen Lady Davenant only with the eyes of very early
youth; but now, after an absence of two years--a great space in her
existence, it seemed as if she looked upon her with new eyes, and every
hour made fresh discoveries in her character. Contrary to what too often
happens when we again see and judge of those whom we have early
known, Lady Davenant’s character and abilities, instead of sinking and
diminishing, appeared to rise and enlarge, to expand and be ennobled
to Helen’s view. Strong lights and shades there were, but these only
excited and fixed her attention. Even her defects--those inequalities
of temper of which she had already had some example, were interesting as
evidences of the power and warmth of her affections.
The books on the table were those which Lady Davenant had had in her
travelling carriage. They gave Helen an idea of the range and variety
of the reader’s mind. Some of them were presentation copies, as they
are called, from several of the first authors of our own, and foreign
countries; some with dedications to Lady Davenant; others with
inscriptions expressing respect or propitiating favour, or anxious for
judgment.
The portfolio contained letters whose very signatures would have driven
the first of modern autograph collectors distracted with joy--whose
meanest scrap would make a scrap-book the envy of the world.
But among the letters in this portfolio, there were none of those
nauseous notes of compliment, none of those epistles adulatory,
degrading to those who write, and equally degrading to those to
whom they are written: letters which are, however cleverly turned,
inexpressibly wearisome to all but the parties concerned.
After opening and looking at the signature of several of these letters,
Helen sat in a delightful _embarras de richesse_. To read them all--all
at once, was impossible; with which to begin, she could not determine.
One after another was laid aside as too good to be read first, and
after glancing at the contents of each, she began to deal them round
alphabetically till she was struck by a passage in one of them--she
looked to the signature, it was unknown to fame--she read the whole,
it was striking and interesting. There were several letters in the same
hand, and Helen was surprised to find them arranged according to their
dates, in Lady Davenant’s own writing--preserved with those of persons
of illustrious reputation! These she read on without further hesitation.
There was no sort of affectation in them--quite easy and natural, “real
feeling, and genius,” certainly genius, she thought!--and there seemed
something romantic and uncommon in the character of the writer. They
were signed Granville Beauclerc!
Who could he be, this Granville Beauclerc? She read on till Lady
Davenant, having finished her packet, rang a silver handbell, as was
her custom, to summon her page. At the first tingle of the bell Helen
started, and Lady Davenant asked, “Whose letter, my dear, has so
completely abstracted you?”
Carlos, the page, came in at this instant, and after a quick glance
at the handwriting of the letters, Lady Davenant gave her orders in
Portuguese to Carlos, and then returning to Helen, took no further
notice of the letters, but went on just where she had left off. “Helen,
I remember when you were about nine years old, timid as you usually
were, your coming forward, bold as a little lion, to attack me in
Cecilia’s defence; I forget the particulars, but I recollect that you
said I was unjust, and that I did not know Cecilia, and there you
were right; so, to reward you, you shall see that now I do her perfect
justice, and that I am as fond of her as your heart can wish. I really
never did know Cecilia till I saw her heartily in love; I had imagined
her incapable of real love; I thought the desire of pleasing universally
had been her ruling passion--the ruling passion that, of a little mind
and a cold heart; but I did her wrong. In another more material point,
too, I was mistaken.”
Lady Davenant paused and looked earnestly at Helen, whose eyes said,
“I am glad,” and yet she was not quite certain she knew to what she
alluded.
“Cecilia righted herself, and won my good opinion, by the openness with
which she treated me from the very commencement of her attachment to
General Clarendon.” Lady Davenant again paused to reflect, and played
for some moments with the tablets in her hand.
“Some one says that we are apt to flatter ourselves that we leave our
faults when our faults leave us, from change of situation, age, and so
forth; and perhaps it does not signify much which it is, if the faults
are fairly gone, and if there be no danger of their returning: all
our former misunderstandings arose on Cecilia’s part from cowardice of
character; on mine from--no matter what--no matter which of us was most
wrong.”
“True, true,” cried Helen eagerly; and anxious to prevent recurrence
to painful recollections, she went on to ask rapidly several questions
about Cecilia’s marriage.
Lady Davenant smiled, and promised that she should have the whole
history of the marriage in true gossip detail.
“When I wrote to you, I gave you some general ideas on the subject, but
there are little things which could not well be written, even to so safe
a young friend as you are, for what is written remains, and often for
those by whom it was never intended to be seen; the _dessoux des cartes_
can seldom be either safely or satisfactorily shown on paper, so give me
my embroidery-frame, I never can tell well without having something to
do with my hands.”
And as Helen set the embroidery-frame, Lady Davenant searched for some
skeins of silk and silk winders.
“Take these, my dear, and wind this silk for me, for I must have my
hearer comfortably established, not like the agonised listener in the
‘_World_’ leaning against a table, with the corner running into him all
the time.”
CHAPTER IV.
“I must go back,” continued Lady Davenant, “quite to the dark ages,
the time when I knew nothing of my daughter’s character but by the
accidental lights which you afforded me. I will take up my story before
the reformation, in the middle ages, when you and your dear uncle left
us at Florence; about two years ago, when Cecilia was in the height
of her conquests, about the time when a certain Colonel D’Aubiguy
flourished, you remember him?”
Helen answered “Yes,” in rather a constrained voice, which caused Lady
Davenant to look up, and on seeing that look of inquiry, Helen coloured,
though she would have given the world not to be so foolish. The affair
was Cecilia’s, and Helen only wished not to have it recurred to, and yet
she had now, by colouring, done the very thing to fix Lady Davenant’s
attention, and as the look was prolonged, she coloured more and more.
“I see I was wrong,” said Lady Davenant; “I had thought Colonel
D’Aubigny’s ecstasy about that miniature of you was only a feint; but I
see he really was an admirer of yours, Helen?”
“Of mine! oh no, never!” Still from her fear of saying something that
should implicate Cecilia, her tone, though she spoke exactly the truth,
was not to Lady Davenant’s discriminative ear quite natural--Helen
seeing doubt, added,
“Impossible, my dear Lady Davenant! you know I was then so young, quite
a child!”
“No, no, not quite; two from eighteen and sixteen remain, I think, and
in our days sixteen is not absolutely a child.”
Helen made no answer; her thoughts had gone back to the time when
Colonel D’Aubigny was first introduced to her, which was just before her
uncle’s illness, and when her mind had been so engrossed by him, that
she had but a confused recollection of all the rest.
“Now you are right, my dear,” said Lady Davenant; “right to be
absolutely silent. In difficult cases say nothing; but still you are
wrong in sitting so uneasily under it, for that seems as if there _was_
something.”
“Nothing upon earth!” cried Helen, “if you would not look at me _so_, my
clear Lady Davenant.”
“Then, my dear Helen, do not break my embroidery silk; that jerk was
imprudent, and trust me, my dear, the screw of that silk winder is not
so much to blame as you would have me think; take patience with yourself
and with me. There is no great harm done, no unbearable imputation,
you are not accused of loving or liking, only of having been admired.”
“Never!” cried Helen.
“Well, well! it does not signify in the least now; the man is either
dying or dead.”
“I am glad of it,” cried Helen.
“How barbarous!” said Lady Davenant, “but let it pass, I am neither glad
nor sorry; contempt is more dignified and safer than hatred, my dear.
“Now to return to Cecilia; soon after, I will not say the D’Aubigny era,
but soon after you left us, I fell sick, Cecilia was excessively kind to
me. In kindness her affectionate heart never failed, and I felt this
the more, from a consciousness that I had been a little harsh to her. I
recovered but slowly; I could not bear to have her confined so long in a
sick room, and yet I did not much like either of the chaperons with
whom she went out, though they were both of rank, and of unimpeachable
character--the one English, one of the best women in the world, but the
most stupid; the other a foreigner, one of the most agreeable women
in the world, but the most false. I prevailed on Cecilia to break off
that--I do not know what to call it, friendship it was not, and my
daughter and I drew nearer together. Better times began to dawn, but
still there was little sympathy between us; my mind was intent on Lord
Davenant’s interests, hers on amusement and admiration. Her conquests
were numerous, and she gloried in their number, for, between you and
me, Cecilia was, before the reformation, not a little of a coquette. You
will not allow it, you did not see it, you did not go out with her, and
being three or four years younger, you could not be a very good critic
of Cecilia’s conduct; and depend upon it I am right, she was not a
little of a coquette. She did not know, and I am sure I did not know,
that she had a heart, till she became acquainted with General Clarendon.
“The first time we met him,”--observing a quickening of attention in
Helen’s eyes, Lady Davenant smiled, and said, “Young ladies always like
to hear of ‘the first time we saw him.’--The first time we saw General
Clarendon was--forgive me the day of the month--in the gallery at
Florence. I forget how it happened that he had not been presented to
me--to Lord Davenant he must have been. But so it was and it was new to
Cecilia to see a man of his appearance who had not on his first arrival
shown himself ambitious to be made known to her. He was admiring a
beautiful Magdalene, and he was standing with his back towards us. I
recollect that his appearance when I saw him as a stranger--the
time when one can best judge of appearance--struck me as that of a
distinguished person; but little did I think that there stood Cecilia’s
husband! so little did my maternal instinct guide me.
“As we approached, he turned and gave one look at Cecilia; she gave one
look at him. He passed on, she stopped me to examine the picture which
he had been admiring.
“Every English mother at Florence, except myself, had their eyes fixed
upon General Clarendon from the moment of his arrival. But whatever I
may have been, or may have been supposed to be, on the great squares of
politics, I believe I never have been accused or even suspected of being
a manoeuvrer on the small domestic scale.
“My reputation for imbecility in these matters was perhaps advantageous.
He did not shun me as he did the tribe of knowing ones; a hundred
reports flew about concerning him, settling in one, that he was resolved
never to marry. Yet he was a passionate admirer of beauty and grace, and
it was said that he had never been unsuccessful where he had wished to
please. The secret of his resolution against marriage was accounted for
by the gossiping public in many ways variously absurd. The fact was,
that in his own family, and in that of a particular friend, there had
been about this time two or three scandalous intrigues, followed by ‘the
public brand of shameful life.’ One of these ‘sad affairs,’ as they are
styled, was marked with premeditated treachery and turpitude. The lady
had been, or had seemed to be, for years a pattern wife, the mother of
several children; yet she had long betrayed, and at last abandoned, a
most amiable and confiding husband, and went off with a man who did
not love her, who cared for nought but himself, a disgusting monster
of selfishness, vanity, and vice! This woman was said to have been once
good, but to have been corrupted and depraved by residence abroad--by
the contagion of foreign profligacy. In the other instance, the
seduced wife had been originally most amiable, pure-minded, uncommonly
beautiful, loved to idolatry by her husband, Clarendon’s particular
friend, a man high in public estimation. The husband shot himself. The
seducer was, it’s said, the lady’s first love. That these circumstances
should have made a deep impression on Clarendon, is natural; the more
feeling--the stronger the mind, the more deep and lasting it was likely
to be. Besides his resolution against marriage in general, we heard that
he had specially resolved against marrying any travelled lady, and most
especially against any woman with whom there was danger of a first love.
How this danger was to be avoided or ascertained, mothers and daughters
looked at one another, and did not ask, or at least did not answer.
“Cecilia, apparently unconcerned, heard and laughed at these high
resolves, after her gay fashion with her young companions, and marvelled
how long the resolution would be kept. General Clarendon of course could
not but be introduced to us, could not but attend our assemblies, nor
could he avoid meeting us in all the good English and foreign society
at Florence; but whenever he met us, he always kept at a safe distance:
this caution marked his sense of danger. To avoid its being so
construed, perhaps, he made approaches to me, politely cold; we talked
very wisely on the state of the Continent and the affairs of Europe;
I did not, however, confine myself or him to politics, I gave him many
unconscious opportunities of showing in conversation, not his abilities,
for they are nothing extraordinary; but his character, which is
first-rate. Gleams came out, of a character born to subjugate, to
captivate, to attach for life. It worked first on Cecilia’s curiosity;
she thought she was only curious, and she listened at first, humming an
opera air between times, with the least concerned look conceivable. But,
her imagination was caught, and it thenceforward through every thing
that every body else might be saying, and through all she said herself,
she heard every word that fell from our general, and even all that was
repeated of his saying at second or third hand. So she learned in due
season that he had seen women as handsome, handsomer than Lady Cecilia
Davenant; but that there was something in her manner peculiarly suited
to his taste--his fastidious taste! so free from coquetry, he said she
was. And true, perfectly true, from the time he became acquainted with
her; no hypocrisy on her part, no mistake on his; at the first touch
of a real love, there was an end of vanity and coquetry. Then her
deference--her affection for her mother, was so charming, he thought;
such perfect confidence--such quick intelligence between us. No deceit
here either, only a little self-deception on Cecilia’s part. She had
really grown suddenly fonder of me; what had become of her fear, she did
not know. But I knew full well my new charm and my real merit; I was a
good and safe conductor of the electric shock.
“It chanced one day, when I was listening only as one listens to a man
who is talking at another through oneself, I did not immediately catch
the meaning, or I believe hear what the general said. Cecilia,
unawares, answered for me, and showed that she perfectly understood:--he
bowed--she blushed.
“Man is usually quicksighted to woman’s blushes. But our general was not
vain, only proud; the blush he did not set down to his own account, but
very much to hers. It was a proof, he thought, of so much simplicity of
heart, so unspoiled by the world, so unlike--in short, so like the very
woman he had painted in his fancy, before he knew too much----. Lady
Cecilia was now a perfect angel. Not one word of all this did he say,
but it was understood quite as well as if it had been spoken: his
lips were firm compressed, and the whole outer man composed--frigidly
cold;--yet through all this Cecilia saw--such is woman’s penetration in
certain cases--Cecilia saw what must sooner or later happen. He, still
proud of his prudence, refrained from word, look, or sigh, resolved to
be impassive till his judgment should be perfectly satisfied. At last
this judgment was perfectly satisfied; that is, he was passionately in
love--fairly ‘caught,’ my dear, ‘in the strong toils of grace,’ and he
threw himself at Cecilia’s feet. She was not quite so much surprised as
he expected, but more pleased than he had ventured to hope. There was
that, however, in his proud humility, which told Cecilia there must be
no trifling.
‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who fears to put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.’
“He put it to the test, and won it all. General Clarendon, indeed, is a
man likely to win and keep the love of woman, for this, among other good
reasons, that love and honour being with him inseparable, the idol he
adores must keep herself at the height to which he has raised her, or
cease to receive his adoration. She must be no common vulgar idol for
every passing worshipper.” As Lady Davenant paused, Helen looked up,
hesitated, and said: “I hope that General Clarendon is not disposed to
jealousy.”
“No: he’s too proud to be jealous,” replied Lady Davenant.
Are proud men never jealous? thought Helen.
“I mean,” continued Lady Davenant, “that General Clarendon is too proud
to be jealous of his wife. For aught I know, he might have felt jealousy
of Cecilia before she was his, for then she was but a woman, like
another; but once HIS--once having set his judgment on the cast, both
the virtues and the defects of his character join in security for his
perfect confidence in the wife ‘his choice and passion both approve.’
From temper and principle he is unchangeable. I acknowledge that I think
the general is a little inclined perhaps to obstinacy; but, as Burke
says, though obstinacy is certainly a vice, it happens that the whole
line of the great and masculine virtues, constancy, fidelity, fortitude,
magnanimity, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which
we have so just an abhorrence.
“It is most peculiarly happy for Cecilia that she has a husband of this
firm character, one on whom she can rely--one to whom she may, she must,
look up, if not always, yet upon all important occasions where decision
is necessary, or integrity required. It is between her and her general
as it should be in marriage, each has the compensating qualities to
those which the other possesses: General Clarendon is inferior to
Cecilia in wit, but superior in judgment; inferior in literature,
superior in knowledge of the world; inferior to my daughter altogether
in abilities, in what is called genius, but far superior in that ruling
power, _strength of mind_. Strength of mind is an attaching as well as a
ruling power: all human creatures, women especially, become attached to
those who have power over their minds. Yes, Helen, I am satisfied with
their marriage, and with your congratulations: yours are the sort
I like. Vulgar people--by vulgar people I mean all who think
vulgarly--very great vulgar people have congratulated me upon this
establishment of my daughter’s fortune and future rank (a dukedom in
view), all that could be wished in worldly estimation. But I rejoice in
it as the security for my daughter’s character and happiness. Thank you
again, my dear young friend, for your sympathy; you can understand me,
you can feel with me.”
Sympathy, intelligent, quick, warm, unwearied, unweariable, such as
Helen’s, is really a charming accomplishment in a friend; the only
obligation a proud person, is never too proud to receive; and it
was most gratifying to Helen to be allowed to sympathise with Lady
Davenant--one who, in general, never spoke of herself, or unveiled her
private feelings, even to those who lived with her on terms of intimacy.
Helen felt responsible for the confidence granted to her thus upon
credit, and a strong ambition was excited in her mind to justify the
high opinion her superior friend had formed of her. She determined to
become all that she was believed to be; as the flame of a taper suddenly
rises towards what is held over it, her spirit mounted to the point to
which her friend pointed.
CHAPTER V.
Helen’s perfect happiness at Clarendon Park was not of long duration.
People who have not been by nature blessed or cursed with nice feelings,
or who have well rubbed off their delicacy in roughing through the
world, can be quite happy, or at least happy enough without ascertaining
whether they are really esteemed or liked by those with whom they live.
Many, and some of high degree, when well sheltered and fed, and provided
with all the necessaries, and surrounded by all the luxuries of life,
and with appearances tolerably well kept up by outward manner, care
little or nought about the inside sentiments.
But Helen was neither of the case-hardened philosophic, or the naturally
obtuse-feeling class; she belonged to the over-anxious. Surrounded at
Clarendon Park with all the splendour of life, and with the immediate
expectation of seeing and being seen by the first society in England;
with the certainty also of being tenderly loved and highly esteemed
by two of the persons she was living with, yet a doubt about the third
began to make her miserable. Whether General Clarendon really liked
her or not, was a question that hung upon her mind sometimes as a dead
weight--then vibrating backwards and forwards, she often called to mind,
and endeavoured to believe, what Cecilia the first day told her, that
this reserved manner was natural to him with strangers, and would wear
off. But to her the icy coldness did not thaw. So she felt, or so she
fancied, and which it was she could not decide. She had never before
lived with any one about whose liking for her she could doubt,
therefore, as she said to herself, “I know I am a bad judge.” She feared
to open her mind to Cecilia. Lady Davenant would be the safest person
to consult; yet Helen, with all her young delicacy fresh about her,
scrupled, and could not screw her courage to the sticking-place. Every
morning going to Lady Davenant’s room, she half resolved and yet came
away without speaking. At last, one morning, she began:--
“You said something the other day, my dear Lady Davenant, about a visit
from Miss Clarendon. Perhaps--I am afraid--in short I think,--I fear,
the general does not like my being here; and I thought, perhaps, he was
displeased at his sister’s not being here,--that he thought Cecilia’s
having asked me prevented his sister’s coming; but then you told me he
was not of a jealous temper, did not you?”
“_Distinguez_,” said Lady Davenant; “_distinguons_, as the old French
metaphysicians used to say, _distinguons_, there be various kinds of
jealousy, as of love. The old romancers make a distinction between
_amour_ and _amour par amours_. Whatever that mean, I beg leave to
take a distinction full as intelligible, I trust, between _jalousie par
amour_ and _jalousie par amitié_. Now, to apply; when I told you that
our general was not subject to jealousy, I should have distinguished,
and said, _jalousie par amour_--jealousy in love, but I will not ensure
him against _jalousie par amitié_--jealousy in friendship--of friends
and relations, I mean. Me-thinks I have seen symptoms of this in the
general, he does not like my influence over Cecilia, nor yours, my
dear.”
“I understand it all,” exclaimed Helen, “and I was right from the very
first; I saw he disliked me, and he ever will and must dislike and
detest me--I see it in every look, hear it in every word, in every
tone.”
“Now, my dear Helen, if you are riding off on your imagination, I
wish you a pleasant ride, and till you come back again I will write my
letter,” said Lady Davenant, taking up a pen.
Helen begged pardon, and protested she was not going to ride off
upon any imagination,--she had no imagination now--she entreated Lady
Davenant to go on, for she was very anxious to know the whole truth,
whatever it might be. Lady Davenant laid down her pen, and told her all
she knew. In the first place, that Cecilia did not like Miss Clarendon,
who, though a very estimable person, had a sort of uncompromising
sincerity, joined with a _brusquerie_ of manner which Cecilia could
not endure. How her daughter had managed matters to refuse the sister
without offending the brother, Lady Davenant said she did not know; that
was Cecilia’s secret, and probably it lay in her own charming manner
of doing things, aided by the whole affair having occurred a few days
before marriage, when nothing could be taken ill of the bride elect.
“The general, as Cecilia told me, desired that she would write to invite
you, Helen; she did so, and I am very glad of it. This is all I know of
this mighty matter.”
But Helen could not endure the idea of being there, contrary to the
general’s wishes, in the place of the sister he loved. Oh, how very,
very unfortunate she was to have all her hopes blighted, destroyed--and
Cecilia’s kindness all in vain. Dear, dear Cecilia!--but for the whole
world Helen would not be so selfish--she would not run the hazard of
making mischief. She would never use her influence over Cecilia in
opposition to the general. Oh, how little he knew of her character, if
he thought it possible.
Helen had now come to tears. Then the keen sense of injustice turned to
indignation; and the tears wiped away, and pride prevailing, colouring
she exclaimed, “That she knew what she ought to do, she knew what she
would do--she would not stay where the master of the house did not wish
for her. Orphan though she was, she could not accept of protection or
obligation from any human being who neither liked or esteemed her. She
would shorten her visit at Clarendon Park--make it as short as his heart
could desire,--she would never be the cause of any disagreement--poor,
dear, kind Cecilia! She would write directly to Mrs. Collingwood.” At
the close of these last incoherent sentences, Helen was awe-struck by
the absolute composed immovability and silence of Lady Davenant. Helen
stood rebuked before her.
“Instead of writing to Mrs. Collingwood, had not you better go at
once?” said her ladyship, speaking in a voice so calm, and in a tone so
slightly ironical, that it might have passed for earnest on any but an
acutely feeling ear--“Shall I ring, and order your carriage?”
putting her hand on the bell as she spoke, and resting it there, she
continued--“It would be so spirited to be off instantly; so wise, so
polite, so considerate towards _dear_ Cecilia--so dignified towards the
general, and so kind towards me, who am going to a far country, Helen,
and may perhaps not see you ever again.”
“Forgive me!” cried Helen; “I never could go while you were here.”
“I did not know what you might think proper when you seemed to have lost
your senses.”
“I have recovered them,” said Helen; “I will do whatever you
please--whatever you think best.”
“It must not be what I please, my dear child, nor what I think best,
but what you judge for yourself to be best; else what will become of you
when I am in Russia? It must be some higher and more stable principle of
action that must govern you. It must not be the mere wish to please this
or that friend;--the defect of your character, Helen, remember I tell
you, is this--inordinate desire to be loved, this impatience of not
being loved--that which but a moment ago made you ready to abandon two
of the best friends you have upon earth, because you imagine, or you
suspect, or you fear, that a third person, almost a stranger, does not
like before he has had time to know you.”
“I was very foolish,” said Helen; “but now I will be wise, I will do
whatever is--right. Surely you would not have me live here if I were
convinced that the master of the house did not wish it?”
“Certainly not--certainly not,” repeated Lady Davenant; “but let us see
our way before us; never gallop, my dear, much less leap; never move,
till you see your way;--once it is ascertained that General Clarendon
does not wish you to be here, nor approve of you for the chosen
companion of his wife, I, as your best friend, would say, begone, and
speed you on your way; then as much pride, as much spirit as you will;
but those who are conscious of possessing real spirit, should never
be--seldom are--in a hurry to show it; that kind of ostentatious haste
is undignified in man, and ungraceful in woman.”
Helen promised that she would be patience itself: “But tell me exactly,”
said she, “what you would have me do.”
“Nothing,” said Lady Davenant.
“Nothing! that is easy at least,” said Helen, smiling.
“No, not so easy as you imagine; it requires sometimes no small share of
strength of mind.”
“Strength of mind!” said Helen, “I am afraid I have not any.”
“Acquire it then, my dear,” said her friend.
“But can I?”
“Certainly; strength of mind, like strength of body, is improved by
exercise.”
“If I had any to begin with--” said Helen.
“You have some, Helen, a great deal in one particular, else why should
I have any more regard for you, or more hope of you, than of any other
well-dressed, well-taught beauty, any of the tribe of young ladies who
pass before me without ever fixing my mind’s eye for one moment?”
“But in what particular, my dear Lady Davenant, do you mean?” said
Helen, anxiously; “I am afraid you are mistaken; in what do you think I
ever showed strength of mind? Tell me, and I will tell you the truth.”
“That you will, and there is the point that I mean. Ever since I have
known you, you have always, as at this moment, coward as you are, been
brave enough to speak the truth; and truth I believe to be the only real
lasting foundation for friendship; in all but truth there is a principle
of decay and dissolution. Now good bye, my dear;--stay, one word
more--there is a line in some classic poet, which says ‘the suspicion of
ill-will never fails to produce it’--Remember this in your intercourse
with General Clarendon; show no suspicion of his bearing you ill-will,
and to show none, you must feel none. Put absolutely out of your head
all that you may have heard or imagined about Miss Clarendon, or her
brother’s prejudices on her account.”
“I will--I will indeed,” said Helen, and so they parted. A few words
have sometimes a material influence on events in human life. Perhaps
even among those who hold in general that advice never does good, there
is no individual who cannot recollect some few words--some conversation
which has altered the future colour of their lives.
Helen’s over-anxiety concerning General Clarendon’s opinion of her,
being now balanced by the higher interest Lady Davenant had excited, she
met him with new-born courage; and Lady Cecilia, not that she suspected
it was necessary, but merely by way of prevention, threw in little
douceurs of flattery, on the general’s part, repeated sundry pretty
compliments, and really kind things which he had said to her of Helen.
These always pleased Helen at the moment, but she could never make
what she was told he said of her quite agree with what he said to her:
indeed, he said so very little, that no absolute discrepancy could be
detected between the words spoken and the words reported to have been
said; but still the looks did not agree with the opinions, or the
cordiality implied.
One morning Lady Cecilia told her that the general wished that she would
ride out with them, “and you must come, indeed you must, and try his
pretty Zelica; he wishes it of all things, he told me so last night.”
The general chancing to come in as she spoke, Lady Cecilia appealed to
him with a look that almost called upon him to enforce her request; but
he only said that if Miss Stanley would do him the honour, he should
certainly be happy, if Zelica would not be too much for her; but he
could not take it upon him to advise. Then looking for some paper
of which he came in search, and passing her with the most polite and
deferential manner possible, he left the room.
Half vexed, half smiling, Helen looked at Cecilia, and asked whether all
she had told her was not a little--“_plus belle que la vérité._”
Lady Cecilia, blushing slightly, poured out rapid protestations that
all she had ever repeated to Helen of the general’s sayings was perfect
truth--“I will not swear to the words--because in the first place it is
not pretty to swear, and next, because I can never recollect anybody’s
words, or my own, five minutes after they have been said.”
Partly by playfulness, and partly by protestations, Lady Cecilia
half convinced Helen; but from this time she refrained from repeating
compliments which, true or false, did no good, and things went on
better; observing this, she left them to their natural course, upon all
such occasions the best way.
And now visitors began to appear, and some officers of the general’s
staff arrived. Clarendon Park happened to be in the district which
General Clarendon commanded, so that he was able usually to reside
there. It was in what is called a good neighbourhood, and there was much
visiting, and many entertainments.
One day at dinner, Helen was seated between the general and a fine
young guardsman, who, as far as his deep sense of his own merit, and
his fashionable indifference to young ladies would permit, had made some
demonstrations of a desire to attract her notice. He was piqued when,
in the midst of something he had wonderfully exerted himself to say, he
observed that her attention was distracted by a gentleman opposite, who
had just returned from the Continent, and who, among other pieces of
news, marriages and deaths of English abroad, mentioned that “poor
D’Aubigny” was at last dead.
Helen looked first at Cecilia, who, as she saw, heard what was said with
perfect composure; and then at Lady Davenant, who had meantime glanced
imperceptibly at her daughter, and then upon Helen, whose eyes she
met--and Helen coloured merely from association, because she had
coloured before--provoking! yet impossible to help it. All passed in
less time than it can be told, and Helen had left the guardsman in the
midst of his sentence, discomfited, and his eyes were now upon her; and
in confusion she turned from him, and there were the general’s eyes but
he was only inviting her to taste some particular wine, which he thought
she would like, and which she willingly accepted, and praised, though
she assuredly did not know in the least what manner of taste it had. The
general now exerted himself to occupy the guardsman in a conversation
about promotion, and drew all observation from Helen. Yet not the
slightest indication of having seen, heard, or understood, appeared
in his countenance, not the least curiosity or interest about Colonel
D’Aubigny. Of one point Helen was however intuitively certain, that he
had noticed that confusion which he had so ably, so coolly covered. One
ingenuous look from her thanked him, and his look in return was most
gratifying; she could not tell how it was, but it appeared more as if
he understood and liked her than any look she had ever seen from him
before. They were both more at their ease. Next day, he certainly
justified all Cecilia’s former assurances, by the urgency with which
he desired to have her of the riding party. He put her on horseback
himself, bade the aide-de-camp ride on with Lady Cecilia--three several
times set the bridle right in Miss Stanley’s hand, assuring her that she
need not be afraid, that Zelica was the gentlest creature possible, and
he kept his fiery horse, Fleetfoot, to a pace that suited her during
the whole time they were out. Helen took courage, and her ride did her a
vast deal of good.
The rides were repeated, the general evidently became more and more
interested about Miss Stanley; he appealed continually to her taste, and
marked that he considered her as part of his family; but, as Helen told
Lady Davenant, it was difficult, with a person of his high-bred manners
and reserved temper, to ascertain what was to be attributed to general
deference to her sex, what to particular regard for the individual, how
much to hospitality to his guest, or attention to his wife’s friend,
and what might be considered as proof of his own desire to share that
friendship, and of a real wish that she should continue to live with
them.
While she was in this uncertainty, Lord Davenant arrived from London; he
had always been fond of Helen, and now the first sight of her youthful
figure in deep mourning, the recollection of the great changes that had
taken place since they had last met, touched him to the heart--he folded
her in his arms, and was unable to speak. He! a great bulky man, with a
face of constitutional joy--but so it was; he had a tender heart,
deep feelings of all kinds under an appearance of _insouciance_ which
deceived the world. He was distinguished as a political leader--but,
as he said of himself, he had been three times inoculated with
ambition--once by his mother, once by his brother, and once by his wife;
but it had never taken well; the last the best, however,--it had shown
at least sufficiently to satisfy his friends, and he was happy to be
no more tormented. With talents of the first order, and integrity
unblenching, his character was not of that stern stuff--no, not of that
corrupt stuff--of which modern ambition should be made.
He had now something to tell Helen, which he would say even before he
opened his London budget of news. He told her, with a congratulatory
smile, that he had had an opportunity of showing his sense of Mr.
Collingwood’s merits; and as he spoke he put a letter into her hand.
The letter was from her good friend Mr. Collingwood, accepting a
bishopric in the West Indies, which had been offered to him by Lord
Davenant. It enclosed a letter for Helen, desiring in the most kind
manner that she would let him know immediately and decidedly where and
with whom she intended to live; and there was a postscript from Mrs.
Collingwood full of affection, and doubts, and hopes, and fears.
The moment Helen had finished this letter, without seeming to regard the
inquiring looks of all present, and without once looking towards any
one else, she walked deliberately up to General Clarendon, and begged to
speak to him alone. Never was general more surprised, but of course he
was too much of a general to let that appear. Without a word, he offered
his arm, and led her to his study; he drew a chair towards her--
“No misfortune, I hope, Miss Stanley? If I can in any way be of
service----”
“The only service, General Clarendon,” said Helen, her manner becoming
composed, and her voice steadying as she went on--“the only service you
can do me now is to tell me the plain truth, and this will prevent what
would certainly be a misfortune to me--perhaps to all of us. Will you
read this letter?”
He received it with an air of great interest, and again moved the chair
to her. Before she sat down, she added,--
“I am unused to the world, you see, General Clarendon. I have been
accustomed to live with one who always told me his mind sincerely, so
that I could judge always what I ought to do. Will you do so now? It is
the greatest service, as well as favour, you can do me.”
“Depend upon it, I will,” said General Clarendon.
“I should not ask you to tell me in words--that might be painful to your
politeness; only let me see it,” said Helen, and she sat down.
The general read on without speaking, till he came to the mention of
Helen’s original promise of living with the Collingwoods. He did not
comprehend that passage, he said, showing it to her. He had always,
on the contrary, understood that it had been a long _settled_ thing, a
promise between Miss Stanley and Lady Cecilia, that Helen should live
with Lady Cecilia when she married.
“No such thing!” Helen said. “No such agreement had ever been made.”
So the general now perceived; but this was a mistake of his which he
hoped would make no difference in her arrangements, he said: “Why should
it?--unless Miss Stanley felt unhappy at Clarendon Park?”
He paused, and Helen was silent: then, taking desperate resolution, she
answered,--
“I should be perfectly happy here, if I were sure of your wishes, your
feelings about me--about it.”
“Is it possible that there has been any thing in my manner,” said he,
“that could give Miss Stanley pain? What could have put a doubt into her
mind?”
“There might be some other person nearer, and naturally dearer to you,”
said Helen, looking up in his face ingenuously--“one whom you might have
desired to have in my place:--your sister, Miss Clarendon, in short.”
“Did Cecilia tell you of this?”
“No, Lady Davenant did; and since I heard it I never could be happy--I
never can be happy till I know your feeling.”
His manner instantly changed.
“You shall know my feelings, then,” said he. “Till I knew you, Helen,
my wish was, that my sister should live with my wife; now I know you, my
wish is, that you should live with us. You will suit Cecilia better
than my sister could--will suit us both better, having the same truth
of character, and more gentleness of manner. I have answered you with
frankness equal to your own. And now,” said he, taking her hand, “you
know Cecilia has always considered you as her sister--allow me to do the
same: consider me as a brother--such you shall find me. Thank you. This
is settled for life,” added he, drawing her arm through his, and taking
up her letters, he led her back towards the library.
But her emotion, the stronger for being suppressed, was too great for
re-appearing in company: she withdrew her arm from his when they were
passing through the hall, and turning her face away, she had just voice
enough to beg he would show her letters to----
He understood. She ran up-stairs to her own room, glad to be alone; a
flood of joy came over her.
“A brother in Cecilia’s husband!--a brother!”
The word had a magical charm, and she could not help repeating it
aloud--she wept like a child. Lady Cecilia soon came flying in, all
delight and affection, reproaches and wonder alternately, in the
quickest conceivable succession. “Delighted, it is settled and for ever!
my dear, dear Helen! But how could you ever think of leaving us, you
wicked Helen! Well! now you see what Clarendon really is! But, my dear,
I was so terrified when I heard it all. You are, and ever were, the
oddest mixture of cowardice and courage. I--do you know I, brave
_I_--never should have advised--never should have ventured as you have?
But he is delighted at it all, and so am I now it has all ended so
charmingly, now I have you safe. I will write to the Collingwoods; you
shall not have a moment’s pain; I will settle it all, and invite them
here before they leave England; Clarendon desired I would--oh, he
is!--now you will believe me! The Collingwoods, too, will be glad to be
asked here to take leave of you, and all will be right; I love, as you
do, dear Helen, that everybody should be pleased when I am happy.”
When Lady Davenant heard all that had passed, she did not express that
prompt unmixed delight which Helen expected; a cloud came over her brow,
something painful regarding her daughter seemed to strike her, for her
eyes fixed on Cecilia, and her emotion was visible in her countenance;
but pleasure unmixed appealed as she turned to Helen, and to her she
gave, what was unusual, unqualified approbation.
“My dear Helen, I admire your plain straightforward truth; I am
satisfied with this first essay of your strength of mind and courage.”
“Courage!” said Helen, smiling.
“Not such as is required to take a lion by the beard, or a bull by the
horns,” replied Lady Davenant; “but there are many persons in this world
who, brave though they be, would rather beard a lion, sooner seize a
bull by the horns, than, when they get into a dilemma, dare to ask a
direct question, and tell plainly what passes in their own minds. Moral
courage is, believe me, uncommon in both sexes, and yet in going through
the world it is equally necessary to the virtue of both men and women.”
“But do you really think,” said Helen, “that strength of mind, or what
you call moral courage, is as necessary to women as it is to men?”
“Certainly, show me a virtue, male or female--if virtues admit of
grammatical distinctions, if virtues acknowledge the more worthy gender
and the less worthy of the grammar, show me a virtue male or female that
_can_ long exist without truth. Even that emphatically termed the virtue
of our sex, Helen, on which social happiness rests, society depends, on
what is it based? is it not on that single-hearted virtue truth?--and
truth on what? on courage of the mind. They who dare to speak the truth,
will not ever dare to go irretrievably wrong. Then what is falsehood but
cowardice?--and a false woman!--does not that say all in one word?”
“But whence arose all this? you wonder, perhaps,” said Lady Davenant;
“and I have not inclination to explain. Here comes Lord Davenant. Now
for politics--farewell morality, a long farewell. Now for the London
budget, and ‘what news from Constantinople? Grand vizier certainly
strangled, or not?’”
CHAPTER VI.
The London budget of news was now opened, and gone through by Lord
Davenant, including quarrels in the cabinet and all that with fear of
change perplexes politicians. But the fears and hopes of different ages
are attached to such different subjects, that Helen heard all this as
though she heard it not, and went on with her drawing, touching, and
retouching it, without ever looking up, till her attention was wakened
by the name of Granville Beauclerc; this was the name of the person who
had written those interesting letters which she had met with in Lady
Davenant’s portfolio. “What is he doing in town?” asked the general.
“Amusing himself, I suppose,” replied Lord Davenant.
“I believe he forgets that I am his guardian,” said the general.
“I am sure he cannot forget that you are his friend,” said Lady Cecilia;
“for he has the best heart in the world.”
“And the worst head for any thing useful,” said the general.
“He is a man of genius,” said Lady Davenant.
“Did you speak to him, my lord,” pursued the general, “about standing
for the county?”
“Yes.”
“And he said what?”
“That he would have nothing to do with it.”
“Why?”
“Something about not being tied to party, and somewhat he said about
patriotism,” replied Lord Davenant.
“Nonsense!” said the general, “he is a fool.”
“Only young,” said Lady Davenant,
“Men are not so very young in these days at two-and-twenty,” said the
general.
“In some,” said Lady Davenant, “the classical touch, the romance of
political virtue, lasts for months, if not years, after they leave
college; even those who, like Granville, go into high life in London,
do not sometimes, for a season or two, lose their first enthusiasm of
patriotism.”
The general’s lips became compressed. Lord Davenant, throwing himself
back in his easy chair, repeated, “Patriotism! yes, every young man of
talent is apt to begin with a fit of that sort.”
“My dear lord,” cried Lady Davenant, “you, of all men, to speak of
patriotism as a disease!”
“And a disease that can be had but once in life, I am afraid,” replied
her lord laughing; “and yet,” as if believing in that at which he
laughed, “it evaporates in most men in words, written or spoken, lasts
till the first pamphlet is published, or till the maiden-speech in
parliament is fairly made, and fairly paid for--in all honour--all
honourable men.”
Lady Davenant passed over these satirical observations, and somewhat
abruptly asked Lord Davenant if he recollected the late Mr. Windham.
“Certainly he was not a man to be easily forgotten: but what in
particular?”
“The scales of his mind were too fine,” said Lady Davenant, “too nicely
adjusted for common purposes; diamond scales will not do for weighing
wool. Very refined, very ingenious, very philosophical minds, such as
Windham, Burke, Bacon, were all too scrupulous weighers; their scales
turned with the millionth of a grain, and all from the same cause,
subject to the same defect, indecision. They saw too well how much can
be said on both sides of the question. There is a sort of philosophical
doubt, arising from enlargement of understanding, quite different from
that irresolution of character which is caused by infirmity of will;
and I have observed,” continued Lady Davenant, “in some of these over
scrupulous weighers, that when once they come to a balance, that instant
they become most wilful; so it will be, you will see, with Beauclerc.
After excessive indecision, you will see him start perhaps at once to
rash action.”
“Rash of wrong, resolute of right,” said Lord Davenant.
“He is constitutionally wilful, and metaphysically vacillating,” said
Lady Davenant.
The general waited till the metaphysics were over, and then said to Lord
Davenant that he suspected there was something more than mere want of
ambition in Beauclerc’s refusal to go into parliament. Some words were
here inaudible to Helen, and the general began to walk up and down the
room with so strong a tread, that at every step the china shook on the
table near which Helen sat, so that she lost most part of what followed,
and yet it seemed interesting, about some Lord Beltravers, and a
Comtesse de Saint ---- something, or a Lady Blanche ---- somebody.
Lady Davenant looked anxious, the general’s steps became more
deliberately, more ominously firm; till lady Cecilia came up to him, and
playfully linking her arm in his, the steps were moderated, and when
a soothing hand came upon his shoulder, the compressed lips were
relaxed--she spoke in a low voice--he answered aloud.
“By all means! write to him yourself, my love; get him down here and he
will be safe; he cannot refuse you.”
“Tuesday, then?” she would name the earliest day if the general
approved.
He approved of every thing she said; “Tuesday let it be.” Following
him to the door, Lady Cecilia added something which seemed to fill the
measure of his contentment. “Always good and kind,” said he; “so let it
be.
“Then shall I write to your sister, or will you?”
“You,” said the general, “let the kindness come from you, as it always
does.”
Lady Cecilia, in a moment at the writing-table, ran off, as fast as pen
could go, two notes, which she put into her mother’s hand, who gave
an approving nod; and, leaving them with her to seal and have franked,
Cecilia darted out on the terrace, carrying Helen along with her, to see
some Italian garden she was projecting.
And as she went, and as she stood directing the workmen, at every close
of her directions she spoke to Helen. She said she was very glad that
she had settled that Beauclerc was to come to them immediately. He was a
great favourite of hers.
“Not for any of those grandissimo qualities which my mother sees in him,
and which I am not quite clear exist; but just because he is the most
agreeable person in nature; and really natural; though he is a man of
the world, yet not the least affected. Quite fashionable, of course, but
with true feeling. Oh! he is delightful, just--” then she interrupted
herself to give directions to the workmen about her Italian garden----
“Oleander in the middle of that bed; vases nearer to the balustrade--”
“Beauclerc has a very good taste, and a beautiful place he has,
Thorndale. He will be very rich. Few very rich young men are
agreeable now, women spoil them so.--[‘Border that bed with something
pretty.’]--Still he is, and I long to know what you will think of him;
I know what I think he will think, but, however, I will say no more;
people are always sure to get into scrapes in this world, when they say
what they think.--[‘That fountain looks beautiful.’]--I forgot to tell
you he is very handsome. The general is very fond of him, and he of the
general, except when he considers him as his guardian, for Granville
Beauclerc does not particularly like to be controlled--who does? It is
a curious story.--[‘Unpack those vases, and by the time that is done I
will be back.’]--Take a turn with me, Helen, this way. It is a curious
story: Granville Beauclerc’s father--but I don’t know it perfectly, I
only know that he was a very odd man, and left the general, though he
was so much younger than himself, guardian to Granville, and settled
that he was not to be of age, I mean not to come into possession of
his large estates, till he is five-and-twenty: shockingly hard on poor
Granville, and enough to make him hate Clarendon, but he does not, and
that is charming, that is one reason I like him! So amazingly respectful
to his guardian always, considering how impetuous he is, amazingly
respectful, though I cannot say I think he is what the gardening books
call _patient of the knife_, I don’t think he likes his fancies to
be lopped; but then he is so clever. Much more what you would call a
reading man than the general, distinguished at college, and all that
which usually makes a young man conceited, but Beauclerc is only a
little headstrong--all the more agreeable, it keeps one in agitation;
one never knows how it will end, but I am sure it will all go on well
now. It is curious, too, that mamma knew him also when he was at Eton,
I believe--I don’t know how, but long before we ever heard of Clarendon,
and she corresponded with him, but I never knew him till he came to
Florence, just after it was all settled with me and the general; and he
was with us there and at Paris, and travelled home with us, and I like
him. Now you know all, except what I do not choose to tell you, so come
back to the workmen--‘That vase will not do there, move it in front of
these evergreens; that will do.’”
Then returning to Helen--“After all, I did so right, and I am so glad
I thought in time of inviting Esther, now Mr. Beauclerc is coming--the
general’s sister--half sister. Oh, so unlike him! you would never guess
that Miss Clarendon was his sister, except from her pride. But she is
so different from other people; she knows nothing, and wishes to know
nothing of the world. She lives always at an old castle in Wales, Llan
---- something, which she inherited from her mother, and she has always
been her own mistress, living with her aunt in melancholy grandeur
there, till her brother brought her to Florence, where--oh, how she was
out of her element! Come this way and I will tell you more. The fact is,
I do not not much like Miss Clarendon, and I will tell you why--I will
describe her to you.”
“No, no, do not,” said Helen; “do not, my dear Cecilia, and I will tell
you why.”
“Why--why?” cried Cecilia. “Do you recollect the story my uncle told us
about the young bride and her old friend, and the bit of advice?”
No, Cecilia did not recollect any thing of it. She should be very glad
to hear the anecdote, but as to the advice, she hated advice.
“Still, if you knew who gave it--it was given by a very great man.”
“A very great man! now you make me curious. Well, what is it?” said Lady
Cecilia.
“That for one year after her marriage, she would not tell to her friends
the opinion she had formed, if unfavourable, of any of her husband’s
relations, as it was probable she might change that opinion on knowing
them better, and would afterwards be sorry for having told her first
hasty judgment. Long afterwards the lady told her friend that she owed
to this advice a great part of the happiness of her life, for she really
had, in the course of the year, completely changed her first notions of
some of her husband’s family, and would have had sorely to repent, if
she had told her first thoughts!”
Cecilia listened, and said it was all “Vastly well! excellent! But I
had nothing in the world to say of Miss Clarendon, but that she was too
good--too sincere for the world we live in. For instance, at Paris, one
day a charming Frenchwoman was telling some anecdote of the day in the
most amusing manner. Esther Clarendon all the while stood by, grave and
black as night, and at last turning upon our charmer at the end of the
story, pronounced, ‘There is not one word of truth in all you have been
saying!’ Conceive it, in full salon! The French were in such amazement.
‘Inconceivable!’ as they might well say to me, as she walked off with
her tragedy-queen air; _‘Inconcevable--mais, vraiment inconcevable;’_
and _‘Bien Anglaise,’_ they would have added, no doubt, if I had not
been by.”
“But there must surely have been some particular reason,” said Helen.
“None in the world, only the story was not true, I believe. And then
another time, when she was with her cousin, the Duchess of Lisle, at
Lisle-Royal, and was to have gone out the next season in London with the
Duchess, she came down one morning, just before they were to set off for
town, and declared that she had heard such a quantity of scandal since
she had been there, and such shocking things of London society, that she
had resolved not to go out with the Duchess, and not to go to town at
all? So absurd--so prudish!”
Helen felt some sympathy in this, and was going to have said so, but
Cecilia went on with--
“And then to expect that Granville Beauclerc--should--”
Here Cecilia paused, and Helen felt curious, and ashamed of her
curiosity; she turned away, to raise the branches of some shrub, which
were drooping from the weight of their flowers.
“I know something _has_ been thought of,” said Cecilia. “A match has
been in contemplation--do you comprehend me, Helen?”
“You mean that Mr. Beauclerc is to marry Miss Clarendon,” said Helen,
compelled to speak.
“I only say it has been thought of,” replied Lady Cecilia; “that is, as
every thing in this way is thought of about every couple not within the
prohibited degrees, one’s grandmother inclusive. And the plainer the
woman, the more sure she is to contemplate such things for herself, lest
no one else should think of them for her. But, my dear Helen, if you
mean to ask--”
“Oh, I don’t mean to ask any thing,” cried Helen.
“But, whether you ask or not, I must tell you that the general is too
proud to own, even to himself, that he could; ever think of any man for
his sister who had not first proposed for her.”
There was a pause for some minutes.
“But,” resumed Lady Cecilia, “I could not do less than ask her here
for Clarendon’s sake, when I know it pleases him; and she is
very--estimable, and so I wish to make her love me if I could! But I do
not think she will be nearer her point with Mr. Beauclerc, if it is her
point, by coming here just now. Granville has eyes as well as ears,
and contrasts will strike. I know who I wish should strike him, as she
strikes me--and I think--I hope--”
Helen looked distressed.
“I am as innocent as a dove,” pursued Lady Cecilia; “but I suppose even
doves may have their own private little thoughts and wishes.”
Helen was sure Cecilia had meant all this most kindly, but she was
sorry that some things had been said. She was conscious of having been
interested by those letters of Mr. Beauclerc’s; but a particular thought
had now been put into her mind, and she could never more say, never
more feel, that such a thought had not come into her head. She was very
sorry; it seemed as if somewhat of the freshness, the innocence, of her
mind was gone from her. She was sorry, too, that she had heard all
that Cecilia had said about Miss Clarendon; it appeared as if she was
actually doomed to get into some difficulty with the general about his
sister; she felt as if thrown back into a sea of doubts, and she was not
clear that she could, even by opposing, end them.
On the appointed Tuesday, late, Miss Clarendon arrived; a fine figure,
but ungraceful, as Helen observed, from the first moment when she
turned sharply away from Lady Cecilia’s embrace to a great dog of her
brother’s--“Ah, old Neptune! I’m glad you’re here still.”
And when Lady Cecilia would have put down his paws--“Let him alone, let
him alone, dear, honest, old fellow.”
“But the dear, honest, old fellow’s paws are wet, and will ruin your
pretty new pelisse.”
“It may be new, but you know it is not pretty,” said Miss Clarendon,
continuing to pat Neptune’s head as he jumped up with his paws on her
shoulders.
“O my dear Esther, how can you bear him? he is so rough in his love!”
“I like rough better than smooth.” The rough paw caught in her lace
frill, and it was torn to pieces before “down! down!” and the united
efforts of Lady Cecilia and Helen could extricate it.--“Don’t distress
yourselves about it, pray; it does not signify in the least. Poor
Neptune, how really sorry he looks--there, there, wag your tail
again--no one shall come between us two old friends.”
Her brother came in, and, starting up, her arms were thrown round his
neck, and her bonnet falling back, Helen who had thought her quite plain
before, was surprised to see that, now her colour was raised, and there
was life in her eyes, she was really handsome.
Gone again that expression, when Cecilia spoke to her: whatever she
said, Miss Clarendon differed from; if it was a matter of taste, she
was always of the contrary opinion; if narrative or assertion,
she questioned, doubted, seemed as if she could not believe. Her
conversation, if conversation it could be called, was a perpetual
rebating and regrating, especially with her sister-in-law; if Lady
Cecilia did but say there were three instead of four, it was taken up as
“quite a mistake,” and marked not only as a mistake, but as “not true.”
Every, the slightest error, became a crime against majesty, and the
first day ended with Helen’s thinking her really the most disagreeable,
intolerable person she had ever seen.
And the second day went on a little worse. Helen thought Cecilia took
too much pains to please, and said it would be better to let her quite
alone. Helen did so completely, but Miss Clarendon did not let Helen
alone; but watched her with penetrating eyes continually, listened to
every word she said, and seeming to weigh every syllable,--“Oh, my words
are not worth your weighing,” said Helen, laughing.
“Yes they are, to settle my mind.”
The first thing that seemed at all to settle it was Helen’s not agreeing
with Cecilia about the colour of two ribands which Helen said she could
not flatter her were good matches. The next was about a drawing of Miss
Clarendon’s, of Llansillan, her place in Wales; a beautiful drawing
indeed, which she had brought for her brother, but one of the towers
certainly was out of the perpendicular. Helen was appealed to, and could
not say it was upright; Miss Clarendon instantly took up a knife, cut
the paper at the back of the frame, and, taking out the drawing, set the
tower to rights.
“There’s the use of telling the truth.”
“Of listening to it,” said Helen.
“We shall get on, I see, Miss Stanley, if you can get over the first
bitter outside of me;--a hard outside, difficult to crack--stains
delicate fingers, may be,” she continued, as she replaced her drawing in
its frame--“stains delicate fingers, may be, in the opening, but a good
walnut you will find it, taken with a grain of salt.”
Many a grain seemed necessary, and very strong nut-crackers in very
strong hands. Lady Cecilia’s evidently were not strong enough, though
she strained hard. Helen did not feel inclined to try.
Cecilia invited Miss Clarendon to walk out and see some of the
alterations her brother had made. As they passed the new Italian garden,
Miss Clarendon asked, “What’s all this?--don’t like this--how I regret
the Old English garden, and the high beech hedges. Every thing is to be
changed here, I suppose,--pray do not ask my opinion about any of the
alterations.”
“I do not wonder,” said Cecilia, “that you should prefer the old garden,
with all your early associations; warm-hearted, amiable people must
always be so fond of what they have loved in childhood.”
“I never was here when I was a child, and I am not one of your amiable
people.”
“Very true, indeed,” thought Helen.
“Miss Stanley looks at me as if I had seven heads,” said Miss Clarendon,
laughing; and, a minute after, overtaking Helen as she walked on, she
looked full in her face, and added, “Do acknowledge that you think me
a savage.” Helen did not deny it, and from that moment Miss Clarendon
looked less savagely upon her: she laughed and said, “I am not quite
such a bear as I seem, you’ll find; at least I never hug people to
death. My growl is worse than my bite, unless some one should flatter my
classical, bearish passion, and offer to feed me with honey, and when I
find it all comb and no honey, who would not growl then?”
Lady Cecilia now came up, and pointed out views to which the general had
opened. “Yes, it’s well, he has done very well, but pray don’t stand
on ceremony with me. I can walk alone, you may leave me to my own
cogitations, as I like best.”
“Surely, as you like best,” said Lady Cecilia; “pray consider yourself,
as you know you are, at home here.”
“No, I never shall be at home here,” said Esther.
“Oh! don’t say that, let me hope--let me hope--” and she withdrew. Helen
just stayed to unlock a gate for Miss Clarendon’s ‘rambles further,’
and, as she unlocked it, she heard Miss Clarendon sigh as she repeated
the word, “Hope! I do not like to hope, hope has so often deceived me.”
“You will never be deceived in Cecilia,” said Helen.
“Take care--stay till you try.”
“I have tried,” said Helen, “I know her.”
“How long?”
“From childhood!”
“You’re scarcely out of childhood yet.”
“I am not so very young. I have had trials of my friends--of Cecilia
particularly, much more than you could ever have had.”
“Well, this is the best thing I ever heard of her, and from good
authority too; her friends abroad were all false,” said Miss Clarendon.
“It is very extraordinary,” said Helen, “to hear such a young person as
you are talk so--
“So--how?”
“Of false friends--you must have been very unfortunate.”
“Pardon me--very fortunate--to find them out in time.” She looked at
the prospect, and liked all that her brother was doing, and disliked all
that she even guessed Lady Cecilia had done. Helen showed her that she
guessed wrong here and there, and smiled at her prejudices; and Miss
Clarendon smiled again, and admitted that she was prejudiced, “but every
body is; only some show and tell, and others smile and fib. I wish that
word fib was banished from English language, and white lie drummed out
after it. Things by their right names and we should all do much better.
Truth must be told, whether agreeable or not.”
“But whoever makes truth disagreeable commits high treason against
virtue,” said Helen.
“Is that yours?” cried Miss Clarendon, stopping short.
“No,” said Helen. “It is excellent whoever said it.”
“It was from my uncle Stanley I heard it,” said Helen.
“Superior man that uncle must have been.”
“I will leave you now,” said Helen.
“Do, I see we shall like one another in time, Miss Stanley; in time,--I
hate sudden friendships.”
That evening Miss Clarendon questioned Helen more about her friendship
with Cecilia, and how it was she came to live with her. Helen plainly
told her.
“Then it was not an original promise between you?”
“Not at all,” said Helen.
“Lady Cecilia told me it was. Just like her,--I knew all the time it was
a lie.”
Shocked and startled at the word, and at the idea, Helen exclaimed, “Oh!
Miss Clarendon, how can you say so? anybody may be mistaken. Cecilia
mistook--” Lady Cecilia joined them at this moment. Miss Clarendon’s
face was flushed. “This room is insufferably hot. What can be the use of
a fire at this time of year?”
Cecilia said it was for her mother, who was apt to be chilly in the
evenings; and as she spoke, she put a screen between the flushed cheek
and the fire. Miss Clarendon pushed it away, saying, “I can’t talk, I
can’t hear, I can’t understand with a screen before me. What did you
say, Lady Cecilia, to Lady Davenant, as we came out from dinner, about
Mr. Beauclerc?”
“That we expect him to-morrow.”
“You did not tell me so when you wrote!”
“No, my dear.”
“Why pray?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, Lady Cecilia! why should people say they do not know,
when they do know perfectly well?”
“If I had thought it was of any consequence to you, Esther,” said
Cecilia, with an arch look----
“Now you expect me to answer that it was not of the least consequence to
me--that is the answer you would make; but my answer is, that it was of
consequence to me, and you knew it was.”
“And if I did?”
“If you did, why say ‘If I had thought it of any consequence to
you?’--why say so? answer me truly.”
“Answer me truly!” repeated Lady Cecilia, laughing. “Oh, my dear Esther,
we are not in a court of justice.”
“Nor in a court of honour,” pursued Miss Clarendon.
“Well, well! let it be a court of love at least,” said Lady Cecilia.
“What a pretty proverb that was, Helen, that we met with the other day
in that book of old English proverbs--‘Love rules his kingdom without a
sword.’”
“Very likely; but to the point,” said Miss Clarendon, “when do you
expect Mr. Beauclerc?”
“To-morrow.”
“Then I shall go to-morrow!”
“My dear Esther, why?”
“You know why; you know what reports have been spread; it suits neither
my character nor my brother’s to give any foundation for such reports.
Let me ring the bell and I will give my own orders.”
“My dear Esther, but your brother will be so vexed--so surprised.”
“My brother is the best judge of his own conduct, he will do what he
pleases, or what you please. I am the judge of mine, and certainly shall
do what I think right.”
She rang accordingly, and ordered that her carriage should be at the
door at six o’clock in the morning.
“Nay, my dear Esther,” persisted Cecilia, “I wish you would not decide
so suddenly; we were so glad to have you come to us--”
“Glad! why you know--”
“I know,” interrupted Lady Cecilia, colouring, and she began as fast
as possible to urge every argument she could think of to persuade Miss
Clarendon; but no arguments, no entreaties of hers or the general’s,
public or private, were of any avail,--go she would, and go she did at
six o’clock.
“I suppose,” said Helen to Lady Davenant, “that Miss Clarendon is very
estimable, and she seems to be very clever: but I wonder that with all
her abilities she does not learn to make her manners more agreeable.”
“My dear,” said Lady Davenant, “we must take people as they are; you may
graft a rose upon an oak, but those who have tried the experiment tell
us the graft will last but a short time, and the operation ends in the
destruction of both; where the stocks have no common nature, there is
ever a want of conformity which sooner or later proves fatal to both.”
But Beauclerc, what was become of him?--that day passed, and no
Beauclerc; another and another came, and on the third day, only a letter
from him, which ought to have come on Tuesday.--But “_too late_,” the
shameful brand of procrastination was upon it--and it contained only a
few lines blotted in the folding, to say that he could not possibly
be at Clarendon Park on Tuesday, but would on Wednesday or Thursday if
possible.
Good-natured Lord Davenant observed, “When a young man in London,
writing to his friends in the country, names two days for leaving town,
and adds an ‘_if possible_’ his friends should never expect him till the
last of the two named.”
The last of the two days arrived--Thursday. The aide-de-camp asked if
Mr. Beauclerc was expected to-day. “Yes, I expect to see him to-day,”
the general answered.
“I hope, but do not expect,” said Lady Davenant, “for, as learned
authority tells me, ‘to expect is to hope with some degree of
certainty’--”
The general left the room repeating, “I expect him to-day, Cecilia.”
The day passed, however, and he came not--the night came. The general
ordered that the gate should be kept open, and that a servant should
sit up. The servant sat up all night, cursing Mr. Beauclerc. And in the
morning he replied with malicious alacrity to the first question his
master asked, “No, Sir, Mr. Beauclerc is not come.”
At breakfast, the general, after buttering his bread in silence for some
minutes, confessed that he loved punctuality. It might be a military
prejudice;--it might be too professional, martinet perhaps,--but
still he owned he did love punctuality. He considered it as a part
of politeness, a proper attention to the convenience and feelings of
others; indispensable between strangers it is usually felt to be, and he
did not know why intimate friends should deem themselves privileged to
dispense with it.
His eyes met Helen’s as he finished these words, and smiling, he
complimented her upon her constant punctuality. It was a voluntary grace
in a lady, but an imperative duty in a man--and a young man.
“You are fond of this young man, I see general,” said Lord Davenant.
“But not of his fault.”
Lady Cecilia said something about forgiving a first fault.
“Never!” said Lady Davenant. “Lord Collingwood’s rule was--never forgive
a first fault, and you will not have a second. You love Beauclerc, I
see, as Lord Davenant says.”
“Love him!” resumed the general; “with all his faults and follies, I
love him as if he were my brother.”
At which words Lady Cecilia, with a scarcely perceptible smile, cast a
furtive glance at Helen.
The general called for his horses, and, followed by his aide-de-camp,
departed, saying that he should be back at luncheon-time, when he
hoped to find Beauclerc. In the same hope, Lady Davenant ordered
her pony-phaeton earlier than usual; Lady Cecilia further hoped most
earnestly that Beauclerc would come this day, for the next the house
would be full of company, and she really wished to have him one day at
least to themselves, and she gave a most significant glance at Helen.
“The first move often secures the game against the best players,” said
she.
Helen blushed, because she could not help understanding; she was
ashamed, vexed with Cecilia, yet pleased by her kindness, and half
amused by her arch look and tone.
They were neither of them aware that Lady Davenant had heard the words
that passed, or seen the looks; but immediately afterwards, when they
were leaving the breakfast-room, Lady Davenant came between the two
friends, laid her hand upon her daughter’s arm, and said,
“Before you make any move in a dangerous game, listen to the voice of
old experience.”
Lady Cecilia startled, looked up, but as if she did not comprehend.
“Cupid’s bow, my dear,” continued her mother, “is, as the Asiatics tell
us, strung with bees, which are apt to sting--sometimes fatally--those
who meddle with it.”
Lady Cecilia still looked with an innocent air, and still as if she
could not comprehend.
“To speak more plainly, then, Cecilia,” said her mother, “build
no matrimonial castles in the air; standing or falling they do
mischief--mischief either to the builder, or to those for whom they may
be built.”
“Certainly if they fall they disappoint one,” said Lady Cecilia, “but if
they stand?”
Seeing that she made no impression on her daughter, Lady Davenant turned
to Helen, and gravely said,--
“My dear Helen, do not let my daughter inspire you with false, and
perhaps vain imaginations, certainly premature, therefore unbecoming.”
Helen shrunk back, yet instantly looked up, and her look was ingenuously
grateful.
“But, mamma,” said Lady Cecilia, “I declare I do not understand what all
this is about.”
“About Mr. Granville Beauclerc,” said her mother.
“How can you, dear mamma, pronounce his name so _tout an long?_”
“Pardon my indelicacy, my dear; delicacy is a good thing, but truth a
better. I have seen the happiness of many young women sacrificed by such
false delicacy, and by the fear of giving a moment’s present pain, which
it is sometimes the duty of a true friend to give.”
“Certainly, certainly, mamma, only not necessary now; and I am so sorry
you have said all this to poor dear Helen.”
“If you have said nothing to her, Cecilia, I acknowledge I have said too
much.”
“I said--I did nothing,” cried Lady Cecilia; “I built no castles--never
built a regular castle in my life; never had a regular plan in my
existence; never mentioned his name, except about another person--”
An appealing look to Helen was however _protested_.
“To the best of my recollection, at least,” Lady Cecilia immediately
added.
“Helen seems to be blushing for your want of recollection, Cecilia.”
“I am sure I do not know why you blush, Helen. I am certain I never did
say a word distinctly.”
“Not _distinctly_ certainly,” said Helen in a low voice. “It was my
fault if I understood----”
“Always true, you are,” said Lady Davenant.
“I protest I said nothing but the truth,” cried Lady Cecilia hastily.
“But not the whole truth, Cecilia,” said her mother.
“I did, upon my word, mamma,” persisted Lady Cecilia, repeating “upon my
word.”
“Upon your word, Cecilia! that is either a vulgar expletive or a most
serious asseveration.”
She spoke with a grave tone, and with her severe look, and Helen dared
not raise her eyes; Lady Cecilia now coloured deeply.
“Shame! Nature’s hasty conscience,” said Lady Davenant. “Heaven preserve
it!”
“Oh, mother!” cried Lady Cecilia, laying her hand on her mother’s,
“surely you do not think seriously--surely you are not angry--I cannot
bear to see you displeased,” said she, looking up imploringly in her
mother’s face, and softly, urgently pressing her hand. No pressure was
returned; that hand was slowly and with austere composure withdrawn, and
her mother walked away down the corridor to her own room. Lady Cecilia
stood still, and the tears came into her eyes.
“My dear friend, I am exceedingly sorry,” said Helen. She could not
believe that Cecilia meant to say what was not true, yet she felt that
she had been to blame in not telling all, and her mother in saying too
much.
Lady Cecilia, her tears dispersed, stood looking at the impression which
her mother’s signet-ring had left in the palm of her hand. It was at
that moment a disagreeable recollection that the motto of that ring was
“Truth.” Rubbing the impress from her hand, she said, half speaking to
herself, and half to Helen--“I am sure I did not mean anything wrong;
and I am sure nothing can be more true than that I never formed a
regular plan in my life. After all, I am sure that so much has been said
about nothing, that I do not understand anything: I never do, when mamma
goes on in that way, making mountains of molehills, which she always
does with me, and did ever since I was a child; but she really forgets
that I am not a child. Now, it is well the general was not by; he would
never have borne to see his wife so treated. But I would not, for the
world, be the cause of any disagreement. Oh! Helen, my mother does not
know how I love her, let her be ever so severe to me! But she never
loved me; she cannot help it. I believe she does her best to love me--my
poor, dear mother!”
Helen seized this opportunity to repeat the warm expressions she had
heard so lately from Lady Davenant, and melting they sunk into Cecilia’s
heart. She kissed Helen again and again, for a dear, good peacemaker,
as she always was--and “I’m resolved”--but in the midst of her good
resolves she caught a glimpse through the glass door opening on the
park, of the general, and a fine horse they were ringing, and she
hurried out: all light of heart she went, as though
“Or shake the downy _blowball_ from her stalk.”
CHAPTER VII
Since Lord Davenant’s arrival, Lady Davenant’s time was so much taken
up with him, that Helen could not have many opportunities of conversing
with her, and she was the more anxious to seize every one that occurred.
She always watched for the time when Lady Davenant went out in her pony
phaeton, for then she had her delightfully to herself, the carriage
holding only two.
It was at the door, and Lady Davenant was crossing the hall followed by
Helen, when Cecilia came in with a look, unusual in her, of being much
discomfited.
“Another put off from Mr. Beauclerc! He will not be here to-day. I give
him up.”
Lady Davenant stopped short, and asked whether Cecilia had told him that
probably she should soon be gone?
“To be sure I did, mamma.”
“And what reason does he give for his delay?”
“None, mamma, none--not the least apology. He says, very cavalierly
indeed, that he is the worst man in the world at making excuses--shall
attempt none.”
“There he is right” said Lady Davenant. “Those who are good at excuses,
as Franklin justly observed, are apt to be good for nothing else.”
The general came up the steps at this moment, rolling a note between his
fingers, and looking displeased. Lady Davenant inquired if he could tell
her the cause of Mr. Beauclerc’s delay. He could not.
Lady Cecilia exclaimed--“Very extraordinary! Provoking! Insufferable!
Intolerable!”
“It is Mr. Beauclerc’s own affair,” said Lady Davenant, wrapping her
shawl round her; and, taking the general’s arm, she walked on to
her carriage. Seating herself, and gathering up the reins, she
repeated--“Mr. Beauclerc’s own affair, completely.”
The lash of her whip was caught somewhere, and, while the groom
was disentangling it, she reiterated--“That will do: let the horses
go:”--and with half-suppressed impatience thanked Helen, who was
endeavouring to arrange some ill-disposed cloak--“Thank you, thank you,
my dear: it’s all very well. Sit down, Helen.”
She drove off rapidly, through the beautiful park scenery But the
ancient oaks, standing alone, casting vast shadows, the distant massive
woods of magnificent extent and of soft and varied foliage; the secluded
glades, all were lost upon her. Looking straight between her horses’
ears, she drove on in absolute silence.
Helen’s idea of Mr. Beauclerc’s importance increased wonderfully. What
must he be whose coming or not coming could so move all the world, or
those who were all the world to her? And, left to her own cogitations,
she was picturing to herself what manner of man he might be, when
suddenly Lady Davenant turned, and asked what she was thinking of?
“I beg your pardon for startling you so, my dear; I am aware that it
is a dreadfully imprudent, impertinent question--one which, indeed, I
seldom ask. Few interest me sufficiently to make me care of what they
think: from fewer still could I expect to hear the truth. Nay--nothing
upon compulsion, Helen. Only say plainly, if you would rather not tell
me. That answer I should prefer to the ingenious formula of evasion,
the solecism in metaphysics, which Cecilia used the other day, when
unwittingly I asked her of what she was thinking--‘Of a great many
different things, mamma.’”
Helen, still more alarmed by Lady Davenant’s speech than by her
question, and aware of the conclusions which might be drawn from her
answer, nevertheless bravely replied that she had been thinking of Mr.
Beauclerc, of what he might be whose coming or not coming was of such
consequence. As she spoke the expression of Lady Davenant’s countenance
changed.
“Thank you, my dear child, you are truth itself, and truly do I love you
therefore. It’s well that you did not ask me of what I was thinking, for
I am not sure that I could have answered so directly.”
“But I could never have presumed to ask such a question of you,” said
Helen, “there is such a difference.”
“Yes,” replied Lady Davenant; “there is such a difference as age and
authority require to be made, but nevertheless, such as is not quite
consistent with the equal rights of friendship. You have told me the
subject of your day-dream, my love, and if you please, I will tell you
the subject of mine. I was rapt into times long past: I was living over
again some early scenes--some which are connected, and which connect me,
in a curious manner, with this young man, Mr. Granville Beauclerc.”
She seemed to speak with some difficulty, and yet to be resolved to go
on. “Helen, I have a mind,” continued she, “to tell you what, in the
language of affected autobiographers, I might call ‘some passages of my
life.’”
Helen’s eyes brightened, as she eagerly thanked her: but hearing a
half-suppressed sigh, she added--“Not if it is painful to you though, my
dear Lady Davenant.”
“Painful it must be,” she replied, “but it may be useful to you; and a
weak friend is that who can do only what is pleasurable. You have
often trusted me with those little inmost feelings of the heart, which,
however innocent, we shrink from exposing to any but the friends we most
love; it is unjust and absurd of those advancing in years to expect of
the young that confidence should come all and only on their side: the
human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in
return.”
Lady Davenant paused again, and then said,--“It is a general opinion,
that nobody is the better for advice.”
“I am sure I do not think so,” said Helen.
“I am glad you do not; nor do I. Much depends upon the way in which it
is offered. General maxims, drawn from experience, are, to the young at
least, but as remarks--moral sentences--mere dead letter, and take no
hold of the mind. ‘I have felt’ must come before ‘I think,’ especially
in speaking to a young friend, and, though I am accused of being so
fond of generalising that I never come to particulars, I can and will:
therefore, my dear, I will tell you some particulars of my life, in
which, take notice, there are no adventures. Mine has been a life of
passion--of feeling, at least,--not of incidents: nothing, my dear, to
excite or to gratify curiosity.”
“But, independent of all curiosity about events,” said Helen, “there
is such an interest in knowing what has been really felt and thought in
their former lives by those we know and love.”
“I shall sink in your esteem,” said Lady Davenant--“so be it.”
“I need not begin, as most people do, with ‘I was born’--” but,
interrupting herself, she said, “this heat is too much for me.”
They turned into a long shady drive through the woods. Lady Davenant
drew up the reins, and her ponies walked slowly on the grassy road;
then, turning to Helen, she said:--
“It would have been well for me if any friend had, when I was of your
age, put me on my guard against my own heart: but my too indulgent, too
sanguine mother, led me into the very danger against which she should
have warned me--she misled me, though without being aware of it. Our
minds, our very natures differed strangely.
“She was a castle-builder--yes, now you know, my dear, why I spoke so
strongly, and, as you thought, so severely this morning. My mother was
a castle-builder of the ordinary sort: a worldly plan of a castle was
hers, and little care had she about the knight within; yet she
had sufficient tact to know that it must be the idea of the _preux
chevalier_ that would lure her daughter into the castle. Prudent for
herself, imprudent for me, and yet she loved me--all she did was for
love of me. She managed with so much address, that I had no suspicion
of my being the subject of any speculation--otherwise, probably, my
imagination might have revolted, my self-will have struggled, my pride
have interfered, or my delicacy might have been alarmed, but nothing of
all that happened; I was only too ready, too glad to believe all that I
was told, all that appeared in that spring-time of hope and love. I was
very romantic, not in the modern fashionable young-lady sense of the
word, with the mixed ideas of a shepherdess’s hat and the paraphernalia
of a peeress--love in a cottage, and a fashionable house in town. No;
mine was honest, pure, real romantic love--absurd if you will; it was
love nursed by imagination more than by hope. I had early, in my
secret soul, as perhaps you have at this instant in yours, a pattern of
perfection--something chivalrous, noble, something that is no longer to
be seen now-a-days--the more delightful to imagine, the moral
sublime and beautiful; more than human, yet with the extreme of human
tenderness. Mine was to be a demigod whom I could worship, a husband to
whom I could always look up, with whom I could always sympathise, and to
whom I could devote myself with all a woman’s self-devotion. I had then
a vast idea--as I think you have now, Helen--of self-devotion; you would
devote yourself to your friends, but I could not shape any of my friends
into a fit object. So after my own imagination I made one, dwelt upon
it, doated on it, and at last threw this bright image of my own
fancy full upon the being to whom I thought I was most happily
destined--destined by duty, chosen by affection. The words ‘I love you’
once pronounced, I gave my whole heart in return, gave it, sanctified,
as I felt, by religion. I had high religious sentiments; a vow once
passed the lips, a look, a single look of appeal to Heaven, was as much
for me as if pronounced at the altar, and before thousands to witness.
Some time was to elapse before the celebration of our marriage.
Protracted engagements are unwise, yet I should not say so; this gave me
time to open my eyes--my bewitched eyes: still, some months I passed
in a trance of beatification, with visions of duties all
performed--benevolence universal, and gratitude, and high success, and
crowns of laurel, for my hero, for he was military; it all joined well
in my fancy. All the pictured tales of vast heroic deeds were to be his.
Living, I was to live in the radiance of his honour; or dying, to die
with him, and then to be most blessed.
“It is all to me now as a dream, long passed, and never told; no, never,
except to him who had a right to know it--my husband, and now to you,
Helen. From my dream I was awakened by a rude shock--I saw, I thank
Heaven I first, and I alone, saw that his heart was gone from me--that
his heart had never been mine--that it was unworthy of me. No, I
will not say that; I will not think so. Still I trust he had deceived
himself, though not so much as he deceived me. I am willing to believe
he did not know that what he professed for me was not love, till he was
seized by that passion for another, a younger, fairer----Oh! how much
fairer. Beauty is a great gift of Heaven--not for the purposes of female
vanity; but a great gift for one who loves, and wishes to be loved. But
beauty I had not.”
“Had not!” interrupted Helen, “I always heard----”
“_He_ did not think so, my dear; no matter what others thought, at least
so I felt at that time. My identity is so much changed that I can look
back upon this now, and tell it all to you calmly.
“It was at a rehearsal of ancient music; I went there accidentally one
morning without my mother, with a certain old duchess and her daughters;
the dowager full of some Indian screen which she was going to buy; the
daughters, intent, one of them, on a quarrel between two of the singers;
the other upon loves and hates of her own. I was the only one of the
party who had any real taste for music. I was then particularly fond of
it.
“Well, my dear, I must come to the point,” her voice changing as she
spoke.--“After such a lapse of time, during which my mind, my whole self
has so changed, I could not have believed before I began to speak on
this subject, that these reminiscences could have so moved me; but it is
merely this sudden wakening of ideas long dormant, for years not called
up, never put into words.
“I was sitting, wrapt in a silent ecstasy of pleasure, leaning back
behind the whispering party, when I saw him come in, and, thinking only
of his sharing my delight, I made an effort to catch his attention, but
he did not see me--his eye was fixed on another; I followed that eye,
and saw that most beautiful creature on which it fixed; I saw him seat
himself beside her--one look was enough--it was conviction. A pang went
through me; I grew cold, but made no sound nor motion; I gasped for
breath, I believe, but I did not faint. None cared for me; I was
unnoticed--saved from the abasement of pity. I struggled to retain
my self-command, and was enabled to complete the purpose on which I
then--even _then_, resolved. That resolve gave me force.
“In any great emotion we can speak better to those who do not care for
us than to those who feel for us. More calmly than I now speak to you, I
turned to the person who then sat beside me, to the dowager whose heart
was in the Indian screen, and begged that I might not longer detain her,
as I wished that she would carry me home--she readily complied: I had
presence of mind enough to move when we could do so without attracting
attention. It was well that woman talked as she did all the way home;
she never saw, never suspected, the agony of her to whom she spoke. I
ran up to my own room, bolted the door, and threw myself into a chair;
that is the last thing I remember, till I found myself lying on the
floor, wakening from a state of insensibility. I know not what time had
elapsed; so as soon as I could I rang for my maid; she had knocked at my
door, and, supposing I slept, had not disturbed me--my mother, I found,
had not yet returned.
“I dressed for dinner: HE was to dine with us. It was my custom to see
him for a few minutes before the rest of the company arrived. No time
ever appeared to me so dreadfully long as the interval between my being
dressed that day and his arrival.
“I heard him coming up stairs: my heart beat so violently that I feared
I should not be able to speak with dignity and composure, but the motive
was sufficient.
“What I said I know not; I am certain only that it was without one
word of reproach. What I had at one glance foreboded was true--he
acknowledged it. I released him from all engagement to me. I saw he was
evidently relieved by the determined tone of my refusal--at what expense
to my heart he was set free, he saw not--never knew--never suspected.
But after that first involuntary expression of the pleasure of relief, I
saw in his countenance surprise, a sort of mortified astonishment at my
self-possession. I own my woman’s pride enjoyed this; it was something
better than pride--the sense of the preservation of my dignity. I felt
that in this shipwreck of my happiness I made no cowardly exposure of my
feelings, but he did not understand me. Our minds, as I now found, moved
in different orbits. We could not comprehend each other. Instead of
feeling, as the instinct of generosity would have taught him to feel,
that I was sacrificing my happiness to his, he told me that he now
believed I had never loved him. My eyes were opened--I saw him at once
as he really was. The ungenerous look upon self-devotion as madness,
folly, or art: he could not think me a fool, he did not think me mad,
artful I believe he did suspect me to be; he concluded that I made
the discovery of his inconstancy an excuse for my own; he thought me,
perhaps, worse than capricious, interested--for, our engagement being
unknown, a lover of higher rank had, in the interval, presented himself.
My perception of this base suspicion was useful to me at the moment, as
it roused my spirit, and I went through the better, and without relapse
of tenderness, with that which I had undertaken. One condition only I
made; I insisted that this explanation should rest between us two;
that, in fact, and in manner, the breaking off the match should be left
entirely to me. And to this part of the business I now look back with
satisfaction, and I have honest pride in telling you, who will feel
the same for me, that I practised in the whole conduct of the affair no
deceit of any kind, not one falsehood was told. The world knew nothing;
there my mother had been prudent. She was the only person to whom I was
bound to explain--to speak, I mean, for I did not feel myself bound
to explain. Perfect confidence only can command perfect confidence in
whatever relation of life. I told her all that she had a right to know.
I announced to her that the intended marriage could never be--that I
objected to it; that both our minds were changed; that we were both
satisfied in having released each other from our mutual engagement.
I had, as I foresaw, to endure my mother’s anger, her entreaties, her
endless surprise, her bitter disappointment; but she exhausted all
these, and her mind turned sooner than I had expected to that hope of
higher establishment which amused her during the rest of the season in
London. Two months of it were still to be passed--to me the two most
painful months of my existence. The daily, nightly, effort of appearing
in public, while I was thus wretched, in the full gala of life in the
midst of the young, the gay, the happy--broken-hearted as I felt--it was
an effort beyond my strength. That summer was, I remember, intolerably
hot. Whenever my mother observed that I looked pale, and that my spirits
were not so good as formerly, I exerted myself more and more; accepted
every invitation because I dared not refuse; I danced at this ball,
and the next, and the next; urged on, I finished to the dregs the
dissipation of the season.
“My mother certainly made me do dreadfully too much. But I blame
others, as we usually do when we are ourselves the most to blame--I had
attempted that which could not be done. By suppressing all outward sign
of suffering, allowing no vent for sorrow in words or tears--by actual
force of compression--I thought at once to extinguish my feelings.
Little did I know of the human heart when I thought this! The weak are
wise in yielding to the first shock. They cannot be struck to the
earth who sink prostrate; sorrow has little power where there is no
resistance.--‘The flesh will follow where the pincers tear.’ Mine was a
presumptuous--it had nearly been a fatal struggle. That London season at
last over, we got into the country; I expected rest, but found none. The
pressing necessity for exertion over, the stimulus ceasing, I sunk--sunk
into a state of apathy. Time enough had elapsed between the breaking off
of my marriage and the appearance of this illness, to prevent any ideas
on my mother’s part of cause and effect, ideas indeed which were never
much looked for, or well joined in her mind. The world knew nothing of
the matter. My illness went under the convenient head ‘nervous.’ I heard
all the opinions pronounced on my case, and knew they were all mistaken,
but I swallowed whatever they pleased. No physician, I repeated to
myself, can ‘minister to a mind diseased.’
“I tried to call religion to my aid; but my religious sentiments were,
at that time, tinctured with the enthusiasm of my early character. Had I
been a Catholic, I should have escaped from my friends and thrown myself
into a cloister; as it was, I had formed a strong wish to retire from
that world which was no longer anything to me: the spring of passion,
which I then thought the spring of life, being broken, I meditated my
resolution secretly and perpetually as I lay on my bed. They used to
read to me, and, among other things, some papers of ‘The Rambler,’ which
I liked not at all; its tripod sentences tired my ear, but I let them go
on--as well one sound as another.
“It chanced that one night, as I was going to sleep, an eastern story in
‘The Rambler,’ was read to me, about some man, a-weary of the world, who
took to the peaceful hermitage. There was a regular moral tagged to the
end of it, a thing I hate, the words were, ‘No life pleasing to God that
is not useful to man.’ When I wakened in the middle of that night, this
sentence was before my eyes, and the words seemed to repeat themselves
over and over again to my ears when I was sinking to sleep. The
impression remained in my mind, and though I never voluntarily recurred
to it, came out long afterwards, perfectly fresh, and became a motive of
action.
“Strange, mysterious connection between mind and body; in mere animal
nature we see the same. The bird wakened from his sleep to be taught a
tune sung to him in the dark, and left to sleep again,--the impression
rests buried within him, and weeks afterward he comes out with the
tune perfect. But these are only phenomena of memory--mine was more
extraordinary. I am not sure that I can explain it to you. In my weak
state, my understanding enfeebled as much as my body--my reason weaker
than my memory, I could not help allowing myself to think that the
constant repetition of that sentence was a warning sent to me from
above. As I grew stronger, the superstition died away, but the sense of
the thing still remained with me. It led me to examine and reflect. It
did more than all my mother’s entreaties could effect. I had refused to
see any human creature, but I now consented to admit a few. The charm
was broken. I gave up my longing for solitude, my plan of retreat from
the world; suffered myself to be carried where they pleased--to Brighton
it was--to my mother’s satisfaction. I was ready to appear in the ranks
of fashion at the opening of the next London campaign. Automatically
I ‘ran my female exercises o’er’ with as good grace as ever. I had
followers and proposals; but my mother was again thrown into despair
by what she called the short work I made with my admirers, scarcely
allowing decent time for their turning into lovers before I warned them
not to think of me. I have heard that women who have suffered from man’s
inconstancy are disposed afterwards to revenge themselves by inflicting
pain such as they have themselves endured, and delight in all the
cruelty of coquetry. It was not so with me. Mine was too deep a
wound--skinned over--not callous, and all danger of its opening again I
dreaded. I had lovers the more, perhaps, because I cared not for
them; till amongst them there came one who, as I saw, appreciated my
character, and, as I perceived, was becoming seriously attached. To
prevent danger to his happiness, as he would take no other warning,
I revealed to him the state of my mind. However humiliating the
confession, I thought it due to him. I told him that I had no heart
to give--that I had received none in return for that with which I had
parted, and that love was over with me.
“‘As a passion, it may be so, not as an affection,’ was his reply.
“The words opened to me a view of his character. I saw, too, by his love
increasing with his esteem, the solidity of his understanding, and the
nobleness of his nature. He went deeper and deeper into my mind, till he
came to a spring of gratitude, which rose and overflowed, vivifying and
fertilising the seemingly barren waste. I believe it to be true that,
after the first great misfortune, persons never return to be the same
that they were before, but this I know--and this it is important you
should be convinced of, my dear Helen--that the mind, though sorely
smitten, can recover its powers. A mind, I mean, sustained by good
principles, and by them made capable of persevering efforts for its
own recovery. It may be sure of regaining, in time--observe, I say in
time--its healthful tone.
“Time was given to me by that kind, that noble being, who devoted
himself to me with a passion which I could not return--but, with such
affection as I could give, and which he assured me would make his
happiness, I determined to devote to him the whole of my future
existence. Happiness for me, I thought, was gone, except in so far as I
could make him happy.
“I married Lord Davenant--much against my mother’s wish, for he was then
the younger of three brothers, and with a younger brother’s very small
portion. Had it been a more splendid match, I do not think I could have
been prevailed on to give my consent. I could not have been sure of
my own motives, or rather my pride would not have been clear as to the
opinion which others might form. This was a weakness, for in acting we
ought to depend upon ourselves, and not to look for the praise or blame
of others; but I let you see me as I am, or as I was: I do not insist,
like Queen Elizabeth, in having my portrait without shade.”
CHAPTER VIII.
“I am proud to tell you, that at the time I married we were so poor,
that I was obliged to give up many of those luxuries to which I was
entitled, and to which I had been so accustomed, that the doing without
them had till then hardly come within my idea of possibility. Our whole
establishment was on the most humble scale.
“I look back to this period of my life with the greatest satisfaction.
I had exquisite pleasure, like all young people of sanguine temperament
and generous disposition, in the consciousness of the capability of
making sacrifices. This notion was my idol, the idol of the inmost
sanctuary of my mind, and I worshipped it with all the energies of body
and soul.
“In the course of a few years, my husband’s two elder brothers died. If
you have any curiosity to know how, I will tell you, though indeed it
is as little to the purpose as half the things people tell in their
histories. The eldest, a homebred lordling, who, from the moment he
slipped his mother’s apron-strings, had fallen into folly, and then, to
show himself manly, run into vice, lost his life in a duel about some
lady’s crooked thumb, or more crooked mind.
“The second brother distinguished himself in the navy; he died the death
of honour; he fell gloriously, and was by his country honoured--by his
country mourned.
“After the death of this young man, the inheritance came to my husband.
Fortune soon after poured in upon us a tide of wealth, swelled by
collateral streams.
“You will wish to know what effect this change of circumstances produced
upon my mind, and you shall, as far as I know it myself. I fancied that
it would have made none, because I had been before accustomed to all
the trappings of wealth; yet it did make a greater change in my feelings
than you could have imagined, or I could have conceived. The possibility
of producing a great effect in society, of playing a distinguished part,
and attaining an eminence which pleased my fancy, had never till now
been within my reach. The incense of fame had been wafted near me,
but not to me--near my husband I mean, yet not to him; I had heard his
brother’s name from the trumpet of fame, I longed to hear his own. I
knew, what to the world was then unknown, his great talents for civil
business, which, if urged into action, might make him distinguished as a
statesman even beyond his hero brother, but I knew that in him ambition,
if it ever awoke, must be awakened by love. Conscious of my influence, I
determined to use it to the utmost.
“Lord Davenant had not at that time taken any part in politics, but from
his connections he could ask and obtain; and there was one in the world
for whom I desired to obtain a favour of importance. It chanced that he,
whom I have mentioned to you as my inconstant lover, now married to
my lovely rival, was at this time in some difficulty about a command
abroad. His connections, though of very high rank were not now in power.
He had failed in some military exploit which had formerly been intrusted
to him. He was anxious to retrieve his character; his credit, his whole
fate in life, depended on his obtaining this appointment, which, at my
request, was secured to him by Lord Davenant. The day it was obtained
was, I think, the proudest of my life. I was proud of returning good for
evil; that was a Christian pride, if pride can be Christian. I was proud
of showing that in me there was none of the fury of a woman scorned--no
sense of the injury of charms despised.
“But it was not yet the fulness of success; it had pained me in the
midst of my internal triumph, that my husband had been obliged to use
intermediate powers to obtain that which I should have desired should
have been obtained by his own. Why should not he be in that first place
of rule? He could hold the balance with a hand as firm, an eye as just.
That he should be in the House of Peers was little satisfaction to me,
unless distinguished among his peers. It was this distinction that I
burned to see obtained by Lord Davenant; I urged him forward then by all
the motives which make ambition virtue. He was averse from public life,
partly from indolence of temper, partly from sound philosophy: power was
low in the scale in his estimate of human happiness; he saw how little
can be effected of real good in public by any individual; he felt
it scarcely worth his while to stir from his easy chair of domestic
happiness. However, love urged him on, and inspired him, if not with
ambition, at least with what looked like it in public. He entered the
lists, and in the political tournament tilted successfully. Many were
astonished, for, till they came against him in the joust, they had
no notion of his weight, or of his skill in arms; and many seriously
inclined to believe that Lord Davenant was only Lady Davenant in
disguise, and all he said, wrote, and did, was attributed to me. Envy
gratifies herself continually by thus shifting the merit from one person
to another; in hopes that the actual quantity may be diminished, she
tries to make out that it is never the real person, but somebody else
who does that which is good. This silly, base propensity might have cost
me dear, would have cost me my husband’s affections, had he not been a
man, as there are few, above all jealousy of female influence or female
talent; in short, he knew his own superiority, and needed not to measure
himself to prove his height. He is quite content, rather glad, that
every body should set him down as a common-place character. Far from
being jealous of his wife’s ruling him, he was amused by the notion: it
flattered his pride, and it was convenient to his indolence; it fell in,
too, with his peculiar humour. The more I retired, the more I was put
forward, he, laughing behind me, prompted and forbade me to look back.
“Now, Helen, I am come to a point where ambition ceased to be virtue.
But why should I tell you all this? no one is ever the better for the
experience of another.”
“Oh! I cannot believe that,” cried Helen; “pray, pray go on.”
“Ambition first rose in my mind from the ashes of another passion. Fresh
materials, of heterogeneous kinds, altered the colour, and changed the
nature of the flame: I should have told you, but narrative is not my
forte--I never can remember to tell things in their right order. I
forgot to tell you, that when Madame de Staël’s book, ‘Sur la Revolution
Française,’ came out, it made an extraordinary impression upon me. I
turned, in the first place, as every body did, eagerly to the chapter
on England, but, though my national feelings were gratified, my female
pride was dreadfully mortified by what she says of the ladies of
England; in fact, she could not judge of them. They were afraid of her.
They would not come out of their shells. What she called timidity, and
what I am sure she longed to call stupidity, was the silence of overawed
admiration, or mixed curiosity and discretion. Those who did venture,
had not full possession of their powers, or in a hurry showed them in
a wrong direction. She saw none of them in their natural state. She
asserts that, though there may be women distinguished as writers in
England, there are no ladies who have any great conversational and
political influence in society, of that kind which, during _l’ancien
régime_, was obtained in France by what they would call their _femmes
marquantes_, such as Madame de Tencin, Madame du Deffand, Mademoiselle
de l’Espinasse. This remark stung me to the quick, for my country and
for myself, and raised in me a foolish, vain-glorious emulation, an
ambition false in its objects, and unsuited to the manners, domestic
habits, and public virtue of our country. I ought to have been gratified
by her observing, that a lady is never to be met with in England, as
formerly in France, at the Bureau du Ministre; and that in England there
has never been any example of a woman’s having known in public
affairs, or at least told, what ought to have been kept secret.
Between ourselves, I suspect she was a little mistaken in some of these
assertions; but, be that as it may, I determined to prove that she
was mistaken; I was conscious that I had more within me than I had yet
brought out; I did not doubt that I had eloquence, if I had but courage
to produce it. It is really astonishing what a mischievous effect
those few passages produced on my mind. In London, one book drives out
another, one impression, however deep, is effaced by the next shaking
of the sand; but I was then in the country, for, unluckily for me, Lord
Davenant had been sent away on some special embassy. Left alone with my
nonsense, I set about, as soon as I was able, to assemble an audience
round me, to exhibit myself in the character of a female politician, and
I believe I had a notion at the same time of being the English Corinne.
Rochefoucault, the dexterous anatomist of self-love, says that we
confess our small faults, to persuade the world that we have no large
ones. But, for my part, I feel that there are some small faults more
difficult to me to confess than any large ones. Affectation, for
instance; it is something so little, so paltry, it is more than a crime,
it is a ridicule: I believe I did make myself completely ridiculous; I
am glad Lord Davenant was not by, it lasted but a short time. Our dear
good friend Dumont (you knew Dumont at Florence?) could not bear to see
it; his regard for Lord Davenant urged him the more to disenchant
me, and bring me back, before his return, to my natural form. The
disenchantment was rather rude.
“One evening, after I had been snuffing up incense till I was quite
intoxicated, when my votaries had departed, and we were alone together,
I said to him, ‘Allow that this is what would be called at Paris, _un
grand succés_.’
“Dumont made no reply, but stood opposite to me playing in his peculiar
manner with his great snuff-box, slowly swaying the snuff from side to
side. Knowing this to be a sign that he was in some great dilemma, I
asked of what he was thinking. ‘Of you,’ said he. ‘And what of me?’ In
his French accent he repeated those two provoking lines--
‘New wit, like wine, intoxicates the brain,
Too strong for feeble women to sustain.’
“‘To my face?’ said I, smiling, for I tried to command my temper.
“‘Better than behind your back, as others do,’ said he.
“‘Behind my back!’ said I; ‘impossible.’
“‘Perfectly possible,’ said he, ‘as I could prove if you were strong
enough to bear it.’
“‘Quite strong enough,’ I said, and bade him speak on.
“‘Suppose you were offered,’ said he, ‘the fairy-ring that rendered the
possessor invisible, and enabled him to hear every thing that was said,
and all that was thought of him, would you throw it away, or put it on
your finger?’
“‘Put it on my finger,’ I replied; ‘and this instant, for a true friend
is better than a magic ring, I put it on.’
“‘You are very brave,’ said he, ‘then you shall hear the lines I heard
in a rival salon, repeated by him who last wafted the censer to you
to-night.’ He repeated a kind of doggrel pasquinade, beginning with--
‘Tell me, gentles, have you seen,
The prating she, the mock Corinne?’
“Dumont, who had the courage for my good to inflict the blow, could
not stay to see its effect, and this time I was left alone, not with my
nonsense, but with my reason. It was quite sufficient. I was cured. My
only consolation in my disgrace was, that I honourably kept Dumont’s
counsel. The friend who composed the lampoon, from that day to this
never knew that I had heard it; though I must own I often longed to
tell him, when he was offering his incense again, that I wished he would
reverse his practice, and let us have the satire in my presence, and
keep the flattery for my absence. The graft of affectation, which was
but a poor weak thing, fell off at once, but the root of the evil had
not yet been reached. My friend Dumont had not cut deep enough, or
perhaps feared to cut away too much that was sound and essential to
life: my political ambition remained, and on Lord Davenant’s return
sprang up in full vigour.
“Now it is all over, I can analyse and understand my own motives: when
I first began my political course, I really and truly had no love for
power; full of other feelings, I was averse from it; it was absolutely
disagreeable to me; but as people acquire a taste for drams after making
faces at first swallowing, so I, from experience of the excitation,
acquired the habit, the love, of this mental dram-drinking; besides, I
had such delightful excuses for myself: I didn’t love power for its own
sake, it was never used for myself, always for others; ever with my old
principle of sacrifice in full play: this flattering unction I laid to
my soul, and it long hid from me its weakness, its gradual corruption.
“The first instance in which I used my influence, and by my husband’s
intervention obtained a favour of some importance, the thing done,
though actually obtained by private favour, was in a public point of
view well done and fit to be done; but when in time Lord Davenant had
reached that eminence which had been the summit of my ambition, and when
once it was known that I had influence (and in making it known between
jest and earnest Lord Davenant was certainly to blame), numbers of
course were eager to avail themselves of the discovery, swarms born in
the noontide ray, or such as salute the rising morn, buzzed round me.
I was good-natured and glad to do the service, and proud to show that I
could do it. I thought I had some right to share with Lord Davenant,
at least, the honour and pleasures of patronage, and so he willingly
allowed it to be, as long as my objects were well chosen, though he
said to me once with a serious smile, ‘The patronage of Europe would not
satisfy you; you would want India, and if you had India, you would sigh
for the New World.’ I only laughed, and said ‘The same thought as Lord
Chesterfield’s, only more neatly put.’ ‘If all Ireland were given to
such a one for his patrimony, he’d ask for the Isle of Man for his
cabbage-garden.’ Lord Davenant did not smile. I felt a little alarmed,
and a feeling of estrangement began between us.
“I recollect one day his seeing a note on my table from one of my
_protegés_, thanking me outrageously, and extolling my very obliging
disposition. He read, and threw it down, and with one of his dry-humour
smiles repeated, half to himself,
And so obliging that she ne’er obliged.’
“I thought these lines were in the Characters of Women, and I hunted all
through them in vain; at last I found them in the character of a man,
which could not suit me, and I was pacified, and, what is extraordinary,
my conscience quite put at ease.
“The week afterwards I went to make some request for a friend: my little
boy--for I had a dear little boy then--had come in along with mamma.
Lord Davenant complied with my request, but unwillingly I saw, and as if
he felt it a weakness; and, putting his hand upon the curly-pated little
fellow’s head, he said, ‘This boy rules Greece, I see.’ The child was
sent for the Grecian history, his father took him on his knee, while
he read the anecdote, and as he ended he whispered in the child’s ear,
‘Tell mamma this must not be; papa should be ruled only by justice.’ He
really had public virtue, I only talked of it.
“After this you will wonder that I could go on, but I did.
“I had at that time a friend, who talked always most romantically,
and acted most selfishly, and for some time I never noticed the
inconsistency between her words and actions. In fact she had two
currents in her mind, two selves, one romantic from books, the other
selfish from worldly education and love of fashion, and of the goods of
this world. She had charming manners, which I thought went for nothing
with me, but which I found stood for every thing. In short, she was as
caressing, as graceful, in her little ways, and as selfish as a cat. She
had claws too, but at first I only felt the velvet.
“It was for this woman that I hazarded my highest happiness--my
husband’s esteem, and for the most paltry object imaginable. She wanted
some petty place for some man who was to marry her favourite maid. When
I first mentioned it to him, Lord Davenant coldly said, ‘It can’t be
done,’ and his pen went on very quickly with the letter he was writing.
Vexed and ashamed, and the more vexed because ashamed, I persisted.
‘Cannot be done for _me_?’ said I. ‘Not for anybody,’ said he--‘by me,
at least.’--I thought--Helen, I am ashamed to tell you what I thought;
but I will tell it you, because it will show you how a mind may be
debased by the love of power, or rather by the consequence which its
possession bestows. I thought he meant to point out to me that, although
he would not do it, I might _get it done_. And, speaking as if to
myself, I said, ‘Then I’ll go to such a person; then I’ll use such and
such ways and means.’
“Looking up from his writing at me, with a look such as I had never
seen from him before, he replied, in the words of a celebrated minister,
_‘C’est facile de se servir de pareils moyens, c’est difficile de s’y
resoudre.’_
“I admired him, despised myself, left the room, and went and told my
friend decidedly it could not be done. That instant, she became my
enemy, and I felt her claws. I was proud of the wounds, and showed them
to my husband. Now, Helen, you think I am cured for ever, and safe.
Alas! no, my dear, it is not so easy to cure habit. I have, however,
some excuse--let me put it forward; the person for whom I again
transgressed was my mother, and for her I was proud of doing the utmost,
because she had, as I could not forget, been ready to sacrifice my
happiness to her speculations. She had left off building castles in the
air, but she had outbuilt herself on earth. She had often recourse to me
in her difficulties, and I supplied funds, as well I might, for I had a
most liberal allowance from my most liberal lord; but schemes of my
own, very patriotic but not overwise, had in process of time drained
my purse. I had a school at Cecilhurst, and a lace manufactory; and to
teach my little girls I must needs bring over lace-makers from Flanders,
and Lisle thread, at an enormous expense: I shut my lace-makers up in a
room (for secrecy was necessary), where, like spiders, they quarrelled
with each other and fought, and the whole failed.
“Another scheme, very patriotic too, cost me an immensity: trying to
make Indian cachemires in England, very beautiful they were, but they
left not the tenth part of a penny in my private purse, and then my
mother wanted some thousands for a new dairy; dairies were then the
fashion, and hers was to be floored with the finest Dutch tiles,
furnished with Sevre china, with plate glass windows, and a porch hung
with French mirrors; so she set me to represent to Lord Davenant her
very distressed situation, and to present a petition from her for a
pension. The first time I urged my mother’s request, Lord Davenant said,
‘I am sure, Anne, that you do not know what you are asking.’ I desisted.
I did not indeed well understand the business, nor at all comprehend
that I was assisting a fraudulent attempt to obtain public money for a
private purpose, but I wished to have the triumph of success, I wished
to feel my own influence.
“Had it been foretold to me that I could so forget myself in the
intoxication of political power, how I should have disdained the
prophecy--‘Lord, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’
There is a fine sermon of Blair’s on this subject; it had early made a
great impression upon me; but what are good impressions, good feelings,
good impulses, good intentions, good any thing, without principle?
“My mother wondered how I could so easily take a refusal; she piqued
my pride by observing that she was sorry my influence had declined; her
pity, so near contempt, wounded me, and I unadvisedly exclaimed that my
influence had in no way declined. Scarcely had I uttered the words, when
I saw the inference to which they laid me open, that I had not used
my influence to the utmost for her. My mother had quite sense and just
feeling enough to refrain from marking this in words. She noted it
only by an observing look, followed by a sigh. She confessed that I had
always been so kind, so much kinder than she could have expected, that
she would say no more. This was more to the purpose with me than if
she had talked for hours. I heard fresh sighs, and saw tears begin to
flow--a mother’s sighs and tears it is difficult, and I felt it was
shameful, to bear. I was partly melted, much confused, and hurried, too,
by visitors coming in, and I hastily promised that I would try once more
what I could do. The moment I had time for reflection I repented of what
I had promised. But the words were past recall. It was so disagreeable
to me to speak about the affair to my husband, that I wanted to get it
off my mind as soon as possible, but the day passed without my being
able to find a moment when I could speak to Lord Davenant in private.
Company stayed till late, my mother the latest. At parting, as she
kissed me, calling me her dearest Anne, she said she was convinced I
could do whatever I pleased with Lord Davenant, and as she was going
down stairs, added, she was sure the first words she should hear from me
in the morning would be ‘Victory, victory!’
“I hated myself for admitting the thought, and yet there it was; I let
it in, and could not get it out. From what an indescribable mixture of
weak motives or impulses, and often without one reasonable principle, do
we act in the most important moments of life. Even as I opened the door
of his room I hesitated, my heart beat forebodingly, but I thought I
could not retreat, and I went in.
“He was standing on the hearth looking weary, but a reviving smile came
on seeing me, and he held out his hand--‘My comfort always,’ said he.
“I took his hand, and, hesitating, was again my better self; but I would
not go back, nor could I begin with any preface.--Thank Heaven that was
impossible. I began:--
“‘Davenant, I am come to ask you a favour, and you must do it for me.’
“‘I hope it is in my power, my dear,’ said he; ‘I am sure you would not
ask--’ and there he stopped.
“I told him it was in his power, and that I would not ask it for any
creature living, but--’ He put his hand upon my lips, told me he knew
what I was going to say, and begged me not to say it; but I, hoping to
carry it off playfully, kissed his hand, and putting it aside said, ‘I
must ask, and you must grant this to my mother.’ He replied, ‘It cannot
be, Anne, consistently with public justice, and with my public duty.
I--’
“‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ I said, ‘such words are only to mask a refusal.’
_Mask_, I remember, was the word that hurt him. Of all I could have
used, it was the worst: I knew it the instant I had said it. Lord
Davenant stepped back, and with such a look! You, Helen, who have seen
only his benign countenance, his smiling eyes, cannot conceive it. I am
sure he must have seen how much it alarmed me, for suddenly it changed,
and I saw all the melting softness of love.
“Oh fool! vain wicked fool that I was! I thought of ‘victory,’ and
pursued it. My utmost power of persuasion--words--smiles--and tears I
tried--and tried in vain; and then I could not bear to feel that I had
in vain made this trial of power and love. Shame and pride and
anger seized me by turns, and raised such a storm within me--such
confusion--that I knew not what I did or said. And he was so calm!
looked so at least, though I am sure he was not. His self-possession
piqued and provoked me past all bearing. I cannot tell you exactly
how it was--it was so dreadfully interesting to me that I am unable to
recall the exact words; but I remember at last hearing him say, in a
voice I had never before heard, ‘Lady Davenant!’--He had never called
me so before; he had always called me ‘Anne:’ it seemed as if he had
dismissed me from his heart.
“‘Call me Anne! O call me Anne!’
“And he yielded instantly, he called me Anne, and caressing me, ‘his
Anne.’ ‘O Helen! never do as I did.’ I whispered, ‘Then, my love, you
will do this for me--for me, your own Anne?’
“He put me gently away, and leaned against the chimney-piece in silence.
Then turning to me, in a low suppressed voice, he said,--
“‘I have loved you--love you as much as man can love woman, there is
nothing I would not sacrifice for you except--’
“‘No exceptions!’ cried I, in an affected tone of gaiety.
“‘Except honour,’ he repeated firmly.--Helen, my dear, you are of a
generous nature, so am I, but the demon of pride was within me, it made
me long to try the extent of my power. Disappointed, I sunk to meanness;
never, never, however tempted, however provoked, never do as I did,
never reproach a friend with any sacrifice you have made for them; this
is a meanness which your friend may forgive, but which you can never
forgive yourself.
“I reproached him with the sacrifice of my feelings, which I had made
in marrying him! His answer was, ‘I feel that what you say is true, I
am now convinced you are incapable of loving me; and since I cannot make
you happy, we had better--part.’
“These were the last words I heard. The blow was wholly unexpected.
“Whether I sunk down, or threw myself at his feet, I know not; but when
I came to myself he was standing beside me. There were other faces, but
my eyes saw only his: I felt his hand holding mine, I pressed it, and
said, ‘Forget.’ He stooped down and whispered, ‘It is forgotten.’
“I believe there is nothing can touch a generous mind so much as the
being treated with perfect generosity--nothing makes us so deeply feel
our own fault.”
Lady Davenant was here so much moved that she could say no more. By an
involuntary motion, she checked the reins, and the horses stopped, and
she continued quite silent for a few minutes: at length two or three
deeply drawn sighs seemed to relieve her; she looked up, and her
attention seemed to be caught by a bird that was singing sweetly on a
branch over their heads. She asked what bird it was? Helen showed it to
her where it sat: she looked up and smiled, touched the horses with
her whip, and went on where she had left off.--“The next thing was the
meeting my mother in the morning; I prepared myself for it, and thought
I was now armed so strong in honesty that I could go through with it
well: my morality, however, was a little nervous, was fluttered by the
knock at the door, and, when I heard her voice as she came towards my
room, asking eagerly if I was alone, I felt a sickness at the certainty
that I must at once crush her hopes. But I stood resolved; my eyes
fixed on the door through which she was to enter. She came in, to my
astonishment, with a face radiant with joy, and hastening to me she
embraced me with the warmest expression of fondness and gratitude.--I
stood petrified as I heard her talk of my kindness--my generosity. I
asked what she could mean, said there must be some mistake. But holding
before my eyes a note, ‘Can there be any mistake in this?’ said she.
That note, for I can never forget it, I will repeat to you.
“‘What you wish can be done in a better manner than you proposed.
The public must have no concern with it; Lady Davenant must have the
pleasure of doing it her own way; an annuity to the amount required
shall be punctually paid to your banker. The first instalment will be in
his hands by the time you receive this.--DAVENANT.’
“When I had been formerly disenchanted from my trance of love, the
rudeness of the shock had benumbed all my faculties, and left me
scarcely power to think; but now, when thus recovered from the delirium
of power, I was immediately in perfect possession of my understanding,
and when I was made to comprehend the despicable use I would have
made of my influence, or the influence my husband possessed, I was so
shocked, that I have ever since, I am conscious, in speaking of any
political corruption, rather exaggerated my natural abhorrence of it.
Not from the mean and weak idea of convincing the world how foreign
all such wrong was to my soul, but because it really is foreign to it,
because I know how it can debase the most honourable characters; I feel
so much shocked at the criminal as at the crime, because I saw it once
in all its hideousness so near myself.
“A change in the ministry took place this year, Lord Davenant’s
resignation was sent in and accepted, and in retirement I had not only
leisure to be good, but also leisure to cultivate my mind. Of course I
had read all such reading as ladies read, but this was very different
from the kind of study that would enable me to keep pace with Lord
Davenant and his highly informed friends. Many of these, more men of
thought than of show, visited us from time to time in the country.
Though I had passed very well in London society, blue, red, and green,
literary, fashionable, and political, and had been extolled as both
witty and wise, especially when my husband was in place; yet when I
came into close contact with minds of a higher order, I felt my own
deficiencies. Lord Davenant’s superiority I particularly perceived in
the solidity of the ground he uniformly took and held in reasoning. And
when I, too confident, used to venture rashly, and often found myself
surrounded, and in imminent danger in argument, he used to bring me off
and ably cover my retreat, and looked so pleased, so proud, when I made
a happy hit, or jumped to a right conclusion.
“But what I most liked, most admired, in him was, that he never
triumphed or took unfair advantages on the strength of his learning, of
his acquirements, or of what I may call his logical training.
“I mention these seeming trifles because it is not always in the great
occasions of life that a generous disposition shows itself in the way
which we most feel. Little instances of generosity shown in this way,
unperceived by others, have gone most deeply into my mind; and have most
raised my opinion of his character. The sense that I was over rather
than under valued, made me the more ready to acknowledge and feel my own
deficiencies. I felt the truth of an aphorism of Lord Verulam’s, which
is now come down to the copy-books; that ‘knowledge is power.’ Having
made this notable discovery, I set about with all my might to acquire
knowledge. You may smile, and think that this was only in a new form
the passion for power; no, it was something better. Not to do myself
injustice, I now felt the pure desire of knowledge, and enjoyed the pure
pleasure of obtaining it; assisted, supported, and delighted, by the
sympathy of a superior mind.
“As to intellectual happiness, this was the happiest time of my life.
As if my eyes had been rubbed by your favourite dervise in the Arabian
tales, with this charmed ointment, which opened at once to view all the
treasures of the earth, I saw and craved the boundless treasures opened
to my view. I now wanted to read all that Lord Davenant was reading,
that I might be up to his ideas, but this was not to be done in an
instant. There was a Frenchwoman who complained that she never could
learn any thing, because she could not find anybody to teach her all
she wanted to know in two words. I was not quite so _exigeante_ as
this lady; but, after having skated on easily and rapidly, far on the
superficies of knowledge, it was difficult and rather mortifying to have
to go back and begin at the beginning. Yet, when I wanted to go a little
deeper, and really to understand what I was about, this was essentially
necessary. I could not have got through without the assistance of one
who showed me what I might safely leave unlearned, and who pointed out
what fruit was worth climbing for, what would only turn to ashes.
“This happy time of my life too quickly passed away. It was interrupted,
however, not by any fault or folly of my own, but by an infliction
from the hand of Providence, to which I trust I submitted with
resignation--we lost our dear little boy; my second boy was born dead,
and my confinement was followed by long and severe illness. I was
ordered to try the air of Devonshire.
“One night--now, my dear, I have kept for the last the only romantic
incident in my life--one night, a vessel was wrecked upon our coast;
one of the passengers, a lady, an invalid, was brought to our house; I
hastened to her assistance--it was my beautiful rival!
“She was in a deep decline, and had been at Lisbon for some time, but
she was now sent home by the physicians, as they send people from one
country to another to die. The captain of the ship in which she was
mistook the lights upon the coast, and ran the ship ashore near to our
house.
“Of course we did for her all we could, but she was dying: she knew
nothing of my history, and I trust I soothed her last moments--she died
in my arms.
“She had one child, a son, then at Eton: we sent for him; he arrived too
late; the feeling he showed interested us deeply; we kept him with us
some time; he was grateful; and afterwards as he grew up he often wrote
to me. His letters you have read.”
“Mr. Beauclerc!” said Helen.
“Mr. Beauclerc.--I had not seen him for some time, when General
Clarendon presented him to me as his ward at Florence, where I had
opportunities of essentially serving him. You may now understand,
my dear, why I had expected that Mr. Granville Beauclerc might have
preferred coming to Clarendon Park this last month of my stay in England
to the pleasures of London. I was angry, I own, but after five minutes’
grace I cooled, saw that I must be mistaken, and came to the just
conclusion of the old poet, that no one sinks at once to the depth of
ill, and ingratitude I consider as the depth of ill. I opine, therefore,
that some stronger feeling than friendship now operates to detain
Granville Beauclerc. In that case I forgive him, but, for his own sake,
and with such a young man I should say for the sake of society--of the
public good--for he will end in public life, I hope the present object
is worthy of him, whoever she may be.
“Have I anything more to tell you? Yes, I should say that, when by
changes in the political world Lord Davenant was again in power, I had
learned, if not to be less ambitious, at least to show it less. D----,
who knew always how to put sense into my mind, so that I found it there,
and thought it completely my own, had once said that ‘every public man
who has a cultivated and high-minded wife, has in fact two selves, each
holding watch and ward for the other.’ The notion pleased me--pleased
both my fancy and my reason; I acted on it, and Lord Davenant assures
me that I have been this second self to him, and I am willing to believe
it, first because he is a man of strict truth, and secondly, because
every woman is willing to believe what she wishes.”
Lady Davenant paused, and after some minutes of reflection said, “I
confess, however, that I have not reason to be quite satisfied with
myself as a mother; I did not attend sufficiently to Cecilia’s early
education: engrossed with politics, I left her too much to governesses,
at one period to a very bad one. I have done what I can to remedy this,
and you have done more perhaps; but I much fear that the early neglect
can never be completely repaired; she is, however, married to a man of
sense, and when I go to Russia I shall think with satisfaction that I
leave you with her.”
After expressing how deeply she had been interested in all that she
had heard, and how grateful she felt for the confidence reposed in her,
Helen said she could not help wishing that Cecilia knew all that had
been just told her of Lady Davenant’s history. If Cecilia could but know
all the tenderness of her mother’s heart, how much less would she fear,
how much more would she love her!
“It would answer no purpose,” replied Lady Davenant; “there are persons
with intrinsic differences of character, who, explain as you will, can
never understand one another beyond a certain point. Nature and art
forbid--no spectacles you can furnish will remedy certain defects of
vision. Cecilia sees as much as she can ever see of my character, and I
see, in the best light, the whole of hers. So Helen, my dear, take the
advice of a Scotch proverb--proverbs are vulgar, because they usually
contain common sense--‘Let well alone.’”
“You are really a very good little friend,” added she, “but keep my
personal narrative for your own use.”
CHAPTER IX.
It was late before they reached home, and Helen dressed as fast as
possible, for the general’s punctual habits required that all should
assemble in the drawing-room five minutes at least before dinner. She
was coming down the private turret staircase, which led from the family
apartments to the great hall, when, just at the turn, and in the most
awkward way possible, she met a gentleman, a stranger, where never
stranger had been seen by her before, running up full speed, so that
they had but barely space and time to clear out of each other’s way.
Pardons were begged of course. The manner and voice of the stranger were
particularly gentlemanlike. A servant followed with his portmanteau,
inquiring into which room Mr. Beauclerc was to go?
“Mr. Beauclerc!”--When Helen got to the drawing-room, and found that not
even the general was there, she thought she could have time to run
up the great staircase to Lady Davenant’s room, and tell her that Mr.
Beauclerc was come.
“My dear Lady Davenant, Mr. Beauclerc!”--He was there! and she made her
retreat as quickly as possible. The quantity that had been said about
him, and the awkward way in which they had thus accidentally met, made
her feel much embarrassed when they were regularly introduced.
At the beginning of dinner, Helen fancied that there was unusual silence
and constraint; perhaps this might be so, or perhaps people were really
hungry, or perhaps Mr. Beauclerc had not yet satisfied the general and
Lady Davenant: however, towards the end of dinner, and at the dessert,
he was certainly entertaining; and Lady Cecilia appeared particularly
amused by an account which he was giving of a little French piece he
had seen just before he left London, called “Les Premieres Amours,” and
Helen might have been amused too, but that Lady Cecilia called upon her
to listen, and, Mr. Beauclerc turning his eyes upon her, she saw, or
fancied that he was put out in his story, and though he went on with
perfect good breeding, yet it was evidently with diminished spirit. As
soon as politeness permitted, at the close of the story, she, to relieve
him and herself, turned to the aide-de-camp on her other side, and
devoted, or seemed to devote, to him her exclusive attention. He was
always tiresome to her, but now more than ever; he went on, when
once set a-going, about his horses and his dogs, while she had the
mortification of hearing almost immediately after her seceding, that Mr.
Beauclerc recovered the life and spirit of his tone, and was in full and
delightful enjoyment of conversation with Lady Cecilia. Something very
entertaining caught her ear every now and then; but, with her eyes fixed
in the necessary direction, it was impossible to make it out, through
the aid-de-camp’s never-ending tediousness. She thought the sitting
after dinner never would terminate, though it was in fact rather shorter
than usual.
As soon as they reached the drawing-room, Lady Cecilia asked her mother
what was the cause of Granville’s delay in town, and why he had come
to-day, after he had written it was impossible?
Lady Davenant answered, that he had ‘trampled,’ as Lord Chatham did, ‘on
impossibilities.’ “It was not a physical impossibility, it seems.”
“I’m sure--I hope,” continued Cecilia, “that none of the Beltravers’ set
had any thing to do with his delay, yet from a word or two the general
let fall, I’m almost sure that they have--Lady Blanche, I’m afraid--.”
There she stopped. “If it were only a money difficulty with Lord
Beltravers,” resumed she, “that might be easily settled, for Beauclerc
is rich enough.”
“Yes,” said Lady Davenant, “but rashly generous; an uncommon fault in
these days, when young men are in general selfishly prudent or selfishly
extravagant.”
“I hope,” said Cecilia,--“I hope Lady Blanche Forrester will not--”
there she paused, and consulted her mother’s countenance; her mother
answered that Beauclerc had not spoken to her of Lady Blanche. After
putting her hopes and fears, questions and conjectures, into every
possible form and direction, Lady Cecilia was satisfied that her mother
knew no more than herself, and this was a great comfort.
When Mr. Beauclerc reappeared, Helen was glad that she was settled at an
embroidery frame, at the furthest end of the room, as there, apart from
the world, she felt safe from all cause for embarrassment, and there she
continued happy till some one came to raise the light of the lamp
over her head. It was Mr. Beauclerc, and, as she looked up, she gave a
foolish little start of surprise, and then all her confusion returning,
with thanks scarce audible, her eyes were instantly fixed on the
vine leaf she was embroidering. He asked how she could by lamplight
distinguish blue from green? a simple and not very alarming question,
but she did not hear the words rightly, and thinking he asked whether
she wished for a screen, she answered “No, thank you.”
Lady Cecilia laughed, and covering Helen’s want of hearing by
Beauclerc’s want of sight, explained--“Do not you see, Granville,
the silk-cards are written upon, ‘blue’ and ‘green;’ there can be no
mistake.”
Mr. Beauclerc made a few more laudable attempts at conversation with
Miss Stanley, but she, still imagining that this was forced, could not
in return say anything but what seemed forced and unnatural, and as
unlike her usual self as possible. Lady Cecilia tried to relieve her;
she would have done better to have let it alone, for Beauclerc was not
of the French wit’s opinion that, _La modestie n’est bonne qu’à quinze
ans_, and to him it appeared only a graceful timidity. Helen retired
earlier than any one else, and, when she thought over her foolish
awkwardness, felt as much ashamed as if Mr. Beauclerc had actually heard
all that Lady Cecilia had said about him--had seen all her thoughts, and
understood the reason of her confusion. At last, when Lady Cecilia came
into her room before she went to bed, she began with--“I am sure you are
going to scold me, and I deserve it, I am so provoked with myself, and
the worst of it is, that I do not think I shall ever get over it--I am
afraid I shall be just as foolish again tomorrow.”
“I could find it in my heart to scold you to death,” said Lady Cecilia,
“but that I am vexed myself.”
Then hesitating, and studying Helen’s countenance, she seemed doubtful
how to proceed. Either she was playing with Helen’s curiosity, or she
was really herself perplexed. She made two or three beginnings, each a
little inconsistent with the other.
“Mamma is always right; with her--‘coming events’ really and truly ‘cast
their shadows before.’ I do believe she has the fatal gift, the coming
ill to know!”
“Ill!” said Helen; “what ill is coming?”
“After all, however, it may not be an ill,” said Lady Cecilia; “it may
be all for the best; yet I am shockingly disappointed, though I declare
I never formed any--”
“Oh, my dear Cecilia, do tell me at once what it is you mean.”
“I mean, that Granville Beauclerc, like all men of genius, has acted
like the greatest fool.”
“What has he done?”
“He is absolutely--you must look upon him in future--as a married man.”
Helen was delighted. Cecilia could form no farther schemes on her
account, and she felt relieved from all her awkwardness.
“Dearest Helen, this is well at all events,” cried Cecilia, seeing her
cleared countenance. “This comforts me; you are at ease; and, if I have
caused you one uncomfortable evening, I am sure you are consoled for it
by the reflection that my mother was right, and I, as usual, wrong. But,
Helen,” continued she earnestly, “remember that this is not to be known;
remember you must not breathe the least hint of what I have told you to
mamma or the general.”
Something more than astonishment appeared in Helen’s countenance. “And
is it possible that Mr. Beauclerc does not tell them,--does not trust
his guardian and such a friend as your mother?” said Helen.
“He will tell them, he will tell them--but not yet; perhaps not till--he
is not to see his fiancée--they have for some reason agreed to be
separated for some time--I do not know exactly, but surely every body
may choose their own opportunity for telling their own secrets. In fact,
Helen, the lady, I understand, made it a point with him that nothing
should be said of it yet--to any one.”
“But he told it to you?”
“No, indeed, he did not tell it; I found it out, and he could not deny
it; but he charged me to keep it secret, and I would not have told it to
any body living but yourself; and to you, after all I said about him, I
felt it was necessary--thought I was bound--in short, I thought it would
set things to rights, and put you at your ease at once.”
And then, with more earnestness, she again pressed upon Helen a promise
of secrecy, especially towards Lady Davenant. Helen submitted. Cecilia
embraced her affectionately, and left the room. Quite tired, and quite
happy, Helen was in bed and asleep in a few minutes.
Not the slightest suspicion crossed her mind that all her friend had
been telling her was not perfectly true. To a more practised, a less
confiding, person the perplexity of Lady Cecilia’s prefaces, and some
contradictions or inconsistencies, might have suggested doubts; but
Helen’s general confidence in her friend’s truth had never yet been
seriously shaken. Lady Davenant she had always thought prejudiced on
this point, and too severe. If there had been in early childhood a bad
habit of inaccuracy in Cecilia, Helen thought it long since cured; and
so perhaps it was, till she formed a friendship abroad with one who had
no respect for truth.
But of this Helen knew nothing; and, in fact, till now Lady Cecilia’s
aberrations had been always trifling, almost imperceptible, errors, such
as only her mother’s strictness or Miss Clarendon’s scrupulosity could
detect. Nor would Cecilia have ventured upon a decided, an important,
false assertion, except for a kind purpose. Never in her life had she
told a falsehood to injure any human creature, or one that she could
foresee might, by any possibility do harm to any living being. But
here was a friend, a very dear friend, in an awkward embarrassment, and
brought into it by her means; and by a little innocent stretching of the
truth she could at once, she fancied, set all to rights. The moment the
idea came into her head, upon the spur of the occasion, she resolved to
execute it directly. It was settled between the drawing-room door and
her dressing-room. And when thus executed successfully, with happy
sophistry she justified it to herself. “After all,” said she to herself,
“though it was not absolutely true, it was _ben trovato_, it was as near
the truth, perhaps, as possible. Beauclerc’s best friends really feared
that he was falling in love with the lady in question. It was very
likely, and too likely, it might end in his marrying this Lady Blanche
Forrester. And, on every account, and every way, it was for the best
that Helen should consider him as a married man. This would restore
Helen by one magical stroke to herself, and release her from that
wretched state in which she could neither please nor be pleased.” And
as far as this good effect upon Helen was concerned, Lady Cecilia’s plan
was judicious; it succeeded admirably.
Wonderful! how a few words spoken, a single idea taken, out of or
put into the mind, can make such a difference, not only in the mental
feelings, but in the whole bodily appearance, and in the actual powers
of perception and use of our senses.
When Helen entered the breakfast-room the next morning, she looked, and
moved, and felt, quite a different creature from what she had been the
preceding day. She had recovered the use of her understanding, and she
could hear and see quite distinctly; and the first thing she saw was,
that nobody was thinking particularly about her; and now she for the
first time actually saw Mr. Beauclerc. She had before looked at him
without seeing him, and really did not know what sort of looking person
he was, except that he was like a gentleman; of that she had a sort of
intuitive perception;--as Cuvier could tell from the first sight of a
single bone what the animal was, what were its habits, and to what class
it belonged, so any person early used to good company can, by the first
gesture, the first general manner of being, passive or active, tell
whether a stranger, even scarcely seen, is or is not a gentleman.
At the beginning of breakfast, Mr. Beauclerc had all the perfect
English quiet of look and manners, with somewhat of a high-bred air of
indifference to all sublunary things, yet saying and doing whatever was
proper for the present company; yet it was done and said like one in
a dream, performed like a somnambulist, correctly from habit, but all
unconsciously. He awakened from his reverie the moment General Clarendon
came in, and he asked eagerly,--
“General! how far is it to Old Forest?” These were the first words which
he pronounced like one wide awake. “I must ride there this morning; it’s
absolutely necessary.”
The general replied that he did not see the necessity.
“But when I do, sir,” cried Beauclerc; the natural vivacity of the young
man breaking through the conventional manner. Next moment, with a humble
look, he hoped that the general would accompany him, and the look of
proud humility vanished from his countenance the next instant, because
the general demurred, and Beauclerc added, “Will not you oblige me so
far? Then I must go by myself.”
The general, seeming to go on with his own thoughts, and not to be moved
by his ward’s impatience, talked of a review that was to be put off, and
at length found that he could accompany him. Beauclerc then, delighted,
thanked him warmly.
“What is the object of this essential visit to Old Forest, may I ask?”
said Lady Davenant.
“To see a dilapidated house,” said the general.
“To save a whole family from ruin,” cried Beauclerc; “to restore a man
of first-rate talents to his place in society.”
“Pshaw!” said the general.
“Why that contemptuous exclamation, my dear general?” said Beauclerc.
“I have told you, and again I tell you, the thing is impossible!” said
the general.
“So I hear you say, sir,” replied his ward; “but till I am convinced, I
hold to my project.”
“And what is your project, Granville?” said Lady Davenant.
“I will explain it to you when we are alone,” said Beauclerc.
“I beg your pardon, I was not aware that there was any mystery,” said
Lady Davenant. “No mystery,” said Beauclerc, “only about lending some
money to a friend.”
“To which I will not consent,” said the general.
“Why not, sir?” said Beauclerc, throwing back his head with an air of
defiance in his countenance; there was as he looked at his guardian a
quick, mutable succession of feelings, in striking contrast with the
fixity of the general’s appearance.
“I have given you my reasons, Beauclerc,” said the general, “It is
unnecessary to repeat what I have said, you will do no good.”
“No good, general? When I tell you that if I lend Beltravers the money,
to put his place in repair, to put it in such a state that his sisters
could live in it, he would no longer be a banished man, a useless
absentee, a wanderer abroad, but he would come and settle at Old Forest,
re-establish the fortune and respectability of his family, and above
all, save his own character and happiness. Oh, my dear general!”
General Clarendon, evidently moved by his ward’s benevolent enthusiasm,
paused and said that there were many recollections which made it
rather painful to him to revisit Old Forest. Still he would do it for
Beauclerc, since nothing but seeing the place would convince him of
the impracticability of his scheme. “I have not been at Old Forest,”
continued the general, “since I was a boy--since it was deserted by the
owners, and sadly changed I shall find it.
“In former times these Forresters were a respectable, good old English
family, till the second wife, pretty and silly, took a fancy for
figuring in London, where of course she was nobody. Then, to make
herself somebody, she forced her husband to stand for the county. A
contested election--bribery--a petition--another election--ruinous
expense. Then that Beltravers title coming to them: and they were to
live up to it,--and beyond their income. The old story--over head and
shoulders in debt. Then the new story,--that they must go abroad for
economy!”
“Economy! The cant of all those who have not courage to retrench at
home,” said Lady Davenant.
“They must,” they said, “live abroad, it is so cheap,” continued the
general. “So cheap to leave their house to go to ruin! Cheap education
too! and so good--and what does it come to?”
“A cheap provision it is for a family in many cases,” said Lord
Davenant. “Wife, son, and daughter, Satan, are thy own.”
“Not in this case,” cried Beauclerc; “you cannot mean I hope.”
“I can answer for one, the daughter at least,” said Lady Davenant; “that
Mad. de St. Cimon, whom we saw abroad, at Florence, you know, Cecilia,
with whom I would not let you form an acquaintance.”
“Your ladyship was quite right,” said the general.
Beauclerc could not say, “Quite wrong,”--and he looked--suffering.
“I know nothing of the son,” pursued Lady Davenant.
“I do,” said Beauclerc, “he is my friend.”
“I thought he had been a very distressed man, that young Beltravers,”
said the aid-de-camp.
“And if he were, that would not prevent my being his friend, sir,” said
Beauclerc.
“Of course,” said the aid-de-camp, “I only asked.”
“He is a man of genius and feeling,” continued Beauclerc, turning to
Lady Davenant.
“But I never heard you mention Lord Beltravers before. How long has he
been your friend?” said Lady Davenant.
Beauclerc hesitated. The general without hesitation answered, “Three
weeks and one day.”
“I do not count my friendship by days or weeks,” said Beauclerc.
“No, my dear Beauclerc,” said the general: “well would it be for you if
you would condescend to any such common-sense measure.” He rose from the
breakfast-table as he spoke, and rang the bell to order the horses.
“You are prejudiced against Beltravers, general; but you will think
better of him, I am sure, when you know him.”
“You will think worse of him when you know him, I suspect,” replied the
general.
“Suspect! But since you only _suspect_,” said Beauclerc, “we English do
not condemn on suspicion, unheard, unseen.”
“Not unheard,” said the general, “I have heard enough of him.”
“From the reports of his enemies,” said Beauclerc.
“I do not usually form my judgment,” replied the general, “from reports
either of friends or enemies; I have not the honour of knowing any of
Lord Beltravers’ enemies.”
“Enemies of Lord Beltravers!” exclaimed Lady Davenant. “What right as
he to enemie
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