“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 ha
ve 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 be 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.
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 260
