Book: Helen

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Helen




When Lady Cecilia tried to speak, she felt her tongue cleave to the roof of
her mouth; and when she did articulate, it was in a sort of hoarse sound.
"Is the book published?" She held the paper before Lady Castlefort's eyes,
and pointed to the name she could not utter.

"D'Aubigny's book--is it published, do you mean?" said Lady Castlefort.
"Absolutely published, I cannot say, but it is all in print, I know. I
do not understand about publishing. There's something about presentation
copies: I know Katrine was wild to have one before any body else, so she
is to have the first copy, I know, and, I believe, is to have it this very
morning for the people at this breakfast: it is to be the _bonne bouche_ of
the business."

"What has Katrine to do with it?--Oh, tell me, quick!"

"Dear me, Cecilia, what a fuss you are in!--you make me quite nervous to
look at you. You had better go down to the breakfast-room, and you will
hear all about it from the fountain-head." "Has Katrine the book or not?"
cried Lady Cecilia.

"Bless me! I will inquire, my dear, if you will not look so dreadful." She
rang and coolly asked--"Did that man, that bookseller, Stone, send any
parcel or book this morning, do you know, for Lady Katrine?"

"Yes, my lady; Landrum had a parcel for Lady Katrine--it is on the table, I
believe."

"Very well." The man left the room. Lady Cecilia darted on the brown paper
parcel she had seen directed to Lady Katrine, and seized it before the
amazed Louisa could prevent her. "Stop, stop!" cried she, springing
forward, "stop, Cecilia; Katrine will never forgive me!"

But Lady Cecilia seizing a penknife, cut the first knot. "Oh, Cecilia, I am
undone if Katrine comes in! Make haste, make haste! I can only let you have
a peep or two. We must do it up again as well as ever," continued Lady
Castlefort, while Lady Cecilia, fast as possible, went on cut, cut, cutting
the packthread to bits, and she tore off the brown paper cover, then one of
silver paper, that protected the silk binding. Lady Castlefort took up the
outer cover and read, "To be returned before two o'clock."--"What can
that mean? Then it is only lent; not her own. Katrine will not understand
this--will be outrageously disappointed. I'm sure I don't care. But here
is a note from Stone, however, which may explain it." She opened and
read--"Stone's respects--existing circumstances make it necessary her
ladyship's copy should be returned. Will be called for at two o'clock."

"Cecilia, Cecilia, make haste! But Katrine does not know yet--Still she may
come up." Lady Castlefort rang and inquired,--

"Have they done breakfast?"

"Breakfast is over, my lady," said the servant who answered the bell, but
Landrum thinks the gentlemen and ladies will not be up immediately, on
account of one of the ladies being _performing_ a poem."

"Very well, very good," added her ladyship, as the man left the room.
"Then, Cecilia, you will have time enough, for when once they begin
performing, as Sylvester calls it, there is no end of it."

"Oh Heavens!" cried Cecilia, as she turned over the pages, "Oh Heavens!
what is here? Such absolute falsehood! Shocking, shocking!" she
exclaimed, as she looked on, terrified at what she saw: "Absolutely
false--a forgery."

"Whereabouts are you?" said Lady Castlefort, approaching to read along with
her.

"Oh, do not read it," cried Cecilia, and she hastily closed the book.

"What signifies shutting the book, my dear," said Louisa, "as if you could
shut people's eyes? I know what it is; I have read it."

"Read it!"

"Read it! I really can read, though it seems to astonish you."

"But it is not published?"

"One can read in manuscript."

"And did you see the manuscript?"

"I had a glimpse. Yes--I know more than Katrine thinks I know."

"O tell me, Louisa; tell me all," cried Cecilia.

"I will, but you must never tell that I told it to you."

"Speak, speak," cried Cecilia.

"It is a long story," said Lady Castlefort.

"Make it short then. O tell me quick, Louisa.'"

"There is a literary _dessous des cartes_," said Lady Castlefort, a little
vain of knowing a literary _dessous des cartes_; "Churchill being at the
head of every thing of that sort, you know, the bookseller brought him the
manuscript which Sir Thomas D'Aubigny had offered him, and wanted to know
whether it would do or not. Mr. Churchill's answer was, that it would never
do without more pepper and salt, meaning gossip and scandal, and all that.
But you are reading on, Cecilia, not listening to me."

"I am listening, indeed."

"Then never tell how I came to know every thing. Katrine's maid has a
lover, who is, as she phrases it, one of the gentlemen connected with the
press. Now, my Angelique, who cannot endure Katrine's maid, tells me that
this man is only a _wonder-maker_, a half-crown paragraph writer. So,
through Angelique, and indeed from another person--" she stopped; and then
went on--"through Angelique it all came up to me."

"All what?" cried Cecilia; "go on, go on to the facts."

"I will, if you will not hurry me so. The letters were not in Miss
Stanley's handwriting."

"No! I am sure of that," said Cecilia.

"Copies were all that they pretended to be; so they may be forgeries after
all, you see."

"But how did Katrine or Mr. Churchill come by the copies?"

"I have a notion, but of this I am not quite sure--I have a notion, from
something I was told by--in short I suspect that Carlos, Lady Davenant's
page, somehow got at them, and gave them, or had them given to the man
who was to publish the book. Lady Katrine and Churchill laid their heads
together; here, in this very _sanctum sanctorum_. They thought I knew
nothing, but I knew every thing. I do not believe Horace had anything to do
with it, except saying that the love-letters would be just the thing for
the public if they were bad enough. I remember, too, that it was he who
added the second title, 'Reminiscences of a Roue,' and said something about
alliteration's artful aid. And now," concluded Lady Castlefort, "it is
coming to the grand catastrophe, as Katrine calls it. She has already told
the story, and to-day she was to give all her set what she calls ocular
demonstration. Cecilia, now, quick, finish; they will be here this instant.
Give me the book; let me do it up this minute."

"No, no; let me put it up," cried Lady Cecilia, keeping possession of the
book and the brown paper. "I am a famous hand at doing up a parcel, as
famous as any Bond Street shopman: your hands are not made for such work."

Any body but Lady Castlefort would have discerned that Lady Cecilia had
some further design, and she was herself afraid it would be perceived; but
taking courage from seeing what a fool she had to deal with, Lady Cecilia
went on more boldly: "Louisa, I must have more packthread; this is all cut
to bits."

"I will ring and ask for some."

"No, no; do not ring for the footman; he might observe that we had opened
the parcel. Cannot you get a string without ringing? Look in that basket."

"None there, I know," said Lady Castlefort without stirring.

"In your own room then; Angelique has some."

"How do you know?"

"I know! never mind how. Go, and she will give you packthread. I must have
it before Katrine comes up. So go, Louisa, go."

"Go," in the imperative mood, operated, and she went; she did not know why.

That instant Lady Cecilia drew the book out of the half-folded paper, and
quick, quick, tore out page after page--every page of those letters that
concerned herself or Helen, and into the fire thrust them, and as they
blazed held them down bravely--had the boldness to wait till all was black:
all the while she trembled, but stood it, and they were burnt, and the book
in its brown paper cover was left on the table, and she down stairs, before
Lady Castlefort's dressing-room door opened, and she crossed the hall
without meeting a soul except the man in waiting there. The breakfast-room
was at the back of the house looking into the gardens, and her carriage at
the front-door had never been seen by Lady Katrine, or any of her blue set.
She cleared out of the house into her carriage--and off--"To the Park,"
said she.--She was off but just in time. The whole tribe came out of the
breakfast room before she had turned the corner of the street. She threw
herself back in the carriage and took breath, congratulating herself upon
this hairbreadth 'scape. For this hour, this minute, she had escaped!--she
was reprieved!

And now what was next to be done? This was but a momentary reprieve.
Another copy would be had--no, not till to-morrow though. The sound of the
words that had been read from the bookseller's note by Lady Castlefort,
though scarcely noticed at the time, recurred to her now; and there was
hope something might to-day be done to prevent the publication. It might
still be kept for ever from her husband's and from Beauclerc's knowledge.
One stratagem had succeeded--others might.

She took a drive round the Park to compose the excessive flurry of her
spirits. Letting down all the glasses, she had the fresh air blowing upon
her, and ere she was half round, she was able to think of what yet remained
to do. Money! Oh! any money she could command she would give to prevent
this publication. She was not known to the bookseller--no matter. Money is
money from whatever hand. She would trust the matter to no one but herself,
and she would go immediately--not a moment to be lost.--"To Stone's, the
bookseller's."

Arrived. "Do not give my name; only say, a lady wants to speak to Mr.
Stone."

The people at Mr. Stone's did not know the livery or the carriage, but such
a carriage and such a lady commanded the deference of the shopman. "Please
to walk in, madam," and by the time she had walked in, the man changed
madam into your ladyship--"Mr. Stone will be with your ladyship in a
moment--only in the warehouse. If your ladyship will please to walk up into
the back drawing-room--there's a fire." The maid followed to blow it; and
while the bellows wheezed and the fire did not burn, Lady Cecilia looked
out of the window in eager expectation of seeing Mr. Stone returning from
the warehouse with all due celerity. No Mr. Stone, however, appeared; but
there was a good fire in the middle of the court-yard, as she observed to
the maid who was plying the wheezing bellows; and who answered that they
had had a great fire there this hour past "burning of papers." And at that
moment a man came out with his arms full of a huge pile--sheets of a book,
Lady Cecilia saw--it was thrown on the fire. Then came out and stood before
the fire--could she he mistaken?--impossible--it was like a dream--the
general!

Cecilia's first thought was to run away before she should be seen; but the
next moment that thought was abandoned, for the time to execute it was now
past. The messenger sent across the yard had announced that a lady in the
back drawing-room wanted Mr. Stone. Eyes had looked up--the general had
seen and recognised her, and all she could now do was, to recognise him in
return, which she did as eagerly and gracefully as possible. The general
came up to her directly, not a little astonished that she, whom he fancied
at home in her bed, incapacitated by a headache that had prevented her from
speaking to him, should be here, so far out of her usual haunts, and, as it
seemed, out of her element--"What can bring you here, my dear Cecilia?"

"The same purpose which, if I rightly spell, brought you here, my dear
general," and her eye intelligently glanced at the burning papers in the
yard. "Do you know then, Cecilia, what those papers are? How did you know?"

Lady Cecilia told her history, keeping as strictly to facts as the nature
of the case admitted. Her headache, of course, she had found much better
for the sleep she had taken. She had set off, she told him, as soon as she
was able, for Lady Castlefort's, to inquire into the meaning of the strange
whispers of the preceding night. Then she told of the scandalous paragraphs
she had seen; how she had looked over the book; and how successfully she
had torn out and destroyed the whole chapter; and then how, hoping to be
able to prevent the publication, she had driven directly to Mr. Stone's.

Her husband, with confiding, admiring eyes, looked at her and listened to
her, and thought all she said so natural, so kind, that he could not but
love her the more for her zeal of friendship, though he blamed her for
interfering, in defiance of his caution, "Had you consulted me, or listened
to me, my dear Cecilia, this morning, I could have saved you all this
trouble; I should have told you that I would settle with Stone, and stop
the publication, as I have done."

"But that copy which had been sent to Lady Katrine, surely I did some good
there by burning those pages; for if once it had got among her set, it
would have spread like wildfire, you know, Clarendon."

He acknowledged this, and said, smiling--"Be satisfied with yourself, my
love; I acknowledge that you made there a capital _coup de main_."

Just then in came Mr. Stone with an account in his hand, which the general
stepped forward to receive, and, after one glance at the amount, he took
up a pen, wrote, and signed his name to a cheque on his banker. Mr. Stone
received it, bowed obsequiously, and assured the general that every copy
of the offensive chapter had been withdrawn from the book and burnt--"that
copy excepted which you have yourself, general, and that which was sent to
Lady Katrine Hawksby, which we expect in every minute, and it shall he sent
to Grosvenor Square immediately. I will bring it myself, to prevent all
danger."

The general, who knew there was no danger there, smiled at Cecilia, and
told the bookseller that he need take no further trouble about Lady
Katrine's copy; the man bowed, and looking again at the amount of the
cheque, retired well satisfied.

"You come home with me, my dear Clarendon, do not you?" said Lady Cecilia.

They drove off. On their way, the general said--"It is always difficult to
decide whether to contradict or to let such publications take their course:
but in the present case, to stop the scandal instantly and completely
was the only thing to be done. There are cases of honour, when women
are concerned, where law is too slow: it must not be remedy, it must be
prevention. If the finger of scorn dares to point, it must be--cut off."
After a pause of grave thought, he added--"Upon the manner in which Helen
now acts will depend her happiness--her character--her whole future life."

Lady Cecilia summoned all her power to prevent her from betraying herself:
the danger was great, for she could not command her fears so completely as
to hide the look of alarm with which she listened to the general; but in
his eyes her agitation appeared no more than was natural for her to feel
about her friend.

"My love," continued he, "if Helen is worthy of your affection, she
will show it now. Her only resource is in perfect truth: tell her so,
Cecilia--impress it upon her mind. Would to Heaven I had been able to
convince her of this at first! Speak to her strongly, Cecilia; as you love
her, impress upon her that my esteem, Beauclerc's love, the happiness of
her life, depend upon her truth!" As he repeated these words, the carriage
stopped at their own door.




CHAPTER VII


We left Helen in the back drawing-room, the door bolted, and beginning to
read her dreaded task. The paragraphs in the newspapers, we have seen,
were sufficiently painful, but when she came to the book itself--to the
letters--she was in consternation, greater even than what she had felt in
the general's presence under the immediate urgency of his eye and voice.
Her conviction was that in each of these letters, there were some passages,
some expressions, which certainly were Cecilia's, but mixed with others,
which as certainly were not hers. The internal evidence appeared to her
irresistibly strong: and even in those passages which she knew to be
Cecilia's writing, it too plainly appeared that, however playfully, however
delicately expressed, there was more of real attachment for Colonel
D'Aubigny than Cecilia had ever allowed Helen to believe; and she felt that
Cecilia must shrink from General Clarendon's seeing these as her letters,
after she had herself assured him that he was her first love. The falsehood
was here so indubitable, so proved, that Helen herself trembled at the
thought of Cecilia's acknowledging the plain facts to her husband. The time
for it was past. Now that they were in print, published perhaps, how must
he feel! If even candid confession were made to him, and made for the best
motives, it would to him appear only forced by necessity--forced, as he
would say to himself, because her friend would not submit to be sacrificed.

Such were Helen's thoughts on reading the two or three first letters, but,
as she went on, her alarm increased to horror. She saw things which she
felt certain Cecilia could never have written; yet truth and falsehood
were so mixed up in every paragraph, circumstances which she herself had
witnessed so misrepresented, that it was all to her inextricable confusion.
The passages which were to be marked could not now depend upon her opinion,
her belief; they must rest upon Cecilia s integrity--and could she depend
upon it? The impatience which she had felt for Lady Cecilia's return now
faded away, and merged in the more painful thought that, when she did come,
the suspense would not end--the doubts would never be satisfied.

She lay down upon the sofa and tried to rest, kept herself perfectly still,
and resolved to think no more; and, as far as the power of the mind over
itself can stay the ever-rising thoughts, she controlled hers, and waited
with a sort of forced, desperate composure for the event. Suddenly she
heard that knock, that ring, which she knew announced Lady Cecilia's
return. But not Cecilia alone; she heard the general also coming upstairs,
but Cecilia first, who did not stop for more than an instant at the
drawing-room door:--she looked in, as Helen guessed, and seeing that no one
was there, ran very quickly up the next flight of stairs. Next came the
general:--on hearing his step, Helen's anxiety became so intense, that she
could not, at the moment he came near, catch the sound or distinguish which
way he went. Strained beyond its power, the faculty of hearing seemed
suddenly to fail--all was confusion, an indistinct buzz of sounds. The
next moment, however, recovering, she plainly heard his step in the front
drawing-room, and she knew that he twice walked up and down the whole
length of the room, as if in deep thought. Each time as he approached the
folding doors she was breathless. At last he stopped, his hand was on the
lock--she recollected that the door was bolted, and as he turned the handle
she, in a powerless voice, called to tell him, but not hearing her, he
tried again, and as the door shook she again tried to speak, but could not.
Still she heard, though she could not articulate. She heard him say, "Miss
Stanley, are you there? Can I see you?"

But the words--the voice seemed to come from afar--sounded dull and
strange. She tried to rise from her seat--found a difficulty--made an
effort--stood up--she summoned resolution--struggled--hurried across the
room--drew back the bolt--threw open the door--and that was all she could
do. In that effort strength and consciousness failed--she fell forward and
fainted at the general's feet. He raised her up, and laid her on the sofa
in the inner room. He rang for her maid, and went up-stairs to prevent
Cecilia's being alarmed. He took the matter coolly: he had seen many
fainting young ladies, he did not like them--his own Cecilia excepted--in
his mind always excepted from every unfavourable suspicion regarding the
sex. Helen, on the contrary, was at present subject to them all, and, under
the cloud of distrust, he saw in a bad light every thing that occurred;
the same appearances which, in his wife, he would have attributed to the
sensibility of true feeling, he interpreted in Helen as the consciousness
of falsehood, the proof of cowardly duplicity. He went back at once to his
original prejudice against her, when, as he first thought, she had been
forced upon him in preference to his own sister. He had been afterwards
convinced that she had been perfectly free from all double dealing; yet now
he slid back again, as people of his character often do, to their first
opinion. "I thought so at first, and I find, as I usually do, that my first
thought was right."

What had been but an adverse feeling was now considered as a prescient
judgment. And he did not go upstairs the quicker for these thoughts, but
calmly and coolly, when he reached Lady Cecilia's dressing-room, knocked at
the door, and, with all the precautions necessary to prevent her from being
alarmed, told her what had happened. "You had better not go down, my
dear Cecilia, I beg you will not. Miss Stanley has her own maid, all the
assistance that can be wanted. My dear, it is not fit for you. I desire you
will not go down."

But Lady Cecilia would not listen, could not be detained; she escaped from
her husband, and ran down to Helen. Excessively alarmed she was, and well
she might be, knowing herself to be the cause, and not certain in any way
how it might end. She found Helen a little recovered, but still pale as
white marble; and when Lady Cecilia took her hand, it was still quite cold.
She came to herself but very slowly. For some minutes she did not recover
perfect consciousness, or clear recollection. She saw figures of persons
moving about her, she felt them as if too near, and wished them away;
wanted air, but could not say what she wished. She would have moved, but
her limbs would not obey her will. At last, when she had with effort half
raised her head, it sunk back again before she could distinguish all the
persons in the room. The shock of cold water on her forehead revived her;
then coming clearly to power of perception, she saw Cecilia bending over
her. But still she could not speak, and yet she understood distinctly, saw
the affectionate anxiety, too, in her little maid Rose's countenance; she
felt that she loved Rose, and that she could not endure Felicie, who had
now come in, and was making exclamations, and advising various remedies,
all of which, when offered, Helen declined. It was not merely that
Felicie's talking, and tone of voice, and superabundant action, were
too much for her; but that Helen had at this moment a sort of intuitive
perception of insincerity, and of exaggeration. In that dreamy state,
hovering between life and death, in which people are on coming out of a
swoon, it seems as if there was need for a firm hold of reality; the senses
and the understanding join in the struggle, and become most acute in their
perception of what is natural or what is unnatural, true or false, in the
expressions and feelings of the by-standers. Lady Cecilia understood her
look, and dismissed Felicie, with all her smelling-bottles. Rose, though
not ordered away, judiciously retired as soon as she saw that her services
were of no further use, and that there was something upon her young lady's
mind, for which, hartshorn and sal volatile could be of no avail.

Cecilia would have kissed her forehead, but Helen made a slight withdrawing
motion, and turned away her face: the next instant, however, she looked up,
and taking Cecilia's hand, pressed it kindly, and said, "You are more to be
pitied than I am; sit down, sit down beside me, my poor Cecilia; how you
tremble! and yet you do not know what is coming upon you."

"Yes, yes, I do--I do," cried Lady Cecilia, and she eagerly told Helen all
that had passed, ending with the assurance that the publication had been
completely stopped by her dear Clarendon; that the whole chapter containing
the letters had been destroyed, that not a single copy had got abroad. "The
only one in existence is this," said she, taking it up as she spoke, and
she made a movement as if going to tear out the leaves, but Helen checked
her hand, "That must not be, the general desired----"

And almost breathless, yet distinctly, she repeated what the general had
said, that he might be called upon to prove which parts were forged, and
which true, and that she had promised to mark the passages. "So now,
Cecilia, here is a pencil, and mark what is and what is not yours."

Lady Cecilia instantly took the pencil, and in great agitation obeyed. "Oh,
my dear Helen, some of these the general could not think yours. Very wicked
these people have been!--so the general said; he was sure, he knew, all
could not be yours."

"Finish! my dear Cecilia," interrupted Helen; "finish what you have to
do, and in this last trial, give me this one proof of your sincerity. Be
careful in what you are now doing, mark truly--oh, Cecilia! every word you
recollect--as your conscience tells you. Will you, Cecilia? this is all I
ask, as I am to answer for it--will you?"

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