Book: Helen

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Helen




Beauclerc could not or would not tell--"I only know that whenever I bend
the knee," said he, "it will be because I cannot help it!"

Beauclerc could not be drawn out either by Churchill's persiflage or
flattery, and he tried both, to talk of his tastes or opinions of women.
He felt too much perhaps about love to talk much about it. This all agreed
well in Helen's imagination with what Lady Cecilia had told her of his
secret engagement. She was sure he was thinking of Lady Blanche, and that
he could not venture to describe her, lest he should betray himself and his
secret. Then, leaving Churchill and the talkers, he walked up and down the
room alone, at the further side, seeming as if he were recollecting some
lines which he repeated to himself, and then stopping before Lady Cecilia,
repeated to her, in a very low voice, the following:--

"I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles."

Helen thought Lady Blanche must be a charming creature if she was like this
picture; but somehow, as she afterwards told Lady Cecilia, she had formed a
different idea of Lady Blanche Forrester--Cecilia smiled and asked, "How?
different how?"

Helen did not exactly know, but altogether she had imagined that she must
be more of a heroine, or perhaps more of a woman of rank and fashion.
She had not formed any exact idea--but different altogether from this
description. Lady Cecilia again smiled, and said, "Very natural; and after
all not very certain that the Lady Blanche is like this picture, which was
not drawn for her or from her assuredly--a resemblance found only in the
imagination, to which we are, all of us, more or less, dupes; and _tant
mieux_ say I--_tant pis_ says mamma--and all mothers."

"There is one thing I like better in Mr. Beauclerc's manners than in Mr.
Churchill," said Helen.

"There are a hundred I like better," said Lady Cecilia, "but what is your
one thing?"

"That he always speaks of women in general with respect--as if he had more
confidence in them, and more dependence upon them for his happiness. Now
Mr. Churchill, with all the adoration he professes, seems to look upon them
as idols that he can set up or pull down, bend the knee to or break to
pieces, at pleasure--I could not like a man for a friend who had a bad, or
even a contemptuous, opinion of women--could you, Cecilia?"

"Certainly not," Lady Cecilia said; "the general had always, naturally, the
greatest respect for women. Whatever prejudices he had taken up had been
only caught from others, and lasted only till he had got rid of the
impression of certain 'untoward circumstances.'" Even a grave, serious
dislike, both Lady Cecilia and Helen agreed that they could bear better
than that persiflage which seemed to mock even while it most professed to
admire.

Horace presently discovered the mistakes he had made in his attempts, and
repaired them as fast as he could by his infinite versatility. The changes
shaded off with a skill which made them run easily into each other. He
perceived that Mr. Beauclerc's respectful air and tone were preferred, and
he now laid himself out in the respectful line, adding, as he flattered
himself, something of a finer point, more polish in whatever he said, and
with more weight of authority.

But he was mortified to find that it did not produce the expected effect,
and, after having done the respectful one morning, as he fancied, in the
happiest manner, he was vexed to perceive that he not only could not raise
Helen's eyes from her work, but that even Lady Davenant did not attend to
him: and that, as he was rounding one of his best periods, her looks were
directed to the other side of the room, where Beauclerc sat apart; and
presently she called to him, and begged to know what it was he was reading.
She said she quite envied him the power he possessed of being rapt into
future times or past, completely at his author's bidding, to be transported
how and where he pleased.

Beauclerc brought the book to her, and put it into her hand. As she took it
she said, "As we advance in life, it becomes more and more difficult to
find in any book the sort of enchanting, entrancing interest which we
enjoyed when life, and, books, and we ourselves were new. It were vain to
try and settle whether the fault is most in modern books, or in our ancient
selves; probably not in either: the fact is, that not only does the
imagination cool and weaken as we grow older, but we become, as we live on
in this world, too much engrossed by the real business and cares of life,
to have feeling or time for factitious, imaginary interests. But why do I
say factitious? while they last, the imaginative interests are as real
as any others."

"Thank you," said Beauclerc, "for doing justice to poor imagination, whose
pleasures are surely, after all, the highest, the most real, that we
have, unwarrantably as they have been decried both by metaphysicians and
physicians."

The book which had so fixed Beauclerc's attention, was Segur's History of
Napoleon's Russian Campaign. He was at the page where the burning of Moscow
is described--the picture of Buonaparte's despair, when he met resolution
greater than his own, when he felt himself vanquished by the human mind, by
patriotism, by virtue--virtue in which he could not believe, the existence
of which, with all his imagination, he could not conceive: the power which
his indomitable will could not conquer.

Beauclerc pointed to the account of that famous inscription on the iron
gate of a church which the French found still standing, the words written
by Rostopchin after the burning of his "delightful home."

"_Frenchmen, I have been eight years in embellishing this residence; I have
lived in it happily in the bosom of my family. The inhabitants of this
estate (amounting to seventeen hundred and twenty) have quitted it at your
approach; and I have, with my own hands, set fire to my own house, to
prevent it from being polluted by your presence._"

"See what one, even one, magnanimous individual can do for his country,"
exclaimed Beauclerc. "How little did this sacrifice cost him! Sacrifice do
I say? it was a pride--a pleasure."

Churchill did not at all like the expression of Helen's countenance, for he
perceived she sympathised with Beauclerc's enthusiasm. He saw that romantic
enthusiasm had more charm for her than wit or fashion; and now he meditated
another change of style. He would try a noble style. He resolved that the
first convenient opportunity he would be a little romantic, and perhaps,
even take a touch at chivalry, a burst like Beauclerc, but in a way of his
own, at the degeneracy of modern times. He tried it--but it was quite a
failure; Lady Cecilia, as he overheard, whispered to Helen what was once
so happily said--"_Ah! le pauvre homme! comme il se batte les flancs d'un
enthousiasme de commande._"

Horace was too clever a man to persist in a wrong line, or one in which his
test of right _success_ did not crown his endeavours. If this did not do,
something else would--should, It was impossible that with all his spirit of
resource he should ultimately fail. To please, and to make an impression on
Helen, a greater impression than Beauclerc--to annoy Beauclerc, in short,
was still, independently of all serious thoughts, the utmost object of
Churchill's endeavours.


END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.






VOLUME THE SECOND.


CHAPTER I.


About this time a circumstance occurred, which seemed to have nothing to
do with Churchill, or Beauclerc, but which eventually brought both their
characters into action and passion.

Lord Davenant had purchased, at the sale of Dean Stanley's pictures,
several of those which had been the dean's favourites, and which,
independently of their positive merit, were peculiarly dear to Helen. He
had ordered that they should be sent down to Clarendon Park; at first, he
only begged house-room for them from the general while he and Lady Davenant
were in Russia; then he said that in case he should never return he wished
the pictures should be divided between his two dear children, Cecilia and
Helen; and that, to prevent disputes, he would make the distribution of
them himself now, and in the kindest and most playful manner he allotted
them to each, always finding some excellent reason for giving to Helen
those which he knew she liked best; and then there was to be a _hanging
committee_, for hanging the pictures, which occasioned a great deal of
talking, Beauclerc always thinking most of Helen, or of what was really
best for the paintings; Horace most of himself and his amateurship.

Among these pictures were some fine Wouvermans, and other hunting and
hawking pieces, and one in particular of the duchess and her ladies, from
Don Quixote. Beauclerc, who had gone round examining and admiring, stood
fixed when he came to this picture, in which he fancied he discovered in
one of the figures some likeness to Helen; the lady had a hawk upon her
wrist. Churchill came up eagerly to the examination, with glass at eye. He
could not discern the slightest resemblance to Miss Stanley; but he was in
haste to, bring out an excellent observation of his own, which he had made
his own from a Quarterly Review, illustrating the advantage it would be to
painters to possess knowledge, even of kinds seemingly most distant from
the line of their profession.

"For instance, now _a priori_, one should not insist upon a great painter's
being a good ornithologist, and yet, for want of being something of a
bird-fancier, look here what he has done--quite absurd, a sort of hawk
introduced, such as never was or could be at any hawking affair in nature:
would not sit upon lady's wrist or answer to her call--would never fly at a
bird. Now you see this is a ridiculous blunder."

While Churchill plumed himself on this critical remark Captain Warmsley
told of who still kept hawks in England, and of the hawking parties he had
seen and heard of--"even this year, that famous hawking in Wiltshire, and
that other in Norfolk."

Churchill asked Warmsley if he had been at Lord Berner's when Landseer was
there studying the subject of his famous hawking scene. "Have you seen
it, Lady Cecilia?" continued he; "it is beautiful; the birds seem to be
absolutely coming out of the picture;" and he was going on with some of
his connoisseurship, and telling of his mortification in having missed the
purchase of that picture; but Warmsley got back to the hawking he had seen,
and he became absolutely eloquent in describing the sport.

Churchill, though eager to speak, listened with tolerably polite patience
till Warmsley came to what he had forgot to mention,--to the label with
the date of place and year that is put upon the heron's leg; to the heron
brought from Denmark, where it had been caught, with the label of having
been let fly from Lord Berner's; "for," continued he, "the heron is always
to be saved if possible, so, when it is down, and the hawk over it, the
falconer has some raw beef ready minced, and lays it on the heron's back,
or a pigeon, just killed, is sometimes used; the hawk devours it, and the
heron, quite safe, as soon as it recovers from its fright, mounts slowly
upward and returns to its heronry."

Helen listened eagerly, and so did Lady Cecilia, who said, "You know,
Helen, our favourite Washington Irving quotes that in days of yore, 'a lady
of rank did not think herself completely equipped in riding forth, unless
she had her tassel-gentel held by jesses on her delicate hand.'"

Before her words were well finished, Beauclerc had decided what he would
do, and the business was half done that is well begun. He was at the
library table, writing as fast as pen could go, to give carte blanche to a
friend, to secure for him immediately a whole hawking establishment which
Warmsley had mentioned, and which was now upon public sale, or privately to
be parted with by the present possessor.

At the very moment when Beauclerc was signing and sealing at one end of the
room, at the other Horace Churchill, to whom something of the same plan
had occurred, was charming Lady Cecilia Clarendon, by hinting to her his
scheme--anticipating the honour of seeing one of his hawks borne upon her
delicate wrist.

Beauclerc, after despatching his letter, came up just in time to catch the
sound and the sense, and took Horace aside to tell him what he had done.
Horace looked vexed, and haughtily observed, that he conceived his place
at Erlesmede was better calculated for a hawking party than most places in
England; and he had already announced his intentions to the ladies. The way
was open to him--but Beauclerc did not see why he should recede; the same
post might carry both their letters--both their orders!"

"How far did your order go, may I ask?" said Churchill.

"Carte blanche."

Churchill owned, with a sarcastic smile, that he was not prepared to go
quite so far. He was not quite so young as Granville; he, unfortunately,
had arrived at years of discretion--he said unfortunately; without ironical
reservation, he protested from the bottom of his heart he considered it as
a misfortune to have become that slow circumspect sort of creature which
looks before it leaps. Even though this might save him from the fate of the
man who was in Sicily, still he considered it as unfortunate to have lost
so much of his natural enthusiasm.

"Natural enthusiasm!" Beauclerc could not help repeating to himself, and he
went on his own way. It must be confessed, as even Beauclerc's best friends
allowed, counting among them Lady Davenant and his guardian, that never
was man of sense more subject to that kind of temporary derangement of the
reasoning powers which results from being what is called bit by a fancy;
he would then run on straight forward, without looking to the right or the
left, in pursuit of his object, great or small. That hawking establishment
now in view, completely shut out, for the moment, all other objects; "of
tercels and of lures he talks;" and before his imagination were hawking
scenes, and Helen with a hawk on her wrist, looking most graceful--a hawk
of his own training it should be. Then, how to train a hawk became the
question. While he was waiting for the answer to his carte blanche, nothing
better, or so good, could be done, as to make himself master of the whole
business, and for this purpose he found it essential to consult every book
on falconry that could be found in the library, and a great plague he
became to everybody in the course of this book-hunt.

"What a bore!" Warmsley might be excused for muttering deep and low between
the teeth. General Clarendon sighed and groaned. Lady Davenant bore and
forebore philosophically--it was for Beauclerc; and to her great philosophy
she gave all the credit of her indulgent partiality. Lady Cecilia,
half-annoyed yet ever good-natured, carried her complaisance so far as to
consult the catalogue and book-shelves sundry times in one hour; but
she was not famous for patience, and she soon resigned him to a better
friend--Helen, the most indefatigable of book-hunters. She had been well
trained to it by her uncle; had been used to it all her life; and really
took pleasure in the tiresome business. She assured Beauclerc it was not
the least trouble, and he thought she looked beautiful when she said so.
Whosoever of the male kind, young, and of ardent, not to say impatient,
spirit, has ever been aided and abetted in a sudden whim, assisted,
forwarded, above all, sympathised with, through all the changes and chances
of a reigning fancy, may possibly conceive how charming, and more charming
every hour, perhaps minute, Helen became in Beauclerc's eyes. But, all in
the way of friendship observe. Perfectly so--on her part, for she could not
have another idea, and it was for this reason she was so much at her ease.
He so understood it, and, thoroughly a gentleman, free from coxcombry, as
he was, and interpreting the language and manners of women with instinctive
delicacy, they went on delightfully. Churchill was on the watch, but he was
not alarmed; all was so undisguised and frank, that now he began to feel
assured that love on her side not only was, but ever would be, quite out of
the question.

Beauclerc was, indeed, in the present instance, really and truly intent
upon what he was about; and he pursued the History of Falconry, with all
its episodes, from the olden time of the Boke of St. Alban's down to the
last number of the Sporting Magazine, including Colonel Thornton's latest
flight, with the adventures of his red falcons, Miss M'Ghee and Lord
Townsend, and his red tercels, Messrs. Croc Franc and Craignon;--not
forgetting that never-to-be forgotten hawking of the Emperor
Arambombamboberus with Trebizonian eagles, on the authority of a manuscript
in the Grand Signior's library.

Beauclerc had such extraordinary dependence upon the sympathy of his
friends, that, when he was reading any thing that interested him, no matter
what they might be doing, he must have their admiration for what charmed
him. He brought his book to Lord Davenant, who was writing a letter."
Listen, oh listen! to this pathetic lament of the falconer,--'Hawks,
heretofore the pride of royalty, the insignia of nobility, the ambassador's
present, the priest's indulgence, companion of the knight, and nursling of
the gentle mistress, are now uncalled-for and neglected.'"

"Ha! very well that," said good-natured Lord Davenant, stopping his pen,
dipping again, dotting, and going on.

Then Beauclerc passaged to Lady Davenant, and, interrupting her in Scott's
Lives of the Novelists, on which she was deeply intent, "Allow me, my dear
Lady Davenant, though you say you are no great topographer, to show you
this, it is so curious; this royal falconer's proclamation--Henry the
Eighth's--to preserve his partridges, pheasants, and herons, from his
palace at Westminster to St. Giles's _in the Fields_, and from thence to
Islington, Hampstead, and Highgate, under penalty for every bird killed of
imprisonment, or whatever other punishment to his highness may seem meet."

Lady Davenant vouchsafed some suitable remark, consonant to expectation, on
the changes of times and places, and men and manners, and then motioned the
quarto away with which motion the quarto reluctantly complied; and then
following Lady Cecilia from window to window, as she _tended_ her flowers,
he would insist upon her hearing the table of precedence for hawks. She,
who never cared for any table of precedence in her life, even where the
higher animals were concerned, would only undertake to remember that the
merlin was a lady's hawk, and this only upon condition, that she should
have one to sit upon her wrist like the fair ladies in Wouvermans'
pictures. But further, as to Peregrine, Gerfalcon, or Gerkin, she would
hear nought of them, nor could she listen, though Granville earnestly
exhorted, to the several good reasons which make a falcon dislike her
master--

1st. If he speak rudely to her. 2nd. If he feed her carelessly.

Before he could get thirdly out, Lady Cecilia stopped him, declaring that
in all her life she never could listen to any thing that began with _first_
and _secondly_--reasons especially.

Horace, meanwhile, looked superior down, and thought with ineffable
contempt of Beauclerc's little skill in the arts of conversation, thus upon
unwilling ears to squander anecdotes which would have done him credit at
some London dinner.

"What I could have made of them! and may make of them yet," thought he;
"but some there are, who never can contrive, as other some cleverly do, to
ride their hobby-horses to good purpose and good effect;--now Beauclerc's
hobbies, I plainly see, will always run away with him headlong, cost him
dear certainly, and, may be, leave him in the mire at last."

What this fancy was to cost him, Beauclerc did not yet know. Two or three
passages in the Sporting Magazine had given some hints of the expense
of this "most delectable of all country contentments," which he had not
thought it necessary to read aloud. And he knew that the late Lord Orford,
an ardent pursuer of this "royal and noble" sport, had expended one hundred
a-year on every hawk he kept, each requiring a separate attendant, and
being moreover indulged in an excursion to the Continent every season
during moulting-time: but Beauclerc said to himself he had no notion of
humouring his hawks to that degree; they should, aristocratic birds though
they be, content themselves in England, and not pretend to "damn the
climate like a lord." And he flattered himself that he should be able to
pursue his fancy more cheaply than any of his predecessors; but as he had
promised his guardian that, after the indulgence granted him in the
Beltravers' cause, he would not call upon him for any more extraordinary
supplies, he resolved, in case the expense exceeded his ways and means, to
sell his hunters, and so indulge in a new love at the expense of an old
one.

The expected pleasure of the first day's hawking was now bright in his
imagination; the day was named, the weather promised well, and the German
cadgers and trainers who had been engaged, and who, along with the whole
establishment, were handed over to Beauclerc, were to come down to
Clarendon Park, and Beauclerc was very happy teaching the merlins to sit on
Lady Cecilia's and on Miss Stanley's wrist. Helen's voice was found to be
peculiarly agreeable to the hawk, who, as Beauclerc observed, loved, like
Lear, that excellent thing in woman, a voice ever soft, gentle, and low.

The ladies were to wear some pretty dresses for the occasion, and all was
gaiety and expectation; and Churchill was mortified when he saw how well
the thing was likely to take, that he was not to be the giver of the fete,
especially as he observed that Helen was particularly pleased--when, to his
inexpressible surprise, Granville Beauclerc came to him, a few days before
that appointed for the hawking-party, and said that he had changed his
mind, that he wished to get rid of the whole concern--that he should be
really obliged to Churchill if he would take his engagement off his hands.
The only reason he gave was, that the establishment would altogether be
more than he could afford, he found he had other calls for money, which
were incompatible with his fancy, and therefore he would give it up.

Churchill obliged him most willingly by taking the whole upon himself,
and he managed so to do in a very ingenious way, without incurring any
preposterous expense. He was acquainted with a set of rich, fashionable
young men, who had taken a sporting lodge in a neighbouring county, who
desired no better than to accede to the terms proposed, and to distinguish
themselves by giving a fete out of the common line, while Churchill, who
understood, like a true man of the world, the worldly art of bargaining,
contrived, with off-hand gentleman-like jockeying, to have every point
settled to his own convenience, and he was to be the giver of the
entertainment to the ladies at Clarendon Park. When this change in affairs
was announced, Lady Cecilia, the general, Lady Davenant, and Helen, were
all, in various degrees, surprised, and each tried to guess what could have
been the cause of Beauclerc's sudden relinquishment of his purpose. He
was--very extraordinary for him--impenetrable: he adhered to the words
"I found I could not afford it." His guardian could not believe in this
wonderful prudence, and was almost certain "there must be some imprudence
at the bottom of it all."

Granville neither admitted nor repelled that accusation. Lady Cecilia
worked away with perpetual little strokes, hoping to strike out the truth,
but, as she said, you might as well have worked at an old flint. Nothing
was elicited from him, even by Lady Davenant; nor did the collision of all
their opinions throw any light upon the matter.

Meanwhile the day for the hawking-party arrived. Churchill gave the fete,
and Beauclerc, as one of the guests, attended and enjoyed it without
the least appearance even of disappointment; and, so far from envying
Churchill, he assisted in remedying any little defects, and did all he
could to make the whole go off well.

The party assembled on a rising ground; a flag was displayed to give notice
of the intended sport; the falconers appeared, picturesque figures in their
green jackets and their long gloves, and their caps plumed with herons'
feathers--some with the birds on their wrists--one with the frame over his
shoulder upon which to set the hawk. _Set_, did we say?--no: "_cast_ your
hawk on the perch" is, Beauclerc observed, the correct term; for, as Horace
sarcastically remarked, Mr. Beauclerc might be detected as a novice in the
art by his over-exactness; his too correct, too attic, pronunciation of the
hawking language. But Granville readily and gaily bore all this ridicule
and raillery, sure that it would neither stick nor stain, enjoying with all
his heart the amusement of the scene--the assembled ladies, the attendant
cavaliers; the hood-winked hawks, the ringing of their brass bells; the
falconers anxiously watching the clouds for the first appearance of the
bird; their skill in loosening the hoods, as, having but one hand at
liberty, they used their teeth to untie the string:----And now the hoods
are off, and the hawks let fly.

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