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
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.”