Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “You, Helen! I never could have thought you would have urged me so!”

  “O Cecilia! if you knew the pain it was to me to make you unhappy again, — but I assure you it is for your own sake. Dearest Cecilia, let me tell you all that General Clarendon said about it, and then you will know my reasons.” She repeated as quickly as she could, all that had passed between her and the general, and when she came to this declaration that, if Cecilia had told him plainly the fact before, he would have married with perfect confidence, and, as he believed, with increased esteem and love: Cecilia started up from the sofa on which she had thrown herself, and exclaimed,

  “O that I had but known this at the time, and I would have told him.”

  “It is still time,” said Helen.

  “Time now? — impossible. His look this morning. Oh! that look!”

  “But what is one look, my dear Cecilia, compared with a whole life of confidence and happiness?”

  “A life of happiness! never, never for me; in that way at least, never.”

  “In that way and no other, Cecilia, believe me. I am certain you never could endure to go on concealing this, living with him you love so, yet deceiving him.”

  “Deceiving! do not call it deceiving, it is only suppressing a fact that would give him pain; and when he can have no suspicion, why give him that pain? I am afraid of nothing now but this timidity of yours — this going back. Just before you came in, Clarendon was saying how much he admired your truth and candour, how much he is obliged to you for saving him from endless misery; he said so to me, that was what made me so completely happy. I saw that it was all right for you as well as me, that you had not sunk, that you had risen in his esteem.”

  “But I must sink, Cecilia, in his esteem, and now it hangs upon a single point — upon my doing what I cannot do.” Then she repeated what the general had said about that perfect openness which he was sure there would be in this case between her and Beauclerc. “You see what the general expects that I should do.”

  “Yes,” said Cecilia; and then indeed she looked much disturbed. “I am very sorry that this notion of your telling Beauclerc came into Clarendon’s head — very, very sorry, for he will not forget it. And yet, after all,” continued she, “he will never ask you point blank, ‘Have you told Beauclerc?’ — and still more impossible that he should ask Beauclerc about it.”

  “Cecilia!” said Helen, “if it were only for myself I would say no more; there is nothing I would not endure — that I would not sacrifice — even my utmost happiness.” — She stopped, and blushed deeply.

  “Oh, my dearest Helen! do you think I could let you ever hazard that? If I thought there was the least chance of injuring you with Granville! — I would do any thing — I would throw myself at Clarendon’s feet this instant.”

  “This instant — I wish he was here,” cried Helen.

  “Good Heavens! do you?” cried Lady Cecilia, looking at the door with terror — she thought she heard his step.

  “Yes, if you would but tell him — O let me call him!”

  “Oh no, no! Spare me — spare me, I cannot speak now. I could not utter the words; I should not know what words to use. Tell him if you will, I cannot.”

  “May I tell him?” said Helen, eagerly.

  “No, no — that would be worse; if anybody tells him it must be myself.”

  “Then you will now — when he comes in?”

  “He is coming!” cried Cecilia.

  General Clarendon came to the door — it was bolted.

  “In a few minutes,” said Helen. Lady Cecilia did not speak, but listened, as in agony, to his receding footsteps.

  “In a few minutes, Helen, did you say? — then there is nothing for me now, but to die — I wish I could die — I wish I was dead.”

  Helen felt she was cruel, she began to doubt her own motives; she thought she had been selfish in urging Cecilia too strongly; and, going to her kindly, she said, “Take your own time, my dear Cecilia: only tell him — tell him soon.”

  “I will, I will indeed, when I can — but now I am quite exhausted.”

  “You are indeed,” said Helen, “how cruel I have been! — how pale you are!”

  Lady Cecilia lay down on the sofa, and Helen covered her with a soft India shawl, trembling so much herself that she could hardly stand.

  “Thank you, thank you, dear, kind Helen; tell him I am going to sleep, and I am sure I hope I shall.”

  Helen closed the shutters — she had now done all she could; she feared she had done too much; and as she left the room, she said to herself,—”Oh, Lady Davenant! if you could see — if you knew — what it cost me!”

  VOLUME THE THIRD.

  CHAPTER I.

  The overwrought state of Helen’s feelings was relieved by a walk with Beauclerc, not in the dressed part of the park, but in what was generally undiscovered country: a dingle, a bosky dell, which he had found out in his rambles, and which, though so little distant from the busy hum of men, had a wonderful air of romantic seclusion and stillness — the stillness of evening. The sun had not set; its rich, red light yet lingered on the still remaining autumn tints upon the trees. The birds hopped fearlessly from bough to bough, as if this sweet spot were all their own. The cattle were quietly grazing below, or slowly winding their way to the watering-place. By degrees, the sounds of evening faded away upon the ear; a faint chirrup here and there from the few birds not yet gone to roost, and now only the humming of the flies over the water were to be heard.

  It was perfect repose, and Beauclerc and Helen sat down on the bank to enjoy it together. The sympathy of the woman he loved, especially in his enjoyment of the beauties of nature, was to Beauclerc an absolute necessary of life. Nor would he have been contented with that show taste for the picturesque, which is, as he knew, merely one of a modern young lady’s many accomplishments. Helen’s taste was natural, and he was glad to feel it so true, and for him here alone expressed with such peculiar heightened feeling, as if she had in all nature now a new sense of delight. He had brought her here, in hopes that she would be struck with this spot, not only because it was beautiful in itself, and his discovery, but because it was like another bushy dell and bosky bourne, of which he had been from childhood fond, in another place, of which he hoped she would soon be mistress. “Soon! very soon, Helen!” he repeated, in a tone which could not be heard by her with indifference. He said that some of his friends in London told him that the report of their intended union had been spread everywhere — (by Lady Katrine Hawksby probably, as Cecilia, when Lady Castlefort departed, had confided to her, to settle her mind about Beauclerc, that he was coming over as Miss Stanley’s acknowledged lover). And since the report had been so spread, the sooner the marriage took place the better; at least, it was a plea which Beauclerc failed not to urge, and Helen’s delicacy failed not to feel.

  She sighed — she smiled. The day was named — and the moment she consented to be his, nothing could be thought of but him. Yet, even while he poured out all his soul — while he enjoyed the satisfaction there is in perfect unreservedness of confidence, Helen felt a pang mix with her pleasure. She felt there was one thing she could not tell him: he who had told her every thing — all his faults, and follies. “Oh! why,” thought she, “why cannot I tell him every thing? I, who have no secrets of my own — why should I be forced to keep the secrets of another?” In confusion, scarcely finished, these ideas came across her mind, and she sighed deeply. Beauclerc asked why, and she could not tell him! She was silent; and he did not reiterate the indiscreet question. He was sure she thought of Lady Davenant; and he now spoke of the regret he felt that she could not be present at their marriage, and Lord Davenant too! Beauclerc said he had hoped that Lord Davenant, who loved Helen as if she were his own daughter, would have been the person to act as her father at the ceremony. But the general, his friend and her’s, would now, Beauclerc said, give her to him; and would, he was sure, take pleasure in thus publicly marking his approbation
of his ward’s choice.

  They rose, and going on down the path to the river’s side, they reached a little cove where he had moored his boat, and they returned home by water — the moon just visible, the air so still; all so placid, so delightful, and Beauclerc so happy, that she could not but be happy; yes — quite happy too. They reached the shore just as the lamps were lighting in the house. As they went in, they met the general, who said, “In good time;” and he smiled on Helen as she passed.

  “It is all settled,” whispered Beauclerc to him; “and you are to give her away.”

  “With pleasure,” said the general.

  As Helen went up-stairs, she said to herself, “I understand the general’s smile; he thinks I have followed his advice; he thinks I have told all — and I — I can only be silent.”

  There was a great dinner party, but the general, not thinking Cecilia quite equal to it, had engaged Mrs. Holdernesse, a relation of his own, to do the honours of the day.

  Lady Cecilia came into the drawing-room in the evening; but, after paying her compliments to the company, she gladly followed the general’s advice, and retired to the music-room: Helen went with her, and Beauclerc followed. Lady Cecilia sat down to play at ecarté with him, and Helen tuned her harp. The general came in for a few minutes, he said, to escape from two young ladies, who had talked him half dead about craniology. He stood leaning on the mantelpiece, and looking over the game. Lady Cecilia wanted counters, and she begged Beauclerc to look for some which she believed he would find in the drawer of a table that was behind him. Beauclerc opened the drawer, but no sooner had he done so, than, in admiration of something he discovered there, he exclaimed, “Beautiful! beautiful! and how like!” It was the miniature of Helen, and besides the miniature, further back in the drawer, Lady Cecilia saw — how quick is the eye of guilty fear! — could it be? — yes — one of the fatal letters — the letter! Nothing but the picture had yet been seen by the general or by Beauclerc: Lady Cecilia stretched behind her husband, whose eyes were upon the miniature, and closed the drawer. It was all she could do, it was impossible for her to reach the letter.

  Beauclerc, holding the picture to the light, repeated, “Beautiful! who did it? whom is it for? General, look! do you know it?”

  “Yes, to be sure,” replied the general; “Miss Stanley.”

  “You have seen it before?”

  “Yes,” said the general, coldly. “It is very like. Who did it?”

  “I did it,” cried Lady Cecilia, who now recovered her voice.

  “You, my dear Lady Cecilia! Whom for? for me? is it for me?”

  “For you? It may be, hereafter, perhaps.”

  “Oh thank you, my dear Lady Cecilia!” cried Beauclerc.

  “If you behave well, perhaps,” added she.

  The general heard in his wife’s tremulous tone, and saw in her half confusion, half attempt at playfulness, only an amiable anxiety to save her friend, and to give her time to recover from her dismay. He at once perceived that Helen had not followed the course he had suggested; that she had not told Beauclerc, and did not intend that he should be told the whole truth. The general looked extremely grave; Beauclerc gave a glance round the room. “Here is some mystery,” said he, now first seeing Helen’s disconcerted countenance. Then he turned on the general a look of eager inquiry. “Some mystery, certainly,” said he, “with which I am not to be made acquainted?”

  “If there be any mystery,” said the general, “with which you are not to be made acquainted, I am neither the adviser nor abettor. Neither in jest nor earnest am I ever an adviser of mystery.”

  While her husband thus spoke, Lady Cecilia made another attempt to possess herself of the letter. This time she rose decidedly, and, putting aside the little ecarté table which was in her way, pressed forward to the drawer, saying something about “counters.” Her Cachemere caught on Helen’s harp, and, in her eager spring forward, it would have been overset, but that the general felt, turned, and caught it.

  “What are you about, my dear Cecilia? — what do you want?”

  “Nothing, nothing, thank you, my dear; nothing now.”

  Then she did not dare to open the drawer, or to let him open it, and anxiously drew away his attention by pointing to a footstool which she seemed to want.

  “Could not you ask me for it, my dear, without disturbing yourself? What are men made for?”

  Beauclerc, after a sort of absent effort to join in quest of the footstool, had returned eagerly to the picture, and looking at it more closely, he saw the letters C.D. written in small characters in one corner; and, just as his eye turned to the other corner, Lady Cecilia, recollecting what initials were there, started up and snatched it from his hand. “Oh, Granville!” cried she, “you must not look at this picture any more till I have done something to it.” Beauclerc was trying to catch another look at it, when Cecilia cried out, “Take it, Helen! take it!” and she held it up on high, but as she held it, though she turned the face from him, she forgot, quite forgot that Colonel D’Aubigny had written his name on the back of the picture; and there it was in distinct characters such as could be plainly read at that height, “For Henry D’Aubigny.” Beauclerc saw, and gave one glance at Helen. He made no further attempt to reach the picture. Lady Cecilia, not aware of what he had seen, repeated, “Helen! Helen! why don’t you take it? — now! now!”

  Helen could not stir. The general took the picture from his wife’s hand, gave it to Miss Stanley, without looking at her, and said to Lady Cecilia, “Pray keep yourself quiet, Cecilia. You have done enough, too much to-day; sit down,” said he, rolling her arm-chair close, and seating her. “Keep yourself quiet, I beg.”—”I beg,” in the tone of “I insist.”

  She sat down, but catching a view of Beauclerc was alarmed by his aspect — and Helen! her head was bent down behind the harp. Lady Cecilia did not know yet distinctly what had happened. The general pressed her to lean back on the cushions which he was piling up behind her. Beauclerc made a step towards Helen, but checking himself, he turned to the ecarté table. “Those counters, after all, that we were looking for—” As he spoke he pulled open the drawer. The general with his back to him was standing before Lady Cecilia, she could not see what Beauclerc was doing, but she heard the drawer open, and cried out. “Not there, Beauclerc; no counters there — you need not look there.” But before she spoke, he had given a sudden pull to the drawer, which brought it quite out, and all the contents fell upon the floor, and there was the fatal letter, open, and the words “My dear, too dear Henry” instantly met his eyes; he looked no farther, but in that single glance the writing seemed to him to be Lady Cecilia’s, and quick his eye turned upon her. She kept perfectly quiet, and appeared to him perfectly composed. His eye then darted in search of Helen; she had sunk upon a seat behind the harp. Through the harp-strings he caught a glimpse of her face, all pale — crimsoned it grew as he advanced: she rose instantly, took up the letter, and, without speaking or looking at any one, tore it to pieces. Beauclerc in motionless astonishment. Lady Cecilia breathed again. The general’s countenance expressed “I interfere no farther.” He left the room; and Beauclerc, without another look at Helen, followed him.

  For some moments after Lady Cecilia and Helen were left alone, there was a dead silence. Lady Cecilia sat with her eyes fixed upon the door through which her husband and Beauclerc had passed. She thought that Beauclerc might return; but when she found that he did not, she went to Helen, who had covered her face with her hands.

  “My dearest friend,” said Lady Cecilia, “thank you! thank you! — you did the best that was possible!”

  “O Cecilia!” exclaimed Helen, “to what have you exposed me?”

  “How did it all happen?” continued Cecilia. “Why was not that letter burnt with the rest? How came it there? Can you tell me?”

  “I do not know,” said Helen, “I cannot recollect.” But after some effort, she remembered that in the morning, while the general had been talking to her,
she had in her confusion, when she took the packet, laid the picture and that letter beside her on the arm of the chair. She had, in her hurry of putting the other letters into her bag, forgotten this and the picture, and she supposed that they had fallen between the chair and the wall, and that they had been found and put into the table-drawer by one of the servants.

  Helen was hastening out of the room, Cecilia detained her. “Do not go, my dear, for that would look as if you were guilty, and you know you are innocent. At the first sound of your harp Beauclerc will return — only command yourself for one hour or two.”

  “Yes, it will only be for an hour or two,” said Helen, brightening with hope. “You will tell the general to-night Do you think Granville will come back? Where is the harp key? — I dropped it — here it is.” She began to tune the harp. Crack went one string — then another. “That is lucky,” said Lady Cecilia, “it will give you something to do, my love, if the people come in.”

  The aide-de-camp entered. “I thought I heard harp-strings going,” said he.

  “Several! — yes,” said Lady Cecilia, standing full in his way.

  “Inauspicious sounds for us! had omens for my embassy. — Mrs. Holdernesse sent me.”

  “I know,” said Lady Cecilia, “and you will have the goodness to tell her that Miss Stanley’s harp is unstrung.”

  “Can I be of any use, Miss Stanley?” said he, moving towards the harp.

  “No, no,” cried Lady Cecilia, “you are in my service, — attend to me.”

  “Dear me, Lady Cecilia! I did not hear what you said.”

  “That is what I complain of — hear me now.”

  “I am all attention, I am sure. What are your commands?”

  She gave him as many as his head could hold. A long message to Mrs. Holdernesse, and to Miss Holdernesse and Miss Anna about their music-books, which had been left in the carriage, and were to be sent for, and duets to be played, and glees, for the major and Lady Anne Ruthven.