Book: Helen

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Helen




"You are right, Cecilia," interrupted the general. "I see a caleche on that
road.--It is he."

The caleche turned into the park, and in a few minutes they
met.--Carriages, horses, and servants, were sent off to the house, while
the whole party walked, and talked, and looked. Lady Cecilia was in
delightful spirits, and so affectionately, so delicately joyful--so kind,
that if Helen and Beauclerc had ever blamed, or had reason to blame her, it
must now be for ever forgotten. As, in their walk, they came near that
seat by the water's side where the lovers had parted, Cecilia whispered
something to her mother, and instantly it was "done as desired." Beauclerc
and Helen were left to their own explanations, and the rest of the party
pursued their walk home. Of what passed in this explanatory scene no note
has been transmitted to the biographer, and we must be satisfied with the
result.




CHAPTER XIV.


"All is right!" cried Lady Cecilia. "O my dear mother, I am the happiest
creature in the world, if you were not going away; could not you stay--a
little, a very little longer--just till--"

"No, no, my dear, do not urge me to stay," said Lady Davenant; "I
cannot--your father expects me to-morrow."

All her preparations were made--in short, it must be so, and Lady Davenant
begged her daughter would not spend the short remaining time they were to
have together in entreaties, distressing and irritating to the feelings of
those who ask and of those who must refuse. "Let us enjoy in peace," said
she, "all that is to be enjoyed this day before I go."

When Helen entered the drawing-room before dinner, knowing that she was
very late, she found assembled Lady Davenant, Beauclerc, and the officers,
but Cecilia was not there, nor did the punctual general make his
appearance; the dinner-hour was passed, a servant had twice looked in to
announce it, and, seeing neither my lady nor the general, had in surprise
retired. Silence prevailed--what could be the matter? So unusual for the
general to be late. The general came in, hurried--very uncommon in him,
and, after saying a few words in a low voice to Lady Davenant, who
immediately went up stairs, he begged pardon, was very sorry he had kept
dinner waiting, but Lady Cecilia had been taken ill--had fainted--she was
better--he hoped it was nothing that would signify--she was lying down--he
begged they would go to dinner. And to dinner they went, and when Lady
Davenant returned she put Helen's mind at ease by saying it was only a
little faintishness from over-fatigue. She had prescribed rest, and Cecilia
had herself desired to be left quite alone. After dinner Lady Davenant went
up again to see her, found her not so well--feverish; she would not let
Helen go to her--they would talk if they were together, and she thought it
necessary to keep Cecilia very quiet. If she would but submit to this, she
would be well again probably in the morning. At tea-time, and in the course
of the evening twice, Cecilia sent to beg to speak to Helen; but Lady
Davenant and the general joined in requesting her not to go. The general
went himself to Lady Cecilia to enforce obedience, and he reported that she
had submitted with a good grace.

Helen was happily engaged by Beauclerc's conversation during the rest of
the evening. It was late before they retired, and when she went up-stairs,
Felicie said that her lady was asleep, and had been asleep for the last two
hours, and she was sure that after such good rest her ladyship would be
perfectly well in the morning. Without further anxiety about her friend,
therefore, Helen went to her own room. It was a fine moonlight night, and
she threw open the shutters, and stood for a long time looking out upon the
moonlight, which she loved; and even after she had retired to bed it was
long before she could sleep. The only painful thought in her mind was of
Lady Davenant's approaching departure; without her, all happiness would
be incomplete; but still, hope and love had much that was delightful to
whisper, and, as she at last sank to sleep, Beauclerc's voice seemed still
speaking to her in soft sounds. Yet the dream which followed was uneasy;
she thought that they were standing together in the library, at the open
door of the conservatory, by moonlight, and he asked her to walk out,
and when she did not comply, all changed, and she saw him walking with
another--with Lady Castlefort; but then the figure changed to one
younger--more beautiful--it must be, as the beating of Helen's heart in
the dream told her--it must be Lady Blanche. Without seeing Helen, however,
they seemed to come on, smiling and talking low to each other along the
matted alley of the conservatory, almost to the very door where she was
still, as she thought, standing with her hand upon the lock, and then they
stopped, and Beauclerc pulled from an orange-tree a blossom which seemed
the very same which Helen had given to him that evening, he offered it to
Lady Blanche, and something he whispered; but at this moment the handle of
the lock seemed to slip, and Helen awoke with a start; and when she was
awake, the noise of her dream seemed to continue; she heard the real sound
of a lock turning--her door slowly opened, and a white figure appeared.
Helen started up in her bed, and awaking thoroughly, saw that it was only
Cecilia in her dressing-gown.

"Cecilia! What's the matter, my dear? are you worse?"

Lady Cecilia put her finger on her lips, closed the door behind her,
and said, "Hush! hush! or you'll waken Felicie; she is sleeping in the
dressing-room to-night. Mamma ordered it, in case I should want her."

"And how are you now? What can I do for you?"

"My dear Helen, you can do something for me indeed. But don't get up. Lie
down and listen to me. I want to speak to you."

"Sit down, then, my dear Cecilia, sit down here beside me."

"No, no, I need not sit down, I am very well, standing. Only let me say
what I have to say. I am quite well."

"Quite well! indeed you are not. I feel you all trembling. You must sit
down, indeed, my dear," said Helen, pressing her.

She sat down. "Now listen to me--do not waste time, for I can't stay. Oh!
if the general should awake and find me gone."

"What is the matter, my dear Cecilia? Only tell me what I can do for you."

"That is the thing; but I am afraid, now it is come to the point." Lady
Cecilia breathed quick and short. "I am almost afraid to ask you to do this
for me."

"Afraid! my dear Cecilia, to ask me to do anything in this world for you!
How can you be afraid? Tell me only what it is at once."

"I am very foolish--I am very weak. I know you love me--would do anything
for me, Helen. And this is the simplest thing in the world, but the
greatest favour--the greatest service. It is only just to receive a packet,
which the general will give you in the morning. He will ask if it is for
you. And you will just accept of it. I don't ask you to say it is yours, or
to say a word about it--only receive it for me."

"Yes, I will, to be sure. But why should he give it to me, and not to
yourself?"

"Oh, he thinks, and you must let him think, it is for you, that's all. Will
you promise me?"--But Helen made no answer. "Oh, promise me, promise me,
speak, for I can't stay. I will explain it all to you in the morning." She
rose to go.

"Stay, stay! Cecilia," cried Helen, stopping her; "stay!--you must, indeed,
explain it all to me now--you must indeed!"

Lady Cecilia hesitated--said she had not time. "You said, Helen, that you
would take the packet, and you know you must; but I will explain it all as
fast as I can. You know I fainted, but you do not know why? I will tell
you exactly how it all happened:--you recollect my coming into the library
after I was dressed, before you went up-stairs, and giving you a sprig of
orange flowers?"

"Oh yes, I was dreaming of it just now when you came in," said Helen.
"Well, what of that?"

"Nothing, only you must have been surprised to hear so soon afterwards that
I had fainted."

"Yes," Helen said, she had been very much surprised and alarmed; and again
Lady Cecilia paused.

"Well, I went from you directly to Clarendon, to give him a rose, which you
may remember I had in my hand for him. I found him in the study, talking to
corporal somebody. He just smiled as I came in, took the rose, and said, 'I
shall be ready this moment:' and looking to a table on which were heaps of
letters and parcels which Granville had brought from town, he added, 'I do
not know whether there is anything there for you, Cecilia?' I went to look,
and he went on talking to his corporal. He was standing with his back to
the table."

Helen felt that Lady Cecilia told all these minute details as if there was
some fact to which she feared to come. Cecilia went on very quickly. "I did
not find anything for myself; but in tossing over the papers I saw a packet
directed to General Clarendon. I thought it was a feigned hand--and yet
that I knew it--that I had seen it somewhere lately. There was one little
flourish that I recollected; it was like the writing of that wretched
Carlos."

"Carlos!" cried Helen: "well!"

"The more I looked at it," continued Lady Cecilia, "the more like I thought
it; and I was going to say so to the general, only I waited till he had
done his business: but as I was examining it through the outer cover, of
very thin foreign paper, I could distinguish the writing of some of the
inside, and it was like your hand or like mine. You know, between our hands
there is such a great resemblance, there is no telling one from the other."

Helen did not think so, but she remained silent.

"At least," said Cecilia, answering her look of doubt, "at least the
general says so; he never knows our hands asunder. Well! I perceived that
there was something hard inside--more than papers; and as I felt it, there
came from it an uncommon perfume--a particular perfume, like what I used to
have once, at the time--that time that I can never bear to think of, you
know--"

"I know," said Helen, and in a low voice she added, "you mean about Colonel
D'Aubigny."

"The perfume, and altogether I do not know what, quite overcame me. I
had just sense enough to throw the packet from me: I made an effort, and
reached the window, and I was trying to open the sash, I remember; but what
happened immediately after that, I cannot tell you. When I came to myself,
I was in my husband's arms; he was carrying me up-stairs--and so much
alarmed about me he was! Oh, Helen, I do so love him! He laid me on the
bed, and he spoke so kindly, reproaching me for not taking more care of
myself--but so fondly! Somehow I could not bear it just then, and I closed
my eyes as his met mine. He, I knew, could suspect nothing--but still! He
stayed beside me, holding my hand: then dinner was ready; he had been twice
summoned. It was a relief to me when he left me. Next, I believe, my mother
came up, and felt my pulse, and scolded me for over-fatiguing myself, and
for that leap; and I pleaded guilty, and it was all very well. I saw she
had not an idea there was anything else. Mamma really is not suspicious,
with all her penetration--she is not suspicious."

"And why did you not tell her all the little you had to tell, dear Cecilia?
If you had, long ago, when I begged of you to do so--if you had told your
mother all about--"

"Told her!" interrupted Cecilia; "told my mother!--oh no, Helen!"

Helen sighed, and feebly said, "Go on."

"Well! when you were at dinner, it came into my poor head that the general
would open that parcel before I could see you again, and before I could ask
your advice and settle with you--before I could know what was to be done. I
was so anxious, I sent for you twice."

"But Lady Davenant and the general forbade me to go to you."

"Yes,"--Lady Cecilia said she understood that, and she had seen the danger
of showing too much impatience to speak to Helen; she thought it might
excite suspicion of her having something particular to say, she had
therefore refrained from asking again. She was not asleep when Helen came
to bed, though Felicie thought she was; she was much too anxious to sleep
till she had seen her husband again; she was awake when he came into his
room; she saw him come in with some letters and packets in his hand; by
his look she knew all was still safe--he had not opened _that_ particular
packet--he held it among a parcel of military returns in his hand as he
came to the side of the bed on tiptoe to see if she was asleep--to ask how
she did; "He touched my pulse," said Lady Cecilia,--"and I am sure he
might well say it was terribly quick.

"Every instant I thought he would open that packet. He threw it, however,
and all the rest, down on the table, to be read in the morning, as usual,
as soon as he awoke. After feeling my pulse again, the last thing, and
satisfying himself that it was better--'Quieter now,' said he, he fell fast
asleep, and slept so soundly, and I--"

Helen looked at her with astonishment, and was silent.

"Oh speak to me!" said Lady Cecilia, "what do you say, Helen?"

"I say that I cannot imagine why you are so much alarmed about this
packet."

"Because I am a fool, I believe," said Lady Cecilia, trying to laugh. "I am
so afraid of his opening it."

"But why?" said Helen, "what do you think there is in it?"

"I have told you, surely! Letters--foolish letters of mine to that
D'Aubigny. Oh how I repent I ever wrote a line to him! And he told me, he
absolutely swore, he had destroyed every note and letter I ever wrote to
him. He was the most false of human beings!"

"He was a very bad man--I always thought so," said Helen; "but, Cecilia, I
never knew that he had any letters of yours."

"Oh yes, you did, my dear, at the time; do not you recollect I showed you a
letter, and it was you who made me break off the correspondence?"

"I remember your showing me several letters of his," said Helen, "but not
of yours--only one or two notes--asking for that picture back again which
he had stolen from your portfolio."

"Yes, and about the verses; surely you recollect my showing you another
letter of mine, Helen!"

"Yes, but these were all of no consequence; there must be more, or you
could not be so much afraid, Cecilia, of the general's seeing these,
surely." At this moment Lady Davenant's prophecy, all she had said about
her daughter, flashed across Helen's mind, and with increasing eagerness
she went on. "What is there in those letters that can alarm you so much?"

"I declare I do not know," said Cecilia, "that is the plain truth; I cannot
recollect--I cannot be certain what there is in them." "But it is not so
long ago, Cecilia,--only two years?"

"That is true, but so many great events have happened since, and such new
feelings, all that early nonsense was swept out of my mind. I never really
loved that wretch--"

A gleam of joy came across Helen's face.

"Never, never," repeated Lady Cecilia.

"Oh, I am happy still," cried Helen. "I told your mother I was sure of
this."

"Good heavens!--Does she know about this packet?"

"No, no!--how could she? But what frightens you, my dear Cecilia? you say
there is nothing wrong in the letters?"

"Nothing--nothing."

"Then make no wrong out of nothing," cried Helen. "If you break confidence
with your husband, that confidence will never, never unite again--your
mother says so."

"My mother!" cried Cecilia: "Good heavens!--so she does suspect?--tell me,
Helen, tell me what she suspects."

"That you did not at first--before you were married, tell the general the
whole truth about Colonel D'Aubigny."

Cecilia was silent.

"But it is not yet too late," said Helen, earnestly; "you can set it all
right now--this is the moment, my dearest Cecilia. Do, do," cried Helen,
"do tell him all--bid him look at the letters."

"Look at them! Impossible! Impossible!" said Lady Cecilia. "Bid me die
rather."

She turned quite away.

"Listen to me, Cecilia;" she held her fast. "You must do it, Cecilia."

"Helen, I cannot."

"You can, indeed you can," said Helen; "only have courage _now_, and you
will be happier all your life afterwards."

"Do not ask it--do not ask it--it is all in vain, you are wasting time."

"No, no--not wasting time; and in short, Cecilia, you must do what I ask
of you, for it is right; and I will not do what you ask of me, for it is
wrong."

"You will not!--You will not!" cried Lady Cecilia, breathless. "After
all! You will not receive the packet for me! you will not let the general
believe the letters to be yours! Then I am undone! You will not do
it!--Then do not talk to me--do not talk to me--you do not know General
Clarendon. If his jealousy were once roused, you have no idea what it would
be."

"If the man were alive," said Helen, "but since he is dead--"

"But Clarendon would never forgive me for having loved another--"

"You said you did not love him."

"Nor did I ever _really_ love that man; but still Clarendon, from even
seeing those letters, might think I did. The very fact of having written
such letters would be destruction to me with Clarendon. You do not know
Clarendon. How can I convince you it is impossible for me to tell him? At
the time he first proposed for me--oh! how I loved him, and feared to lose
him. One day my mother, when I was not by, said something--I do not know
what, about a first love, let fall something about that hateful D'Aubigny,
and the general came to me in such a state! Oh, Helen, in such a state! I
thought it was all at an end. He told me he never would marry any woman
on earth who had ever loved another. I told him I never had, and that was
true, you know; but then I went a little beyond perhaps. I said I had never
THOUGHT of anybody else, for he made such a point of that. In short, I was
a coward--a fool; I little foresaw--I laughed it off, and told him that
what mamma had said was all a mistake, all nonsense; that Colonel D'Aubigny
was a sort of universal flirt--and that was very true, I am sure: that he
had admired us both, both you and me, but you last, you most, Helen, I
said."

"Oh, Cecilia, how could you say so, when you knew he never cared for me in
the least?"

"Forgive me, my dear, for there was no other way; and what harm did it do
you, or what harm can it ever do you? It only makes it the easier for
you to help me--to save me now. And Granville," continued Lady Cecilia,
thinking that was the obstacle in Helen's mind, "and Granville need never
know it."

Helen's countenance suddenly changed--"Granville! I never thought of
that!" and now that she did think of it, she reproached herself with the
selfishness of that fear. Till this moment, she knew her motives had been
all singly for Cecilia's happiness; now the fear she felt of this some way
hurting her with Beauclerc made her less resolute. Lady Cecilia saw her
giving way and hurried on----

"Oh, my dear Helen! I know I have been very wrong, but you would not quite
give me up, would you?--Oh! for my mother's sake! Consider how it would be
with my mother, so ill as you saw her! I am sure if anything broke out now
in my mother's state of health it would be fatal."

Helen became excessively agitated.

"Oh, Helen! would you make me the death of that mother?--Oh, Helen, save
her! and do what you will with me afterwards. It will be only for a few
hours--only a few hours!" repeated Lady Cecilia, seeing that these words
made a great impression upon Helen,--"Save me, Helen! save my mother."

She sank upon her knees, clasping her hands in an agony of supplication.
Helen bent down her head and was silent--she could no longer refuse. "Then
I must," said she.

"Oh thank you! bless you!" cried Lady Cecilia in an ecstasy--"you will take
the letters?"

"Yes," Helen feebly said; "yes, since it must be so."

Cecilia embraced her, thanked her, blessed her, and hastily left the room,
but in an instant afterward she returned, and said, "One thing I forgot,
and I must tell you. Think of my forgetting it! The letters are not signed
with my real name, they are signed Emma--Henry and Emma!--Oh folly, folly!
My dear, dear friend! save me but now, and I never will be guilty of the
least deception again during my whole life; believe me, believe me! When
once my mother is safely gone I will tell Clarendon all. Look at me, dear
Helen, look at me and believe me."

And Helen looked at her, and Helen believed her.




CHAPTER XV.


Helen slept no more this night. When alone in the stillness of the long
hours, she went over and over again all that had passed, what Cecilia
had said, what she had at first thought and afterwards felt, all the
persuasions by which she had been wrought upon, and, on the contrary, all
the reasons by which she ought to be decided; backward and forward her mind
vibrated, and its painful vacillation could not he stilled.

"What am I going to do? To tell a falsehood! That cannot be right; but in
the circumstances--yet this is Cecilia's own way of palliating the fault
that her mother so fears in her--that her mother trusted to me to guard
her against; and now, already, even before Lady Davenant has left us, I
am going to assist Cecilia in deceiving her husband, and on that very
dangerous point--Colonel D'Aubigny." Lady Davenant's foreboding having
already been so far accomplished struck Helen fearfully, and her warning
voice in the dead silence of that night sounded, and her look was upon her,
so strongly, that she for an instant hid her head to get rid of her image.
"But what _can_ I do? her own life is at stake! No less a motive could move
me, but this ought--must--shall decide me. Yet, if Lady Davenant were to
know it!--and I, in the last hours I have to pass with her--the last I
ever may have with her, shall I deceive her? But it is not deceit, only
prudence--necessary prudence; what a physician would order, what even
humanity requires. I am satisfied it is quite right, quite, and I will go
to sleep that I may be strong, and calm, and do it all well in the morning.
After all, I have been too cowardly; frightening myself about nothing; too
scrupulous--for what is it I have promised? only to receive the letters as
if they were mine. Not to _say_ that they are mine; he will not ask me,
Cecilia thinks he will not ask me. But how can she tell? if he should, what
_can_ I do? I must then answer that they are mine. Indeed it is the same
thing, for I should lead him to believe it as much by my receiving them in
silence; it will be telling or acting an absolute falsehood, and can that
ever be right?" Back it came to the same point, and in vain her cheek
settled on the pillow and she thought she could sleep. Then with closed
eyes she considered how the general would look, and speak, or not speak.
"What will he think of me when he sees the picture--the letters? for he
must open the packet. But he will not read them, no, he is too honourable.
I do not know what is in them. There can be nothing, however, but nonsense,
Cecilia says; yet even so, love-letters he must know they are, and a
clandestine correspondence. I heard him once express such contempt for any
clandestine affair. He, who is so nice, so strict, about women's conduct,
how I shall sink in his esteem! Well, be it so, that concerns only myself;
and it is for his own sake too, to save his happiness; and Cecilia, my dear
Cecilia, oh I can bear it, and it will be a pride to me to bear it, for I
am grateful; my gratitude shall not be only in words; now, when I am put
to the trial, I can do something for my friends. Yes, and I will, let the
consequences be what they may." Yet Beauclerc! that thought was at the
bottom of her heart; the fear, the almost certainty, that some way
or other--every way in which she could think of it, it would lead to
difficulty with Beauclerc. But this fear was mere selfishness, she thought,
and to counteract it came all her generous, all her grateful, all her
long-cherished, romantic love of sacrifice--a belief that she was capable
of self-devotion for the friends she loved; and upon the strength of this
idea she fixed at last. Quieted, she soothed herself to repose, and, worn
out with reasoning or trying to reason in vain, she at last, in spite of
the morning light dawning upon her through the unclosed shutters, in a soft
sort of enthusiastic vision fading away, fell asleep.

She slept long; when she awoke it was with that indescribable feeling that
something painful had happened--that something dreadful was to be this day.
She recollected, first, that Lady Davenant was to go. Then came all that
had passed with Cecilia. It was late, she saw that her maid had been in the
room, but had refrained from awakening her; she rose, and dressed as fast
as she could. She was to go to Lady Davenant, when her bell rang twice. How
to appear before one who knew her countenance so well, without showing that
any thing had happened, was her first difficulty. She looked in her glass
to see whether there was any alteration in her face; none that she could
see, but she was no judge. "How foolish to think so much about it all!" She
dressed, and between times inquired from her maid if she had heard of any
change in Lady Davenant's intentions of going. Had any counter-orders about
the carriage been given? None; it was ordered to be at the door by twelve
o'clock. "That was well," Helen said to herself. It would all soon be over.
Lady Davenant would be safe, then she could bear all the rest; next she
hoped, that any perturbation or extraordinary emotion in herself would
not be observed in the hurry of departure, or would be thought natural at
parting with Lady Davenant. "So then, I come at every turn to some little
deceit," thought she, "and I must, I must!" and she sighed.

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