there was to be a battle between heron and hawk, one of the finest sights that can be in all falconry.
“Look! look! Miss Stanley,” cried Granville; “look! follow that high-flown hawk—that black speck in the clouds. Now! now! right over the heron; and now she will canceleer—turn on her wing, Miss Stanley, as she comes down, whirl round, and balance herself—chanceler. Now! now look! cancelleering gloriously!”
But Helen at this instant recollected what Captain Warmsley had said of the fresh-killed pigeon, which the falconer in the nick of time is to lay upon the heron’s back; and now, even as the cancelleering was going on—three times most beautifully, Helen saw only the dove, the white dove, which that black-hearted German held, his great hand round the throat, just raised to wring it. “Oh, Beauclerc, save it, save it!” cried Lady Cecilia and Helen at once.
Beauclerc sprang forward, and, had it been a tiger instead of a dove, would have done the same no doubt at that moment; the dove was saved, and the heron killed. If Helen was pleased, so was not the chief falconer, nor any of the falconers, the whole German council in combustion! and Horace Churchill deeming it “Rather extraordinary that any gentleman should so interfere with other gentlemen’s hawks.”
Lady Cecilia stepped between, and never stepped in vain. She drew a ring from her finger—a seal; it was the seal of peace—no great value—but a well-cut bird—a bird for the chief falconer—a guinea-hen, with its appropriate cry, its polite motto, “Come back, come back;” and she gave it as a pledge that the ladies would come back another day, and see another hawking; and the gentlemen were pleased, and the aggrieved attendant falconers pacified by a promise of another heron from the heronry at Clarendon Park; and the clouded faces brightened, and “she smoothed the raven down of darkness till it smiled,” whatever that may mean; but, as Milton said it, it must be sense as well as sound.
At all events, in plain prose, be it understood that every body was satisfied, even Mr. Churchill; for Beauclerc had repaired for him, just in time, an error which would have been a blot on his gallantry of the day. He had forgotten to have some of the pretty grey hairs plucked from the heron, to give to the ladies to ornament their bonnets, but Beauclerc had secured them for him, and also two or three of those much-valued, smooth, black feathers, from the head of the bird, which are so much prized that a plume of them is often set with pearls and diamonds. Horace presented these most gracefully to Lady Cecilia and Helen, and was charmed with Lady Cecilia’s parting compliments, which finished with the words “Quite chivalrous.”
And so, after all the changes and chances of weather, wind, and humour, all ended well, and no one rued the hawking of this day.
“But all this time,” said Lady Davenant, “you have not told me whether you have any of you found out what changed Granville’s mind about this falconry scheme—why he so suddenly gave up the whole to Mr. Churchill. Such a point-blank weathercock turn of fancy in most young men would no more surprise me than the changes of those clouds in the sky, now shaped and now unshaped by the driving wind; but in Granville Beauclerc there is always some reason for apparent caprice, and the reason is often so ingeniously wrong that it amuses me to hear it; and even as a study in human nature, I am curious to know the simple fact.”
But no one could tell the simple fact, no one could guess his reason, and from him it never would have been known—never could have been found out, but from a mistake—from a letter of thanks coming to a wrong person.
One morning, when Helen was sitting in Lady Davenant’s room with her, Lord Davenant came in, reading a letter, like one walking in his sleep.
“What is all this, my dear? Can you explain it to me? Some good action of yours, I suppose, for which I am to be thanked.”
Lady Davenant looked at the letter. She had nothing to do with the matter, she said; but, on second thoughts, exclaimed, “This is Granville Beauclerc’s doing, I am clear!”
The letter was from Count Polianski, one of the poor banished Poles; now poor, but who had been formerly master of a property estimated at about one hundred and sixty-five thousand available individuals. In attempting to increase the happiness and secure the liberty of these available individuals, the count had lost every thing, and had been banished from his country—a man of high feeling as well as talents, and who had done all he could for that unhappy country, torn to pieces by demagogues from within and tyrants from without.
Lady Davenant now recollected that Beauclerc had learned from her all this, and had heard her regretting that the circumstances in which Lord Davenant was placed at this moment, prevented the possibility of his affording this poor count assistance for numbers of his suffering fellow-countrymen who had been banished along with him, and who were now in London in the utmost distress. Lady Davenant remembered that she had been speaking to Granville on this subject the very day that he had abandoned his falconry project. “Now I understand it all,” said she; “and it is like all I know and all I have hoped of him. These hundreds a-year which he has settled on these wretched exiles, are rather better disposed of in a noble national cause, than in pampering one set of birds that they may fly at another set.”
“And yet this is done,” said Lord Davenant, “by one of the much reviled, high-bred English gentlemen—among whom, let the much reviling, low-bred English democrats say what they will, we find every day instances of subscription for public purposes from private benevolence, in a spirit of princely charity to be found only in our own dear England—England with all her faults.’”
“But this was a less ordinary sort of generosity of Granville’s,” said Lady Davenant,—“the giving up a new pleasure, a new whim with all its gloss fresh upon it, full and bright in his eye.”
“True,” said Lord Davenant; “I never saw a strong-pulling fancy better thrown upon its haunches.”
The white dove, whose life Helen had saved, was brought home by Beauclerc, and was offered to her and accepted. Whether she had done a good or a bad action, by thus saving the life of a pigeon at the expense of a heron, may be doubted, and will be decided according to the several tastes of ladies and gentlemen for herons or doves. As Lady Davenant remarked, Helen’s humanity (or dove-anity, as Churchill called it,) was of that equivocal sort which is ready to destroy one creature to save another which may happen to be a greater favourite.
Be this as it may, the favourite had a friend upon the present occasion, and no less a friend than General Clarendon, who presented it with a marble basin, such as doves should drink out of, by right of long prescription.
The general feared, he said, “that this vase might be a little too deep—dangerously perhaps——.”
But Helen thought nothing could be altogether more perfect in taste and in kindness—approving Beauclerc’s kindness too—a remembrance of a day most agreeably spent. Churchill, to whom she looked, as she said the last words, with all becoming politeness, bowed and accepted the compliment, but with a reserve of jealousy on the brow; and as he looked again at the dove, caressing and caressed, and then at the classic vase—he stood vexed, and to himself he said,—
“So this is the end of all my pains—hawking and all ‘quite chivalrous!’ Beauclerc carries off the honours and pleasures of the day, and his present and his dove are to be all in all. Yet still,” continued he to himself in more consolatory thought—“she is so open in her very love for the bird, that it is plain she has not yet any love for the man. She would be somewhat more afraid to show it, delicate as she is. It is only friendship—honest friendship, on her side; and if her affections be not engaged somewhere else—she may be mine: if—if I please—if—I can bring myself fairly to propose—we shall see—I shall think of it.”
And now he began to think of it seriously.—Miss Stanley’s indifference to him, and the unusual difficulty which he found in making any impression, stimulated him in an extraordinary degree. Helen now appeared to him even more beautiful than he had at first thought her—“Those eyes that fix so softly,” thought he, “those dark eyelashes—that blush coming and going so beautifully—and there is a timid grace in all her motions, with that fine figure too—and that high-bred turn of the neck!—altogether she is charming! and she will be thought so!—she must be mine!”
She would do credit to his taste; he thought she would, when she had a little more usage du monde, do the honours of his house well; and it would be delightful to train her!—If he could but engage her affections, before she had seen more of the world, she might really love him for his own sake—and Churchill wished to be really loved, if possible, for his own sake; but of the reality of modern love he justly doubted, especially for a man of his fortune and his age; yet, with Helen’s youth and innocence he began to think he had some chance of disinterested attachment, and he determined to bring out for her the higher powers of his mind—the better parts of his character.
One day Lady Davenant had been speaking of London conversation. “So brilliant,” said she, “so short-lived, as my friend Lady Emmeline K——once said, ‘London wit is like gas, which lights at a touch, and at a touch can be extinguished;’” and Lady Davenant concluded with a compliment to him who was known to have this “touch and go” of good conversation to perfection.
Mr. Churchill bowed to the compliment, but afterwards sighed, and it seemed an honest sigh, from the bottom of his heart. Only Lady Davenant and Helen were in the room, and turning to Lady Davenant he said,
“If I have it, I have paid dearly for it, more than it is worth, much too dearly, by the sacrifice of higher powers; I might have been a very different person from what I am.”
Helen’s attention was instantly fixed; but Lady Davenant suspected he was now only talking for effect. He saw what she thought—it was partly true, but not quite. He felt what he said at the moment; and besides, there is always a sincere pleasure in speaking of one’s self when one can do it without exposing one’s self to ridicule, and with a chance of obtaining real sympathy.
“It was my misfortune,” he said, “to be spoiled, even in childhood, by my mother.”
As he pronounced the word “mother,” either his own heart or Helen’s eyes made him pause with a look of respectful tenderness. It was cruel of a son to blame the fond indulgence of a mother; but the fact was, she brought him too forward early as a clever child, fed him too much with that sweet dangerous fostering dew of praise. The child—the man—must suffer for it afterwards.
“True, very true,” said Lady Davenant; “I quite agree with you.”
“I could do nothing without flattery,” continued he, pursuing the line of confession which he saw had fixed Lady Davenant’s attention favourably. “Unluckily, I came too early into possession of a large fortune, and into the London world, and I lapped the stream of prosperity as I ran, and it was sweet with flattery, intoxicating, and I knew it, and yet could not forbear it. Then in a London life every thing is too stimulating—over-exciting. If there are great advantages to men of science and literature in museums and public libraries, the more than Avicenna advantages of having books come at will, and ministering spirits in waiting on all your pursuits—there is too much of every thing except time, and too little of that. The treasures are within our reach, but we cannot clutch; we have, but we cannot hold. We have neither leisure to be good, nor to be great: who can think of living for posterity, when he can scarcely live for the day? and sufficient for the day are never the hours thereof. From want of time, and from the immense quantity that nevertheless must be known, comes the necessity, the unavoidable necessity of being superficial.”
“Why should it be unavoidable necessity?” asked Lady Davenant.
“Because should waits upon must, in London always, if not elsewhere,” said Churchill.
“A conversation answer,” replied Lady Davenant.
“Yes, I allow it; it is even so, just so, and to such tricks, such playing upon words, do the bad habits of London conversation lead;” and Lady Davenant wondered at the courage of his candour, as he went on to speak of the petty jealousies, the paltry envy, the miserable selfish susceptibility generated by the daily competition of London society. Such dissensions, such squabbles—an ignoble but appropriate word—such deplorable, such scandalous squabbles among literary, and even among scientific men. “And who,” continued he, “who can hope to escape in such a tainted atmosphere—an atmosphere overloaded with life, peopled with myriads of little buzzing stinging vanities! It really requires the strength of Hercules, mind and body, to go through our labours, fashionable, political, bel esprit, altogether too much for mortal. In parliament, in politics, in the tug of war you see how the strongest minds fail, come to untimely——”
“Do not touch upon that subject,” cried Lady Davenant, suddenly agitated. Then, commanding herself, she calmly added—“As you are not now, I think, in parliament, it cannot affect you. What were you saying?—your health of mind and body, I think you said, you were sensible had been hurt by——”
“These straining, incessant competitions have hurt me. My health suffered first, then my temper. It was originally good, now, as you have seen, I am afraid”—glancing at Helen, who quickly looked down, “I am afraid I am irritable.”
There was an awkward silence. Helen thought it was for Lady Davenant to speak; but Lady Davenant did not contradict Mr. Churchill. Now, the not contradicting a person who is abusing himself, is one of the most heinous offences to self-love that can be committed; and it often provokes false candour to pull off the mask and throw it in your face; but either Mr. Horace Churchill’s candour was true, or it was so well guarded at the moment that no such catastrophe occurred.
“Worse than this bad effect on my temper!” continued he, “I feel that my whole mind has been deteriorated—my ambition dwindled to the shortest span—my thoughts contracted to the narrow view of mere effect; what would please at the dinner-table or at the clubs—what will be thought of me by this literary coterie, or in that fashionable boudoir. And for this reputation de salon I have sacrificed all hope of other reputation, all power of obtaining it, all hope of “——(here he added a few words, murmured down to Lady Davenant’s embroidery frame, yet still in such a tone that Helen could not help thinking he meant she should hear)—“If I had a heart such as—” he paused, and, as if struck with some agonising thought, he sighed deeply, and then added—“but I have not a heart worth such acceptance, or I would make the offer.”
Helen was not sure what these words meant, but she now pitied him, and she admired his candour, which she thought was so far above the petty sort of character he had at first done himself the injustice to seem, and she seized the first opportunity to tell Beauclerc all Mr. Churchill had said to Lady Davenant and to her, and of the impression it had made upon them both. Beauclerc had often discussed Mr. Churchill’s character with her, but she was disappointed when she saw that what she told made no agreeable impression on Beauclerc: at first he stood quite silent, and when she asked what he thought, he said—“It’s all very fine, very clever.”
“But it is all true,” said Helen, “And I admire Mr. Churchill’s knowing the truth so well and telling it so candidly.”
“Every thing Mr. Churchill has said may be true—and yet I think the truth is not in him.”
“You are not usually so suspicious,” said Helen. “If you had heard Mr. Churchill’s voice and emphasis, and seen his look and manner at the time, I think you could not have doubted him.”
The more eager she grew, the colder Mr. Beauclerc became. “Look and manner, and voice and emphasis,” said he, “make a great impression, I know, on ladies.”
“But what is your reason, Mr. Beauclerc, for disbelief? I have as yet only heard that you believe every thing that Mr. Churchill said was true, and yet that you do not believe in his truth,” said Helen, in a tone of raillery.
And many a time before had Beauclerc been the first to laugh when one of his own paradoxes stared him in the face; but now he was more out of countenance than amused, and he looked seriously about for reasons to reconcile his seeming self-contradiction.
“In the first place, all those allusions and those metaphorical expressions, which you have so wonderfully well remembered, and which no doubt were worth remembering, all those do not give me the idea of a man who was really feeling in earnest, and speaking the plain truth about faults, for which, if he felt at all, he must be too much ashamed to talk in such a grand style; and to talk of them at all, except to most intimate friends, seems so unnatural, and quite out of character in a man who had expressed such horror of egotists, and who is so excessively circumspect in general.”
“Yes, but Mr. Churchill’s forgetting all his little habits of circumspection, and all fear of ridicule, is the best proof of his being quite in earnest—that all he said was from his heart.”
“I doubt whether he has any heart,” said Beauclerc.
“Poor man, he said——” Helen began, and then recollecting the words, ‘or I would make the offer,’ she stopped short, afraid of the construction they might bear, and then, ashamed of her fear, she coloured deeply.
“Poor man, he said——” repeated Beauclerc, fixing his eyes upon her, “What did he say, may I ask?”
“No,—” said Helen, “I am not sure that I distinctly heard or understood Mr. Churchill.”
“Oh, if there was any mystery!” Beauclerc begged pardon.
And he went away very quickly. He did not touch upon the subject again, but Helen saw that he never forgot it; and, by few words which she heard him say to Lady Davenant about his dislike to half-confidences, she knew he was displeased, and she thought he was wrong. She began to fear that his mistrust of Churchill arose from envy at his superior success in society; and, though she was anxious to preserve her newly-acquired good opinion of Churchill’s candour, she did not like to lose her esteem for Beauclerc’s generosity. Was it possible that he could be seriously hurt at the readiness with which Mr. Churchill availed himself of any idea which Beauclerc threw out, and which he dressed up, and passed as his own? Perhaps this might be what he meant by “the truth is not in him.” She remembered one day when she sat between him and Beauclerc, and when he did not seem to pay the least attention to what Mr. Beauclerc was saying to her, yet fully occupied as he had apparently been in talking for the company in general, he had through all heard Granville telling the Chinese fable of the “Man in the Moon, whose business it is to knit together with an invisible silken cord those who are predestined for each other.” Presently, before the dessert was over, Helen found the “Chinese Man in the Moon,” whom she thought she had all to herself, figuring at the other end of the table, and received with great applause. And was it possible that Beauclerc, with his abundant springs of genius, could grudge a drop thus stolen from him? but without any envy in the case, he was right in considering such theft, however petty, as a theft, and right in despising the meanness of the thief. Such meanness was strangely incompatible with Mr. Churchill’s frank confession of his own faults. Could that confession be only for effect?
Her admiration had been sometimes excited by a particular happiness of thought, beauty of expression, or melody of language in Mr. Churchill’s conversation. Once Beauclerc had been speaking with enthusiasm of modern Greece, and his hopes that she might recover her ancient character; and Mr. Churchill, as if admiring the enthusiasm, yet tempering it with better judgment, smiled, paused, and answered.
“But Greece is a dangerous field for a political speculator; the imagination produces an illusion resembling the beautiful appearances which are sometimes exhibited in the Sicilian straits; the reflected images of ancient Grecian glory pass in a rapid succession before the mental eye; and, delighted with the captivating forms of greatness and splendour, we forget for a moment that the scene is in reality a naked waste.”
Some people say they can distinguish between a written and a spoken style, but this depends a good deal on the art of the speaker. Churchill could give a colloquial tone to a ready-written sentence, and could speak it with an off-hand grace, a carelessness which defied all suspicion of preparation; and the look, and pause, and precipitation—each and all came in aid of the actor’s power of perfecting the illusion. If you had heard and seen him, you would have believed that, in speaking this passage, the thought of the Fata Morgana rose in his mind at the instant, and that, seeing it pleased you, and pleased with it himself, encouraged by your look of intelligence, and borne along by your sympathy, the eloquent man followed his own idea with a happiness more than care, admirable in conversation. A few days afterwards, Helen was very much surprised to find her admired sentence word for word in a book, from which Churchill’s card fell as she opened it.
Persons without a name Horace treated as barbarians who did not know the value of their gold; and he seemed to think that, if they chanced to possess rings and jewels, they might be plucked from them without remorse, and converted to better use by some lucky civilised adventurer. Yet in his most successful piracies he was always haunted by the fear of discovery, and he especially dreaded the acute perception of Lady Davenant; he thought she suspected his arts of appropriation, and he took the first convenient opportunity of sounding her opinion on this point.
“How I enjoy,” said he to Lady Cecilia “telling a good story to you, for you never ask if it is a fact. Now, in a good story, no one sticks to absolute fact; there must be some little embellishment. No one would send his own or his friend’s story into the world without ‘putting a hat on its head, and a stick into its hand,’” Churchill triumphantly quoted; this time he did not steal.
“But,” said Lady Davenant, “I find that even the pleasure I have in mere characteristic or humorous narration is heightened by my dependence on the truth—the character for truth—of the narrator.”
Not only Horace Churchill, but almost every body present, except Helen, confessed that they could not agree with her. The character for truth of the story-teller had nothing to do with his story, unless it was historique, or that he was to swear to it.
“And even if it were historique,” cried Horace, buoyed up at the moment by the tide in his favour, and floating out farther than was prudent—“and even if it were historique, how much pleasanter is graceful fiction than grim, rigid truth; and how much more amusing in my humble opinion!”
“Now,” said Lady Davenant, “for instance, this book I am reading—(it was Dumont’s ‘Mémoires de Mirabeau’)—this book which I am reading, gives me infinitely increased pleasure, from my certain knowledge, my perfect conviction of the truth of the author. The self-evident nature of some of the facts would support themselves, you may say, in some instances; but my perceiving the scrupulous care he takes to say no more than what he knows to be true, my perfect reliance on the relater’s private character for integrity, gives a zest to every anecdote he tells—a specific weight to every word of conversation which he repeats—appropriate value to every trait of wit or humour characteristic of the person he describes. Without such belief, the characters would not have to me, as they now have, all the power, and charm, and life, of nature and reality. They are all now valuable as records of individual varieties that have positively so existed. While the most brilliant writer could, by fiction, have produced an effect, valuable only as representing the general average of human nature, but adding nothing to our positive knowledge, to the data from which we can reason in future.”
Churchill understood Lady Davenant too well to stand quite unembarrassed as he listened; and when she went on to say how differently she should have felt in reading these memoirs if they had been written by Mirabeau himself; with all his brilliancy, all his talents, how inferior would have been her enjoyment as well as instruction! his shrinking conscience told him how this might all be applied to himself; yet, strange to say, though somewhat abashed, he was nevertheless flattered by the idea of a parallel between himself and Mirabeau. To Mirabeauder was no easy task; it was a certain road to notoriety, if not to honest fame.
But even in the better parts of his character, his liberality in money matters, his good-natured patronage of rising genius, the meanness of his mind broke out. There was a certain young poetess whom he had encouraged; she happened to be sister to Mr. Mapletofft, Lord Davenant’s secretary, and she had spoken with enthusiastic gratitude of Mr. Churchill’s kindness. She was going to publish a volume of Sonnets under Mr. Churchill’s patronage, and, as she happened to be now at some country town in the neighbourhood, he requested Lady Cecilia to allow him to introduce this young authoress to her. She was invited for a few days to Clarendon Park, and Mr. Churchill was zealous to procure subscriptions for her, and eager to lend the aid of his fashion and his literary reputation to bring forward the merits of her book. “Indeed,” he whispered, “he had given her some little help in the composition,” and all went well till, in an evil hour, Helen praised one of the sonnets rather too much—more, he thought, than she had praised another, which was his own. His jealousy wakened—he began to criticise his protegée’s poetry. Helen defended her admiration, and reminded him that he had himself recommended these lines to her notice.
“Well!—yes—I did say the best I could for the whole thing, and for her it is surprising—that is, I am anxious the publication should take. But if we come to compare—you know this cannot stand certain comparisons that might be made. Miss Stanley’s own taste and judgment must perceive—when we talk of genius—that is quite out of the question, you know.”
Horace was so perplexed between his philanthropy and his jealousy, his desire to show the one and his incapability of concealing the other, that he became unintelligible; and Helen laughed, and told him that she could not now understand what his opinion really was. She was quite ready to agree with him, she said, if he would but agree with himself: this made him disagree still more with himself and unluckily with his better self, his benevolence quite gave way before his jealousy and ill-humour, and he vented it upon the book; and, instead of prophecies of its success, he now groaned over “sad careless lines,”—“passages that lead to nothing,”—“similes that will not hold when you come to examine them.”
Helen pointed out in the dedication a pretty, a happy thought.
Horace smiled, and confessed that was his own.
What! in the dedication to himself?—and in the blindness of his vanity he did not immediately see the absurdity.
The more he felt himself in the wrong, of course the more angry he grew, and it finished by his renouncing the dedication altogether, declaring he would have none of it. The book and the lady might find a better patron. There are things which no man of real generosity could say or do, or think, put him in ever so great a passion. He would not be harsh to an inferior—a woman—a protegée on whom he had conferred obligations; but Mr. Churchill was harsh—he showed neither generosity nor feeling; and Helen’s good opinion of him sank to rise no more.
Of this, however, he had not enough of the sympathy or penetration of feeling to be aware.
The party now at Clarendon Park consisted chiefly of young people. Among them were two cousins of Lady Cecilia’s, whom Helen had known at Cecilhurst before they went abroad, while she was still almost a child. Lady Katrine Hawksby, the elder, was several years older than Cecilia. When Helen last saw her, she was tolerably well-looking, very fashionable, and remarkable for high spirits, with a love for quizzing, and for all that is vulgarly called fun, and a talent for ridicule, which she indulged at everybody’s expense. She had always amused Cecilia, who thought her more diverting than really ill-natured; but Helen thought her more ill-natured than diverting, never liked her, and had her own private reasons for thinking that she was no good friend to Cecilia: but now, in consequence either of the wear and tear of London life, or of a disappointment in love or matrimony, she had lost the fresh plumpness of youth; and gone too was that spirit of mirth, if not of good humour, which used to enliven her countenance. Thin and sallow, the sharp features remained, and the sarcastic without the arch expression; still she had a very fashionable air. Her pretensions to youth, as her dress showed, were not gone; and her hope of matrimony, though declining, not set. Her many-years-younger sister, Louisa, now Lady Castlefort, was beautiful. As a girl, she had been the most sentimental, refined, delicate creature conceivable; always talking poetry—and so romantic—with such a soft, sweet, die-away voice—lips apart—and such fine eyes, that could so ecstatically turn up to heaven, or be so cast down, charmingly fixed in contemplation:—and now she is married, just the same. There she is, established in the library at Clarendon Park, with the most sentimental fashionable novel of the day, beautifully bound, on the little rose-wood table beside her, and a manuscript poem, a great secret, “Love’s Last Sigh,” in her bag with her smelling-bottle and embroidered handkerchief; and on that beautiful arm she leaned so gracefully, with her soft languishing expression; so perfectly dressed too—handsomer than ever.
Helen was curious to know what sort of man Lady Louisa had married, for she recollected that no hero of any novel that ever was read, or talked of, came up to her idea of what a hero ought to be, of what a man must be, whom she could ever think of loving. Cecilia told Helen that she had seen Lord Castlefort, but that he was not Lord Castlefort, or likely to be Lord Castlefort, at that time; and she bade her guess, among all she could recollect having ever seen at Cecilhurst, who the man of Louisa’s choice could be. Lady Katrine, with infinite forbearance, smiled, and gave no hint, while Helen guessed and guessed in vain. She was astonished when she saw him come into the room. He was a little deformed man, for whom Lady Louisa had always expressed to her companions a peculiar abhorrence. He had that look of conceit which unfortunately sometimes accompanies personal deformity, and which disgusts even Pity’s self. Lord Castlefort was said to have declared himself made for love and fighting! Helen remembered that kind-hearted Cecilia had often remonstrated for humanity’s sake, and stopped the quizzing which used to go on in their private coteries, when the satirical elder sister would have it that le petit bossu was in love with Louisa.
But what could make her marry him? Was there anything within to make amends for the exterior? Nothing—nothing that could “rid him of the lump behind.” But superior to the metamorphoses of love, or of fairy tale, are the metamorphoses of fortune. Fortune had suddenly advanced him to uncounted thousands and a title, and no longer le petit bossu, Lord Castlefort obtained the fair hand—the very fair hand of Lady Louisa Hawksby, plus belle que fée!
Still Helen could not believe that Louisa had married him voluntarily; but Lady Cecilia assured her that it was voluntarily, quite voluntarily. “You could not have so doubted had you seen the trousseau and the corbeille, for you know, ‘Le présent fait oublier le futur.’”
Helen could scarcely smile.
“But Louisa had feeling—really some,” continued Lady Cecilia; “but she could not afford to follow it. She had got into such debt, I really do not know what she would have done if Lord Castlefort had not proposed; but she has some little heart, and I could tell you a secret; but no, I will leave you the pleasure of finding it out.”
“It will be no pleasure to me,” said Helen.
“I never saw anybody so out of spirits,” cried Lady Cecilia, laughing, “at another’s unfortunate marriage, which all the time she thinks very fortunate. She is quite happy, and even Katrine does not laugh at him any longer, it is to be supposed; it is no laughing matter now.”
“No indeed,” said Helen.
“Nor a crying matter either,” said Cecilia. “Do not look shocked at me, my dear, I did not do it; but so many do, and I have seen it so often, that I cannot wonder with such a foolish face of blame—I do believe, my dear Helen, that you are envious because Louisa is married before you! for shame, my love! Envy is a naughty passion, you know our Madame Bonne used to say; but here’s mamma, now talk to her about Louisa Castlefort, pray.”
Lady Davenant took the matter with great coolness, was neither shocked nor surprised at this match, she had known so many worse; Lord Castlefort, as well as she recollected, was easy enough to live with. “And after all,” said she, “it is better than what we see every day, the fairest of the fair knowingly, willingly giving themselves to the most profligate of the profligate, In short, the market is so overstocked with accomplished young ladies on the one hand, and on the other, men find wives and establishments so expensive, clubs so cheap and so much more luxurious than any home, liberty not only so sweet but so fashionable, that their policy, their maxim is, ‘Marry not at all, or if marriage be ultimately necessary to pay debts and leave heirs to good names, marry as late as possible;’ and thus the two parties with their opposite interests stand at bay, or try to outwit or outbargain each other. And if you wish for the moral of the whole affair, here it is from the vulgar nursery-maids, with their broad sense and bad English, and the good or bad French of the governess, to the elegant innuendo of the drawing-room, all is working to the same effect: dancing-masters, music-masters, and all the tribe, what is it all for, but to prepare young ladies for the grand event; and to raise in them, besides the natural, a factitious, an abstract idea of good in being married! Every girl in these days is early impressed with the idea that she must be married, that she cannot be happy unmarried. Here is an example of what I meant the other day by strength of mind; it requires some strength of mind to be superior to such a foolish, vain, and vulgar belief.”
“It will require no great strength of mind in me,” said Helen, “for I really never have formed such notions. They never were early put into my head; my uncle always said a woman might be very happy unmarried. I do not think I shall ever be seized with a terror of dying an old maid.”
“You are not come to the time yet, my dear,” said Lady Davenant smiling. “Look at Lady Katrine; strength of mind on this one subject would have saved her from being a prey to envy, and jealousy, and all the vulture passions of the mind.
“In the old French régime,” continued Lady Davenant, “the young women were at least married safely out of their convents; but our young ladies, with their heads full of high-flown poetry and sentimental novels, are taken out into the world before marriage, expected to see and not to choose, shown the most agreeable, and expected, doomed to marry the most odious. But, in all these marriages for establishment, the wives who have least feeling are not only likely to be the happiest, but also most likely to conduct themselves well. In the first place they do not begin with falsehood. If they have no hearts, they cannot pretend to give any to the husband, and that is better than having given them to somebody else. Husband and wife, in this case, clearly understand the terms of agreement, expect, imagine no more than they have, and jog-trot they go on together to the end of life very comfortably.”
“Comfortably!” exclaimed Helen, “it must be most miserable.”
“Not most miserable, Helen,” said Lady Davenant, “keep your pity for others; keep your sighs for those who need them—for the heart which no longer dares to utter a sigh for itself, the faint heart that dares to love, but dares not abide by its choice. Such infatuated creatures, with the roots of feeling left aching within them, must take what opiates they can find; and in after-life, through all their married existence, their prayer must be for indifference, and thankful may they be if that prayer is granted.”
These words recurred to Helen that evening, when Lady Castlefort sang some tender and passionate airs; played on the harp with a true Saint Cecilia air and attitude; and at last, with charming voice and touching expression, sung her favourite—“Too late for redress.”
Both Mr. Churchill and Beauclerc were among the group of gentlemen; neither was a stranger to her. Mr. Churchill admired and applauded as a connoisseur. Beauclerc listened in silence. Mr. Churchill entreated for more—more—and named several of his favourite Italian airs. Her ladyship really could not. But the slightest indication of a wish from Beauclerc, was, without turning towards him, heard and attended to, as her sister failed not to remark and to make others remark.
Seizing a convenient pause while Mr. Churchill was searching for some master-piece, Lady Katrine congratulated her sister on having recovered her voice, and declared that she had never heard her play or sing since she was married till tonight.
“You may consider it as a very particular compliment, I assure you,” continued she, addressing herself so particularly to Mr. Beauclerc that he could not help being a little out of countenance,—“I have so begged and prayed, but she was never in voice or humour, or heart, or something. Yesterday, even Castlefort was almost on his knees for a song,—were not you, Lord Castlefort?”
Lord Castlefort pinched his pointed chin, and casting up an angry look, replied in a dissonant voice,—“I do not remember!”
“Tout voir, tout entendre, tout oublier,” whispered Lady Katrine to Mr. Churchill, as she stooped to assist him in the search for a music-book—“Tout voir, tout entendre, tout oublier, should be the motto adopted by all married people.”
Lady Castlefort seemed distressed, and turned over the leaves in such a flutter that she could not find anything, and she rose, in spite of all entreaties, leaving the place to her sister, who was, she said, “so much better a musician and not so foolishly nervous.” Lady Castlefort said her “voice always went away when she was at all—”
There it ended as far as words went; but she sighed, and retired so gracefully, that all the gentlemen pitied her.
There is one moment in which ill-nature sincerely repents—the moment when it sees pity felt for its victim.
Horace followed Lady Castlefort to the ottoman, on which she sank. Beauclerc remained leaning on the back of Lady Katrine’s chair, but without seeming to hear what she said or sung. After some time Mr. Churchill, not finding his attentions well received, or weary of paying them, quitted Lady Castlefort but sat down by Helen; and in a voice to be heard by her, but by no one else, he said—
“What a relief!—I thought I should never get away!” Then, favoured by a loud bravura of Lady Katrine’s, he went on—“That beauty, between you and me, is something of a bore—she—I don’t mean the lady who is now screaming—she should always sing. Heaven blessed her with song, not sense—but here one is made so fastidious!”
He sighed, and for some moments seemed to be given up to the duet which Lady Katrine and an officer were performing; and then exclaimed, but so that Helen only could hear,—“Merciful Heaven! how often one wishes one had no ears: that Captain Jones must be the son of Stentor, and that lady!—if angels sometimes saw themselves in a looking-glass when singing—there would be peace upon earth.”
Helen, not liking to be the secret receiver of his contraband good things, was rising to change her place, when softly detaining her, he said, “Do not be afraid, no danger—trust me, for I have studied under Talma.”
“What can you mean?”
“I mean,” continued he, “that Talma taught me the secret of his dying scenes—how every syllable of his dying words might be heard to the furthest part of the audience; and I—give me credit for my ingenuity—know how, by reversing the art, to be perfectly inaudible at ten paces’ distance, and yet, I trust, perfectly intelligible, always, to you.”
Helen now rose decidedly, and retreated to a table at the other side of the room, and turned over some books that lay there—she took up a volume of the novel Lady Castlefort had been reading—“Love unquestionable.” She was surprised to find it instantly, gently, but decidedly drawn from her hand: she looked up—it was Beauclerc.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Stanley, but——”
“Thank you! thank you!” said Helen; “you need not beg my pardon.”
This was the first time Beauclerc had spoken in his friendly, cordial, natural manner, to her, since their incomprehensible misunderstanding. She was heartily glad it was over, and that he was come to himself again. And now they conversed very happily together for some time; though what they said might not be particularly worth recording. Lady Katrine was at Helen’s elbow before she perceived her “looking for her sac;” and Lady Castlefort came for her third volume, and gliding off, wished to all—“Felice, felicissima notte.”
Neither of these sisters had ever liked Helen; she was too true for the one, and too good-natured for the other. Lady Katrine had always, even when she was quite a child, been jealous of Lady Cecilia’s affection for Helen; and now her indignation and disappointment were great at finding her established at Clarendon Park—to live with the Clarendons, to go out with Lady Cecilia. Now, it had been the plan of both sisters, that Lady Katrine’s present visit should be eternal. How they would ever have managed to fasten her ladyship upon the General, even if Helen had been out of the question, need not now be considered. Their disappointment and dislike to Helen were as great as if she had been the only obstacle to the fulfilment of their scheme.
These two sisters had never agreed—