Book: Helen

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Helen




Many a grain seemed necessary, and very strong nut-crackers in very strong
hands. Lady Cecilia's evidently were not strong enough, though she strained
hard. Helen did not feel inclined to try.

Cecilia invited Miss Clarendon to walk out and see some of the alterations
her brother had made. As they passed the new Italian garden, Miss Clarendon
asked, "What's all this?--don't like this--how I regret the Old English
garden, and the high beech hedges. Every thing is to be changed here, I
suppose,--pray do not ask my opinion about any of the alterations."

"I do not wonder," said Cecilia, "that you should prefer the old garden,
with all your early associations; warm-hearted, amiable people must always
be so fond of what they have loved in childhood."

"I never was here when I was a child, and I am not one of your amiable
people."

"Very true, indeed," thought Helen.

"Miss Stanley looks at me as if I had seven heads," said Miss Clarendon,
laughing; and, a minute after, overtaking Helen as she walked on, she
looked full in her face, and added, "Do acknowledge that you think me a
savage." Helen did not deny it, and from that moment Miss Clarendon looked
less savagely upon her: she laughed and said, "I am not quite such a bear
as I seem, you'll find; at least I never hug people to death. My growl is
worse than my bite, unless some one should flatter my classical, bearish
passion, and offer to feed me with honey, and when I find it all comb and
no honey, who would not growl then?"

Lady Cecilia now came up, and pointed out views to which the general had
opened. "Yes, it's well, he has done very well, but pray don't stand on
ceremony with me. I can walk alone, you may leave me to my own cogitations,
as I like best."

"Surely, as you like best," said Lady Cecilia; "pray consider yourself, as
you know you are, at home here."

"No, I never shall be at home here," said Esther.

"Oh! don't say that, let me hope--let me hope--" and she withdrew. Helen
just stayed to unlock a gate for Miss Clarendon's 'rambles further,' and,
as she unlocked it, she heard Miss Clarendon sigh as she repeated the word,
"Hope! I do not like to hope, hope has so often deceived me."

"You will never be deceived in Cecilia," said Helen.

"Take care--stay till you try."

"I have tried," said Helen, "I know her."

"How long?"

"From childhood!"

"You're scarcely out of childhood yet."

"I am not so very young. I have had trials of my friends--of Cecilia
particularly, much more than you could ever have had."

"Well, this is the best thing I ever heard of her, and from good authority
too; her friends abroad were all false," said Miss Clarendon.

"It is very extraordinary," said Helen, "to hear such a young person as you
are talk so--

"So--how?"

"Of false friends--you must have been very unfortunate."

"Pardon me--very fortunate--to find them out in time." She looked at the
prospect, and liked all that her brother was doing, and disliked all that
she even guessed Lady Cecilia had done. Helen showed her that she guessed
wrong here and there, and smiled at her prejudices; and Miss Clarendon
smiled again, and admitted that she was prejudiced, "but every body is;
only some show and tell, and others smile and fib. I wish that word fib was
banished from English language, and white lie drummed out after it. Things
by their right names and we should all do much better. Truth must be told,
whether agreeable or not."

"But whoever makes truth disagreeable commits high treason against virtue,"
said Helen.

"Is that yours?" cried Miss Clarendon, stopping short.

"No," said Helen. "It is excellent whoever said it."

"It was from my uncle Stanley I heard it," said Helen.

"Superior man that uncle must have been."

"I will leave you now," said Helen.

"Do, I see we shall like one another in time, Miss Stanley; in time,--I
hate sudden friendships."

That evening Miss Clarendon questioned Helen more about her friendship with
Cecilia, and how it was she came to hive with her. Helen plainly told her.

"Then it was not an original promise between you?"

"Not at all," said Helen.

"Lady Cecilia told me it was. Just like her,--I knew all the time it was a
lie."

Shocked and startled at the word, and at the idea, Helen exclaimed, "Oh!
Miss Clarendon, how can you say so? anybody may he mistaken. Cecilia
mistook--" Lady Cecilia joined them at this moment. Miss Clarendon's face
was flushed. "This room is insufferably hot. What can be the use of a fire
at this time of year?"

Cecilia said it was for her mother, who was apt to be chilly in the
evenings; and as she spoke, she put a screen between the flushed cheek and
the fire. Miss Clarendon pushed it away, saying, "I can't talk, I can't
hear, I can't understand with a screen before me. What did you say,
Lady Cecilia, to Lady Davenant, as we came out from dinner, about Mr.
Beauclerc?"

"That we expect him to-morrow."

"You did not tell me so when you wrote!"

"No, my dear."

"Why pray?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know, Lady Cecilia! why should people say they do not know, when
they do know perfectly well?"

"If I had thought it was of any consequence to you, Esther," said Cecilia,
with an arch look----

"Now you expect me to answer that it was not of the least consequence to
me--that is the answer you would make; but my answer is, that it was of
consequence to me, and you knew it was."

"And if I did?"

"If you did, why say 'If I had thought it of any consequence to you?'--why
say so? answer me truly."

"Answer me truly!" repeated Lady Cecilia, laughing. "Oh, my dear Esther, we
are not in a court of justice."

"Nor in a court of honour," pursued Miss Clarendon.

"Well, well! let it be a court of love at least," said Lady Cecilia. "What
a pretty proverb that was, Helen, that we met with the other day in that
book of old English proverbs--'Love rules his kingdom without a sword.'"

"Very likely; but to the point," said Miss Clarendon, "when do you expect
Mr. Beauclerc?"

"To-morrow."

"Then I shall go to-morrow!"

"My dear Esther, why?"

"You know why; you know what reports have been spread; it suits neither my
character nor my brother's to give any foundation for such reports. Let me
ring the bell and I will give my own orders."

"My dear Esther, but your brother will be so vexed--so surprised."

"My brother is the best judge of his own conduct, he will do what he
pleases, or what you please. I am the judge of mine, and certainly shall do
what I think right."

She rang accordingly, and ordered that her carriage should be at the door
at six o'clock in the morning.

"Nay, my dear Esther," persisted Cecilia, "I wish you would not decide so
suddenly; we were so glad to have you come to us--"

"Glad! why you know--"

"I know," interrupted Lady Cecilia, colouring, and she began as fast
as possible to urge every argument she could think of to persuade Miss
Clarendon; but no arguments, no entreaties of hers or the general's,
public or private, were of any avail,--go she would, and go she did at six
o'clock.

"I suppose," said Helen to Lady Davenant, "that Miss Clarendon is very
estimable, and she seems to be very clever: but I wonder that with all her
abilities she does not learn to make her manners more agreeable."

"My dear," said Lady Davenant, "we must take people as they are; you may
graft a rose upon an oak, but those who have tried the experiment tell
us the graft will last but a short time, and the operation ends in the
destruction of both; where the stocks have no common nature, there is ever
a want of conformity which sooner or later proves fatal to both."

But Beauclerc, what was become of him?--that day passed, and no Beauclerc;
another and another came, and on the third day, only a letter from him,
which ought to have come on Tuesday.--But "_too late_," the shameful brand
of procrastination was upon it--and it contained only a few lines blotted
in the folding, to say that he could not possibly be at Clarendon Park on
Tuesday, but would on Wednesday or Thursday if possible.

Good-natured Lord Davenant observed, "When a young man in London, writing
to his friends in the country, names two days for leaving town, and adds an
'_if possible_' his friends should never expect him till the last of the
two named."

The last of the two days arrived--Thursday. The aide-de-camp asked if Mr.
Beauclerc was expected to-day. "Yes, I expect to see him to-day," the
general answered.

"I hope, but do not expect," said Lady Davenant, "for, as learned authority
tells me, 'to expect is to hope with some degree of certainty'--"

The general left the room repeating, "I expect him to-day, Cecilia."

The day passed, however, and he came not--the night came. The general
ordered that the gate should be kept open, and that a servant should sit
up. The servant sat up all night, cursing Mr. Beauclerc. And in the morning
he replied with malicious alacrity to the first question his master asked,
"No, Sir, Mr. Beauclerc is not come."

At breakfast, the general, after buttering his bread in silence for some
minutes, confessed that he loved punctuality. It might be a military
prejudice;--it might be too professional, martinet perhaps,--but still he
owned he did love punctuality. He considered it as a part of politeness, a
proper attention to the convenience and feelings of others; indispensable
between strangers it is usually felt to be, and he did not know why
intimate friends should deem themselves privileged to dispense with it.

His eyes met Helen's as he finished these words, and smiling, he
complimented her upon her constant punctuality. It was a voluntary grace in
a lady, but an imperative duty in a man--and a young man.

"You are fond of this young man, I see general," said Lord Davenant.

"But not of his fault."

Lady Cecilia said something about forgiving a first fault.

"Never!" said Lady Davenant. "Lord Collingwood's rule was--never forgive a
first fault, and you will not have a second. You love Beauclerc, I see, as
Lord Davenant says."

"Love him!" resumed the general; "with all his faults and follies, I love
him as if he were my brother."

At which words Lady Cecilia, with a scarcely perceptible smile, cast a
furtive glance at Helen.

The general called for his horses, and, followed by his aide-de-camp,
departed, saying that he should be back at luncheon-time, when he hoped to
find Beauclerc. In the same hope, Lady Davenant ordered her pony-phaeton
earlier than usual; Lady Cecilia further hoped most earnestly that
Beauclerc would come this day, for the next the house would be full of
company, and she really wished to have him one day at least to themselves,
and she gave a most significant glance at Helen.

"The first move often secures the game against the best players," said she.

Helen blushed, because she could not help understanding; she was ashamed,
vexed with Cecilia, yet pleased by her kindness, and half amused by her
arch look and tone.

They were neither of them aware that Lady Davenant had heard the words
that passed, or seen the looks; but immediately afterwards, when they were
leaving the breakfast-room, Lady Davenant came between the two friends,
laid her hand upon her daughter's arm, and said,

"Before you make any move in a dangerous game, listen to the voice of old
experience."

Lady Cecilia startled, looked up, but as if she did not comprehend.

"Cupid's bow, my dear," continued her mother, "is, as the Asiatics tell us,
strung with bees, which are apt to sting--sometimes fatally--those who
meddle with it."

Lady Cecilia still looked with an innocent air, and still as if she could
not comprehend.

"To speak more plainly, then, Cecilia," said her mother, "build
no matrimonial castles in the air; standing or falling they do
mischief--mischief either to the builder, or to those for whom they may be
built."

"Certainly if they fall they disappoint one," said Lady Cecilia, "but if
they stand?"

Seeing that she made no impression on her daughter, Lady Davenant turned to
Helen, and gravely said,--

"My dear Helen, do not let my daughter inspire you with false, and perhaps
vain imaginations, certainly premature, therefore unbecoming."

Helen shrunk back, yet instantly looked up, and her look was ingenuously
grateful.

"But, mamma," said Lady Cecilia, "I declare I do not understand what all
this is about."

"About Mr. Granville Beauclerc," said her mother.

"How can you, dear mamma, pronounce his name so _tout an long?_" "Pardon my
indelicacy, my dear; delicacy is a good thing, but truth a better. I have
seen the happiness of many young women sacrificed by such false delicacy,
and by the fear of giving a moment's present pain, which it is sometimes
the duty of a true friend to give."

"Certainly, certainly, mamma, only not necessary now; and I am so sorry you
have said all this to poor dear Helen."

"If you have said nothing to her, Cecilia, I acknowledge I have said too
much."

"I said--I did nothing," cried Lady Cecilia; "I built no castles--never
built a regular castle in my life; never had a regular plan in my
existence; never mentioned his name, except about another person--"

An appealing look to Helen was however _protested_.

"To the best of my recollection, at least," Lady Cecilia immediately added.

"Helen seems to be blushing for your want of recollection, Cecilia."

"I am sure I do not know why you blush, Helen. I am certain I never did say
a word distinctly."

"Not _distinctly_ certainly," said Helen in a low voice. "It was my fault
if I understood----"

"Always true, you are," said Lady Davenant.

"I protest I said nothing but the truth," cried Lady Cecilia hastily.

"But not the whole truth, Cecilia," said her mother.

"I did, upon my word, mamma," persisted Lady Cecilia, repeating "upon my
word."

"Upon your word, Cecilia! that is either a vulgar expletive or a most
serious asseveration."

She spoke with a grave tone, and with her severe look, and Helen dared not
raise her eyes; Lady Cecilia now coloured deeply.

"Shame! Nature's hasty conscience," said Lady Davenant. "Heaven preserve
it!"

"Oh, mother!" cried Lady Cecilia, laying her hand on her mother's, "surely
you do not think seriously--surely you are not angry--I cannot bear to see
you displeased," said she, looking up imploringly in her mother's face, and
softly, urgently pressing her hand. No pressure was returned; that hand was
slowly and with austere composure withdrawn, and her mother walked away
down the corridor to her own room. Lady Cecilia stood still, and the tears
came into her eyes.

"My dear friend, I am exceedingly sorry," said Helen. She could not believe
that Cecilia meant to say what was not true, yet she felt that she had been
to blame in not telling all, and her mother in saying too much.

Lady Cecilia, her tears dispersed, stood looking at the impression which
her mother's signet-ring had left in the palm of her hand. It was at that
moment a disagreeable recollection that the motto of that ring was "Truth."
Rubbing the impress from her hand, she said, half speaking to herself, and
half to Helen--"I am sure I did not mean anything wrong; and I am sure
nothing can be more true than that I never formed a regular plan in my
life. After all, I am sure that so much has been said about nothing, that
I do not understand anything: I never do, when mamma goes on in that way,
making mountains of molehills, which she always does with me, and did ever
since I was a child; but she really forgets that I am not a child. Now, it
is well the general was not by; he would never have borne to see his
wife so treated. But I would not, for the world, be the cause of any
disagreement. Oh! Helen, my mother does not know how I love her, let her be
ever so severe to me! But she never loved me; she cannot help it. I believe
she does her best to love me--my poor, dear mother!"

Helen seized this opportunity to repeat the warm expressions she had heard
so lately from Lady Davenant, and melting they sunk into Cecilia's heart.
She kissed Helen again and again, for a dear, good peacemaker, as she
always was--and "I'm resolved"--but in the midst of her good resolves
she caught a glimpse through the glass door opening on the park, of the
general, and a fine horse they were ringing, and she hurried out: all light
of heart she went, as though

"Or shake the downy _blowball_ from her stalk."




CHAPTER VII


Since Lord Davenant's arrival, Lady Davenant's time was so much taken up
with him, that Helen could not have many opportunities of conversing
with her, and she was the more anxious to seize every one that occurred.
She always watched for the time when Lady Davenant went out in her pony
phaeton, for then she had her delightfully to herself, the carriage
holding only two.

It was at the door, and Lady Davenant was crossing the hall followed by
Helen, when Cecilia came in with a look, unusual in her, of being much
discomfited.

"Another put off from Mr. Beauclerc! He will not he here to-day. I give
him up."

Lady Davenant stopped short, and asked whether Cecilia had told him that
probably she should soon be gone?

"To be sure I did, mamma."

"And what reason does he give for his delay?"

"None, mamma, none--not the least apology. He says, very cavalierly
indeed, that he is the worst man in the world at making excuses--shall
attempt none."

"There he is right" said Lady Davenant. "Those who are good at excuses,
as Franklin justly observed, are apt to be good for nothing else."

The general came up the steps at this moment, rolling a note between his
fingers, and looking displeased. Lady Davenant inquired if he could tell
her the cause of Mr. Beauclerc's delay. He could not.

Lady Cecilia exclaimed--"Very extraordinary! Provoking! Insufferable!
Intolerable!"

"It is Mr. Beauclerc's own affair," said Lady Davenant, wrapping her
shawl round her; and, taking the general's arm, she walked on to her
carriage. Seating herself, and gathering up the reins, she repeated--
"Mr. Beauclerc's own affair, completely."

The lash of her whip was caught somewhere, and, while the groom was
disentangling it, she reiterated--"That will do: let the horses go:"--
and with half-suppressed impatience thanked Helen, who was endeavouring
to arrange some ill-disposed cloak--"Thank you, thank you, my dear: it's
all very well. Sit down, Helen."

She drove off rapidly, through the beautiful park scenery But the
ancient oaks, standing alone, casting vast shadows, the distant massive
woods of magnificent extent and of soft and varied foliage; the secluded
glades, all were lost upon her. Looking straight between her horses'
ears, she drove on in absolute silence.

Helen's idea of Mr. Beauclerc's importance increased wonderfully. What
must he be whose coming or not coming could so move all the world, or
those who were all the world to her? And, left to her own cogitations,
she was picturing to herself what manner of man he might be, when
suddenly Lady Davenant turned, and asked what she was thinking of?

"I beg your pardon for startling you so, my dear; I am aware that it is
a dreadfully imprudent, impertinent question--one which, indeed, I
seldom ask. Few interest me sufficiently to make me care of what they
think: from fewer still could I expect to hear the truth. Nay--nothing
upon compulsion, Helen. Only say plainly, if you would rather not tell
me. That answer I should prefer to the ingenious formula of evasion, the
solecism in metaphysics, which Cecilia used the other day, when
unwittingly I asked her of what she was thinking--'Of a great many
different things, mamma.'"

Helen, still more alarmed by Lady Davenant's speech than by her
question, and aware of the conclusions which might be drawn from her
answer, nevertheless bravely replied that she had been thinking of Mr.
Beauclerc, of what he might be whose coming or not coming was of such
consequence. As she spoke the expression of Lady Davenant's countenance
changed.

"Thank you, my dear child, you are truth itself, and truly do I love you
therefore. It's well that you did not ask me of what I was thinking, for
I am not sure that I could have answered so directly."

"But I could never have presumed to ask such a question of you," said
Helen, "there is such a difference."

"Yes," replied Lady Davenant; "there is such a difference as age and
authority require to be made, but nevertheless, such as is not quite
consistent with the equal rights of friendship. You have told me the
subject of your day-dream, my love, and if you please, I will tell you
the subject of mine. I was rapt into times long past: I was living over
again some early scenes--some which are connected, and which connect me,
in a curious manner, with this young man, Mr. Granville Beauclerc."

She seemed to speak with some difficulty, and yet to be resolved to go
on. "Helen, I have a mind," continued she, "to tell you what, in the
language of affected autobiographers, I might call 'some passages of my
life.'"

Helen's eyes brightened, as she eagerly thanked her: but hearing a half-
suppressed sigh, she added--"Not if it is painful to you though, my dear
Lady Davenant."

"Painful it must be," she replied, "but it may be useful to you; and a
weak friend is that who can do only what is pleasurable. You have often
trusted me with those little inmost feelings of the heart, which,
however innocent, we shrink from exposing to any but the friends we most
love; it is unjust and absurd of those advancing in years to expect of
the young that confidence should come all and only on their side: the
human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in
return."

Lady Davenant paused again, and then said,--" It is a general opinion,
that nobody is the better for advice."

"I am sure I do not think so," said Helen.

"I am glad you do not; nor do I. Much depends upon the way in which it
is offered. General maxims, drawn from experience, are, to the young at
least, but as remarks--moral sentences--mere dead letter, and take no
hold of the mind. 'I have felt' must come before 'I think,' especially
in speaking to a young friend, and, though I am accused of being so fond
of generalising that I never come to particulars, I can and will:
therefore, my dear, I will tell you some particulars of my life, in
which, take notice, there are no adventures. Mine has been a life of
passion--of feeling, at least,--not of incidents: nothing, my dear, to
excite or to gratify curiosity."

"But, independent of all curiosity about events," said Helen, "there is
such an interest in knowing what has been really felt and thought in
their former lives by those we know and love."

"I shall sink in your esteem," said Lady Davenant--"so be it."

"I need not begin, as most people do, with 'I was born'--" but,
interrupting herself, she said, "this heat is too much for me."

They turned into a long shady drive through the woods. Lady Davenant
drew up the reins, and her ponies walked slowly on the grassy road;
then, turning to Helen, she said:--

"It would have been well for me if any friend had, when I was of your
age, put me on my guard against my own heart: but my too indulgent, too
sanguine mother, led me into the very danger against which she should
have warned me--she misled me, though without being aware of it. Our
minds, our very natures differed strangely.

"She was a castle-builder--yes, now you know, my dear, why I spoke so
strongly, and, as you thought, so severely this morning. My mother was a
castle-builder of the ordinary sort: a worldly plan of a castle was
hers, and little care had she about the knight within; yet she had
sufficient tact to know that it must be the idea of the _preux
chevalier_ that would lure her daughter into the castle. Prudent for
herself, imprudent for me, and yet she loved me--all she did was for
love of me. She managed with so much address, that I had no suspicion of
my being the subject of any speculation--otherwise, probably, my
imagination might have revolted, my self-will have struggled, my pride
have interfered, or my delicacy might have been alarmed, but nothing of
all that happened; I was only too ready, too glad to believe all that I
was told, all that appeared in that spring-time of hope and love. I was
very romantic, not in the modern fashionable young-lady sense of the
word, with the mixed ideas of a shepherdess's hat and the paraphernalia
of a peeress--love in a cottage, and a fashionable house in town. No;
mine was honest, pure, real romantic love--absurd if you will; it was
love nursed by imagination more than by hope. I had early, in my secret
soul, as perhaps you have at this instant in yours, a pattern of
perfection--something chivalrous, noble, something that is no longer to
be seen now-a-days--the more delightful to imagine, the moral sublime
and beautiful; more than human, yet with the extreme of human
tenderness. Mine was to be a demigod whom I could worship, a husband to
whom I could always look up, with whom I could always sympathise, and to
whom I could devote myself with all a woman's self-devotion. I had then
a vast idea--as I think you have now, Helen--of self-devotion; you would
devote yourself to your friends, but I could not shape any of my friends
into a fit object. So after my own imagination I made one, dwelt upon
it, doated on it, and at last threw this bright image of my own fancy
full upon the being to whom I thought I was most happily destined--
destined by duty, chosen by affection. The words 'I love you' once
pronounced, I gave my whole heart in return, gave it, sanctified, as I
felt, by religion. I had high religious sentiments; a vow once passed
the lips, a look, a single look of appeal to Heaven, was as much for me
as if pronounced at the altar, and before thousands to witness. Some
time was to elapse before the celebration of our marriage. Protracted
engagements are unwise, yet I should not say so; this gave me time to
open my eyes--my bewitched eyes: still, some months I passed in a trance
of beatification, with visions of duties all performed--benevolence
universal, and gratitude, and high success, and crowns of laurel, for my
hero, for he was military; it all joined well in my fancy. All the
pictured tales of vast heroic deeds were to be his. Living, I was to
live in the radiance of his honour; or dying, to die with him, and then
to be most blessed.

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