Helen was not quite sure yet, she said she had not quite determined.
“Am I to understand that your doubt lies between the Collingwoods and my daughter?”
“Yes; Cecilia most kindly invited me, but I do not know General Clarendon yet, and he does not know me yet. Cecilia might wish most sincerely that I should live with her, and I am convinced she does; but her husband must be considered.”
“True,” said Lady Davenant—”true; a husband is certainly a thing to be cared for — in Scottish phrase, and General Clarendon is no doubt a person to be considered, — but it seems that I am not a person to be considered in your arrangements.”
Even the altered, dry, and almost acrid tone in which Lady Davenant spoke, and the expression of disappointment in her countenance — were, as marks of strong affection, deeply gratifying to Helen. Lady Davenant went on.
“Was not Cecilhurst always a home to you, Helen Stanley?”
“Yes, yes, — always a most happy home!”
“Then why is not Cecilhurst to be your home?”
“My dear Lady Davenant! how kind! — how very, very kind of you to wish it — but I never thought of — —”
“And why did you not think of it, Helen?’”
“I mean — I thought you were going to Russia.”
“And have you settled, my dear Helen,” said Lady Davenant, smiling, “have you settled that I am never to come back from Russia? Do not you know that you are — that you ever were — you ever will be to me a daughter?” and drawing Helen fondly towards her, she added, “as my own very dear — I must not say dearest child, — must not, because as I well remember once — little creature as you were then — you whispered to me, ‘Never call me dearest,’ — generous-hearted child!” And tears started into her eyes as she spoke; but at that moment came a knock at the door. “A packet from Lord Davenant, by Mr. Mapletofft, my lady.” Helen rose to leave the room, but Lady Davenant laid a detaining hand upon her, saying, “You will not be in my way in the least;” and she opened her packet, adding, that while she read, Helen might amuse herself “with arranging the books on that table, or in looking over the letters in that portfolio.”
Helen had hitherto seen Lady Davenant only with the eyes of very early youth; but now, after an absence of two years — a great space in her existence, it seemed as if she looked upon her with new eyes, and every hour made fresh discoveries in her character. Contrary to what too often happens when we again see and judge of those whom we have early known, Lady Davenant’s character and abilities, instead of sinking and diminishing, appeared to rise and enlarge, to expand and be ennobled to Helen’s view. Strong lights and shades there were, but these only excited and fixed her attention. Even her defects — those inequalities of temper of which she had already had some example, were interesting as evidences of the power and warmth of her affections.
The books on the table were those which Lady Davenant had had in her travelling carriage. They gave Helen an idea of the range and variety of the reader’s mind. Some of them were presentation copies, as they are called, from several of the first authors of our own, and foreign countries; some with dedications to Lady Davenant; others with inscriptions expressing respect or propitiating favour, or anxious for judgment.
The portfolio contained letters whose very signatures would have driven the first of modern autograph collectors distracted with joy — whose meanest scrap would make a scrap-book the envy of the world.
But among the letters in this portfolio, there were none of those nauseous notes of compliment, none of those epistles adulatory, degrading to those who write, and equally degrading to those to whom they are written: letters which are, however cleverly turned, inexpressibly wearisome to all but the parties concerned.
After opening and looking at the signature of several of these letters, Helen sat in a delightful embarras de richesse. To read them all — all at once, was impossible; with which to begin, she could not determine. One after another was laid aside as too good to be read first, and after glancing at the contents of each, she began to deal them round alphabetically till she was struck by a passage in one of them — she looked to the signature, it was unknown to fame — she read the whole, it was striking and interesting. There were several letters in the same hand, and Helen was surprised to find them arranged according to their dates, in Lady Davenant’s own writing — preserved with those of persons of illustrious reputation! These she read on without further hesitation. There was no sort of affectation in them — quite easy and natural, “real feeling, and genius,” certainly genius, she thought! — and there seemed something romantic and uncommon in the character of the writer. They were signed Granville Beauclerc!
Who could he be, this Granville Beauclerc? She read on till Lady Davenant, having finished her packet, rang a silver handbell, as was her custom, to summon her page. At the first tingle of the bell Helen started, and Lady Davenant asked, “Whose letter, my dear, has so completely abstracted you?”
Carlos, the page, came in at this instant, and after a quick glance at the handwriting of the letters, Lady Davenant gave her orders in Portuguese to Carlos, and then returning to Helen, took no further notice of the letters, but went on just where she had left off. “Helen, I remember when you were about nine years old, timid as you usually were, your coming forward, bold as a little lion, to attack me in Cecilia’s defence; I forget the particulars, but I recollect that you said I was unjust, and that I did not know Cecilia, and there you were right; so, to reward you, you shall see that now I do her perfect justice, and that I am as fond of her as your heart can wish. I really never did know Cecilia till I saw her heartily in love; I had imagined her incapable of real love; I thought the desire of pleasing universally had been her ruling passion — the ruling passion that, of a little mind and a cold heart; but I did her wrong. In another more material point, too, I was mistaken.”
Lady Davenant paused and looked earnestly at Helen, whose eyes said, “I am glad,” and yet she was not quite certain she knew to what she alluded.
“Cecilia righted herself, and won my good opinion, by the openness with which she treated me from the very commencement of her attachment to General Clarendon.” Lady Davenant again paused to reflect, and played for some moments with the tablets in her hand.
“Some one says that we are apt to flatter ourselves that we leave our faults when our faults leave us, from change of situation, age, and so forth; and perhaps it does not signify much which it is, if the faults are fairly gone, and if there be no danger of their returning: all our former misunderstandings arose on Cecilia’s part from cowardice of character; on mine from — no matter what — no matter which of us was most wrong.”
“True, true,” cried Helen eagerly; and anxious to prevent recurrence to painful recollections, she went on to ask rapidly several questions about Cecilia’s marriage.
Lady Davenant smiled, and promised that she should have the whole history of the marriage in true gossip detail.
“When I wrote to you, I gave you some general ideas on the subject, but there are little things which could not well be written, even to so safe a young friend as you are, for what is written remains, and often for those by whom it was never intended to be seen; the dessoux des cartes can seldom be either safely or satisfactorily shown on paper, so give me my embroidery-frame, I never can tell well without having something to do with my hands.”
And as Helen set the embroidery-frame, Lady Davenant searched for some skeins of silk and silk winders.
“Take these, my dear, and wind this silk for me, for I must have my hearer comfortably established, not like the agonised listener in the ‘World’ leaning against a table, with the corner running into him all the time.”
CHAPTER IV.
“I must go back,” continued Lady Davenant, “quite to the dark ages, the time when I knew nothing of my daughter’s character but by the accidental lights which you afforded me. I will take up my story before the reformation, in t
he middle ages, when you and your dear uncle left us at Florence; about two years ago, when Cecilia was in the height of her conquests, about the time when a certain Colonel D’Aubiguy flourished, you remember him?”
Helen answered “Yes,” in rather a constrained voice, which caused Lady Davenant to look up, and on seeing that look of inquiry, Helen coloured, though she would have given the world not to be so foolish. The affair was Cecilia’s, and Helen only wished not to have it recurred to, and yet she had now, by colouring, done the very thing to fix Lady Davenant’s attention, and as the look was prolonged, she coloured more and more.
“I see I was wrong,” said Lady Davenant; “I had thought Colonel D’Aubigny’s ecstasy about that miniature of you was only a feint; but I see he really was an admirer of yours, Helen?”
“Of mine! oh no, never!” Still from her fear of saying something that should implicate Cecilia, her tone, though she spoke exactly the truth, was not to Lady Davenant’s discriminative ear quite natural — Helen seeing doubt, added,
“Impossible, my dear Lady Davenant! you know I was then so young, quite a child!”
“No, no, not quite; two from eighteen and sixteen remain, I think, and in our days sixteen is not absolutely a child.”
Helen made no answer; her thoughts had gone back to the time when Colonel D’Aubigny was first introduced to her, which was just before her uncle’s illness, and when her mind had been so engrossed by him, that she had but a confused recollection of all the rest.
“Now you are right, my dear,” said Lady Davenant; “right to be absolutely silent. In difficult cases say nothing; but still you are wrong in sitting so uneasily under it, for that seems as if there was something.”
“Nothing upon earth!” cried Helen, “if you would not look at me so, my clear Lady Davenant.”
“Then, my dear Helen, do not break my embroidery silk; that jerk was imprudent, and trust me, my dear, the screw of that silk winder is not so much to blame as you would have me think; take patience with yourself and with me. There is no great harm done, no unbearable imputation, you are not accused of loving or liking, only of having been admired.” “Never!” cried Helen.
“Well, well! it does not signify in the least now; the man is either dying or dead.”
“I am glad of it,” cried Helen.
“How barbarous!” said Lady Davenant, “but let it pass, I am neither glad nor sorry; contempt is more dignified and safer than hatred, my dear.
“Now to return to Cecilia; soon after, I will not say the D’Aubigny era, but soon after you left us, I fell sick, Cecilia was excessively kind to me. In kindness her affectionate heart never failed, and I felt this the more, from a consciousness that I had been a little harsh to her. I recovered but slowly; I could not bear to have her confined so long in a sick room, and yet I did not much like either of the chaperons with whom she went out, though they were both of rank, and of unimpeachable character — the one English, one of the best women in the world, but the most stupid; the other a foreigner, one of the most agreeable women in the world, but the most false. I prevailed on Cecilia to break off that — I do not know what to call it, friendship it was not, and my daughter and I drew nearer together. Better times began to dawn, but still there was little sympathy between us; my mind was intent on Lord Davenant’s interests, hers on amusement and admiration. Her conquests were numerous, and she gloried in their number, for, between you and me, Cecilia was, before the reformation, not a little of a coquette. You will not allow it, you did not see it, you did not go out with her, and being three or four years younger, you could not be a very good critic of Cecilia’s conduct; and depend upon it I am right, she was not a little of a coquette. She did not know, and I am sure I did not know, that she had a heart, till she became acquainted with General Clarendon.
“The first time we met him,” — observing a quickening of attention in Helen’s eyes, Lady Davenant smiled, and said, “Young ladies always like to hear of ‘the first time we saw him.’ — The first time we saw General Clarendon was — forgive me the day of the month — in the gallery at Florence. I forget how it happened that he had not been presented to me — to Lord Davenant he must have been. But so it was and it was new to Cecilia to see a man of his appearance who had not on his first arrival shown himself ambitious to be made known to her. He was admiring a beautiful Magdalene, and he was standing with his back towards us. I recollect that his appearance when I saw him as a stranger — the time when one can best judge of appearance — struck me as that of a distinguished person; but little did I think that there stood Cecilia’s husband! so little did my maternal instinct guide me.
“As we approached, he turned and gave one look at Cecilia; she gave one look at him. He passed on, she stopped me to examine the picture which he had been admiring.
“Every English mother at Florence, except myself, had their eyes fixed upon General Clarendon from the moment of his arrival. But whatever I may have been, or may have been supposed to be, on the great squares of politics, I believe I never have been accused or even suspected of being a manoeuvrer on the small domestic scale.
“My reputation for imbecility in these matters was perhaps advantageous. He did not shun me as he did the tribe of knowing ones; a hundred reports flew about concerning him, settling in one, that he was resolved never to marry. Yet he was a passionate admirer of beauty and grace, and it was said that he had never been unsuccessful where he had wished to please. The secret of his resolution against marriage was accounted for by the gossiping public in many ways variously absurd. The fact was, that in his own family, and in that of a particular friend, there had been about this time two or three scandalous intrigues, followed by ‘the public brand of shameful life.’ One of these ‘sad affairs,’ as they are styled, was marked with premeditated treachery and turpitude. The lady had been, or had seemed to be, for years a pattern wife, the mother of several children; yet she had long betrayed, and at last abandoned, a most amiable and confiding husband, and went off with a man who did not love her, who cared for nought but himself, a disgusting monster of selfishness, vanity, and vice! This woman was said to have been once good, but to have been corrupted and depraved by residence abroad — by the contagion of foreign profligacy. In the other instance, the seduced wife had been originally most amiable, pure-minded, uncommonly beautiful, loved to idolatry by her husband, Clarendon’s particular friend, a man high in public estimation. The husband shot himself. The seducer was, it’s said, the lady’s first love. That these circumstances should have made a deep impression on Clarendon, is natural; the more feeling — the stronger the mind, the more deep and lasting it was likely to be. Besides his resolution against marriage in general, we heard that he had specially resolved against marrying any travelled lady, and most especially against any woman with whom there was danger of a first love. How this danger was to be avoided or ascertained, mothers and daughters looked at one another, and did not ask, or at least did not answer.
“Cecilia, apparently unconcerned, heard and laughed at these high resolves, after her gay fashion with her young companions, and marvelled how long the resolution would be kept. General Clarendon of course could not but be introduced to us, could not but attend our assemblies, nor could he avoid meeting us in all the good English and foreign society at Florence; but whenever he met us, he always kept at a safe distance: this caution marked his sense of danger. To avoid its being so construed, perhaps, he made approaches to me, politely cold; we talked very wisely on the state of the Continent and the affairs of Europe; I did not, however, confine myself or him to politics, I gave him many unconscious opportunities of showing in conversation, not his abilities, for they are nothing extraordinary; but his character, which is first-rate. Gleams came out, of a character born to subjugate, to captivate, to attach for life. It worked first on Cecilia’s curiosity; she thought she was only curious, and she listened at first, humming an opera air between times, with the least concerned look conceivable. But, her imaginat
ion was caught, and it thenceforward through every thing that every body else might be saying, and through all she said herself, she heard every word that fell from our general, and even all that was repeated of his saying at second or third hand. So she learned in due season that he had seen women as handsome, handsomer than Lady Cecilia Davenant; but that there was something in her manner peculiarly suited to his taste — his fastidious taste! so free from coquetry, he said she was. And true, perfectly true, from the time he became acquainted with her; no hypocrisy on her part, no mistake on his; at the first touch of a real love, there was an end of vanity and coquetry. Then her deference — her affection for her mother, was so charming, he thought; such perfect confidence — such quick intelligence between us. No deceit here either, only a little self-deception on Cecilia’s part. She had really grown suddenly fonder of me; what had become of her fear, she did not know. But I knew full well my new charm and my real merit; I was a good and safe conductor of the electric shock.
“It chanced one day, when I was listening only as one listens to a man who is talking at another through oneself, I did not immediately catch the meaning, or I believe hear what the general said. Cecilia, unawares, answered for me, and showed that she perfectly understood: — he bowed — she blushed.
“Man is usually quicksighted to woman’s blushes. But our general was not vain, only proud; the blush he did not set down to his own account, but very much to hers. It was a proof, he thought, of so much simplicity of heart, so unspoiled by the world, so unlike — in short, so like the very woman he had painted in his fancy, before he knew too much —— . Lady Cecilia was now a perfect angel. Not one word of all this did he say, but it was understood quite as well as if it had been spoken: his lips were firm compressed, and the whole outer man composed — frigidly cold; — yet through all this Cecilia saw — such is woman’s penetration in certain cases — Cecilia saw what must sooner or later happen. He, still proud of his prudence, refrained from word, look, or sigh, resolved to be impassive till his judgment should be perfectly satisfied. At last this judgment was perfectly satisfied; that is, he was passionately in love — fairly ‘caught,’ my dear, ‘in the strong toils of grace,’ and he threw himself at Cecilia’s feet. She was not quite so much surprised as he expected, but more pleased than he had ventured to hope. There was that, however, in his proud humility, which told Cecilia there must be no trifling.
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