Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  She was not, however, wholly unprepared to receive him. On first approaching the table that had hitherto befriended her, she perceived on it a large vial of spirits of hartshorn: this she had taken possession of, and held firmly in her hand; and at the moment that Corbold bent his audacious head to kiss her, she discharged the whole contents upon his eyes and face, occasioning a degree of blindness and suffocation, that for the moment totally disabled him. He screamed with the sudden pain, and raised his hands to his tortured eyes. Before he removed them, Helen had already passed through her mother’s bed-room, and was flying by a back staircase to the servants’ room below. Without waiting to see if she were pursued, she opened a back door that led into the stable-yard, and, after a moment’s consideration, proceeded across it, into a lane which led in one direction to the kitchen gardens, and in the other into the road to Oakley.

  Even at that moment Helen had time to remember that if she turned her steps towards the kitchen gardens, she should pass by a park gate which would immediately lead her to all the safety that the protection of an assembled multitude could give. But she remembered also that in a few hours she should again be left in the hands of Mr. Cartwright, and, inwardly uttering a solemn vow that nothing should ever again make her wilfully submit to this, she darted forward, unmindful of her uncovered head, and, with a degree of speed more proportioned to her agitation than her strength, pursued the short cut across the fields to Oakley, and entering the grounds by the gate which led to the lawn, perceived Sir Gilbert, Lady Harrington, and their son, seated on a garden bench, under the shelter of a widely spreading cedar-tree.

  Helen knew that she was now safe, and she relaxed her speed, slowly and with tottering steps approaching the friends from whom, notwithstanding their long estrangement, her heart anticipated a warm and tender welcome. Yet they did not rise to meet her.

  “Perhaps,” thought she, “they do not know me;” and it was then she recollected that her hair was hanging dishevelled about her face without hat or cap to shelter it. She was greatly heated, and her breath and strength barely sufficed to bring her within a few yards of the party, when totally exhausted, she sat down upon the turf, and burst into tears.

  Colonel Harrington had not written the letter to Helen, which the Vicar of Wrexhill destroyed, without having put both his parents in his confidence. Lady Harrington’s fond affection for her god-daughter, which her enforced absence had in no degree lessened, rendered the avowal of her son’s attachment a matter of unmixed joy; and though Sir Gilbert declared that he would as soon stand in the relation of brother to his Satanic Majesty as to Cartwright, he at length gave his apparently sulky consent with perhaps as much real pleasure as his lady herself.

  Both the one and the other, however, knew perfectly well that their son would have been an excellent match for Helen, even when her father was alive, and would, as it was supposed, have given her a fortune of forty thousand pounds; and they felt some degree of triumph, neither unamiable nor ungenerous in its nature, at the idea of securing to one at least of poor Mowbray’s family a station in society that not even their connexion with Mr. Cartwright could tarnish.

  The whole family understood the position of things at the Park too well to be surprised at no answer being sent express to Colonel Harrington’s letter, and the following post was waited for with pleasurable though impatient anxiety. But when it arrived without bringing any answer, and another and another followed with no notice taken of a proposal of marriage, which, as Sir Gilbert said, the proudest woman in England might have been glad to accept, the misery of the young man himself, and the anger and indignation of his parents, were about equally vehement.

  Considering the opinion entertained by Sir Gilbert of what he was pleased to term Mr. Cartwright’s finished character, it is surprising that no idea should even have occurred to him of the possible suppression of this important epistle; but, in truth, the same interpretation of it had suggested itself to the minds of them all. They believed that Helen, from a sense of duty, had submitted the proposal to her mother, and that, forbidden to accept it by the vindictive feelings of the “parvenu priest,” she had been weak enough to obey even his commands, to leave the letter unanswered — a degree of timidity, and want of proper feeling, productive of almost equal disappointment to all three.

  Impressed with such feelings against her, it is perhaps not very surprising, that neither the heart-stricken lover, nor his offended parents, rose to welcome the approach of poor Helen.

  “Some family quarrel, I suppose,” said Lady Harrington. “They seem to have turned her out of doors in some haste.”

  “I will promise her that she shall not now find an entrance into mine,” said Sir Gilbert. “Perhaps the young lady thinks better of it, and that it may be as well to contradict pa and ma a little for the sake of being Mrs. Harrington. Those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have—” But before Sir Gilbert could finish his stave, Helen Mowbray was stretched upon the turf.

  Colonel Harrington, not too well knowing what he did, ran to the spot where she lay, and hardly daring to look at her, stammered out— “Miss Mowbray! Gracious Heaven, how fearfully she changes colour! So red, and now so deadly pale! Speak to me, Helen — What has happened to you? — How comes it that you are here? After —— Oh, Helen, open your eyes, and speak to me! Mother! mother! she is very ill!”

  Lady Harrington now rose slowly and gloomily from her seat, and walked to the place where Helen lay, her head supported by the arm of Colonel Harrington; every tinge of colour fled from her cheeks, her eyes closed, and no symptom of life remaining, excepting that tears from time to time escaped from beneath her long eyelashes.

  It is difficult to see a person one has ever loved, asleep, and yet retain anger towards them; they look so helpless, so innocent, so free from all that could have ever moved our spleen, that not the most eloquent defence that language ever framed could plead their cause so well as that mute slumber. Still more difficult would it be to look at a fair creature in the state in which Helen now lay, and retain any feeling harsher than pity.

  “There is something more in all this, William, than we yet understand,” said Lady Harrington, after gazing silently at Helen for some minutes. “This poor child has not fainted, her tears prove that; but she is suffering from bodily fatigue and mental misery. — Helen! rouse yourself. Let us understand each other at once. Why did you not reply to my son William’s letter?”

  Helen did rouse herself. She opened her eyes, and fixing them on Lady Harrington, while the colour for a moment rapidly revisited her cheeks, she said, in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible, “A letter from Colonel Harrington? — To me? — A letter to me? — I never received it.”

  “Thank Heaven!” cried Colonel Harrington, springing from the ground, for Helen’s head no longer rested on his arm. “Oh! what suffering should we have been spared, if we had done her but the justice to think of this!”

  He hastily returned to his father, who, though he had not advanced a step, had risen from his seat, and, to do him justice, was looking towards Helen with great anxiety. “She never received it, sir!” said he, in a voice husky from agitation: “Oh! come to her; soothe her with kindness, my dearest father, and all may yet be happiness amongst us.”

  “What, Helen! — Helen, my poor girl, are you come to us with some new trouble? — And did you indeed never get William’s letter, my dear child?”

  The mention of such a letter again dyed Helen’s cheeks with blushes; but she raised her eyes to Sir Gilbert’s face, with a look that seemed to ask a thousand questions as she replied, “I never received any letter from Colonel Harrington in my life.”

  “I am devilish glad to hear it, my dear, that’s all. So, then, you don’t know that — —”

  “Hold your peace, Sir Knight,” said Lady Harrington, interrupting him.— “And you come with me, sweet love. I’ll lay my best herbal to that dead leaf, that you are the only one perfectly faultless among us; and t
hat one, two, and three of us deserve to be — I can hardly tell what — in the power of the vicar, I think, for having been so villanous as to suspect you; and worse still, for having lived so close to you without ever having found out whether you were really watched like a state prisoner or not.”

  “Has the rascal dared — —” cried Sir Gilbert, but before he could finish his sentence, Lady Harrington and her son were leading Helen between them towards the house, her ladyship laying a finger on her lip as she passed her husband, in token that he was to say no more.

  Having reached what Lady Harrington called a place of safety, where, as she said the men could neither come nor hear, she made Helen lay herself upon a sofa, and then said, “Now, my Helen, if you are ill at ease in body, lay there quiet, and try to sleep; but if you are only, or chiefly ill at ease in mind, let your limbs only remain at rest, and relieve yourself and me by telling me every thing that has happened since we parted last.”

  “It is a long and sad history, my dearest friend,” replied Helen, kissing the hand which still held hers, “but I am very anxious that you should know it all; for so only can the action I have committed to-day be excused.”

  “What action, Helen? — what is it you have done, my child?”

  “I have eloped from my mother’s house, Lady Harrington.”

  “But you have eloped alone, Helen?”

  “Yes! alone.”

  “Well then, my dear, I will give you absolution for that. Perhaps there are those among us who may not find it so easy to absolve you from all blame for not doing it before. But now for particulars. — Will you have a glass of water, Helen? Mercy on me! I believe it must be a glass of wine. What can you have got to tell? You change colour every moment, my dear child.”

  Helen’s narrative, however, being of necessity less full then that contained in the preceding pages, need not be repeated. It was given indeed with all the force and simplicity of truth and deep feeling, and told all she knew of Mr. Cartwright’s plans and projects; but, excepting what she had that day learned during her dreadful interview with Corbold, she had little to add to what Lady Harrington knew before.

  This interview, however, was itself fully enough to justify the “elopement,” of which Helen still spoke with such dismay; and, together with the fact, again asked for, and again repeated, that no letter from Colonel Harrington had reached her hands, was sufficient to make her ladyship burst forth into a passion of indignation against the Vicar of Wrexhill, and to make her, while overpowering Helen with the tenderest caresses, bless her again and again for having at last flown to seek shelter where it would be given with such heartfelt joy.

  Soothed, consoled, and almost happy as Helen was made by this recovered kindness, her anxiety to know why, and upon what subject Colonel Harrington could have written to her, was becoming every moment more powerful. There was something so very fond, so very maternal in Lady Harrington’s manner to her, — something that seemed to say that she was of more consequence to her now than she had ever been before, — something, in short, quite indescribable, but which gave birth to such delicious hopes in the breast of Helen, that she almost feared to meet the eye of the old lady, lest all she guessed, and all she wished, should be read in her own.

  It is possible, that with all the care she took to avoid the betraying this anxiety, she did not succeed; for, in answer to some very delicate and very distant hint, that it was extremely disagreeable to have one’s letters intercepted, Lady Harrington, though she only replied, “Yes, it is, Helen,” rose and left the room, only adding as she closed the door, “Keep yourself quiet, my dear child: I shall return to you presently.”

  “Presently” is a word that certainly appears, by common usage, to admit of very considerable variety of interpretation; and it was evident that on the present occasion the two parties between whom it passed understood it differently. Long before Lady Harrington again appeared, Helen felt persuaded that some important circumstance must have occurred to make her so completely change her purpose; yet the good lady herself, when she re-entered the room, looked and was perfectly unconscious of having made any delay at all inconsistent with her “presently.”

  She held a folded paper in her hand. “You have not asked me, Helen,” she said, “on what subject it was that my son wrote to you; and yet I suspect that you have some wish to know. I have been down stairs to consult him on the best mode of repairing your precious vicar’s treachery, and he suggested my putting into your hands the copy of the letter which has been so basely intercepted; which copy, it seems, has remained safely in his desk, while its original has probably fed the flames in Mr. Cartwright’s secret chamber, kindling thereby a sympathetic and very consuming fire in the breast of the writer.”

  Helen stretched forth a very trembling hand to receive the paper; her eyes were fixed upon it, either to read through its enclosure the characters within, or to avoid at that moment meeting the eye of her godmother.

  “I shall leave you, my love, to peruse it alone; and presently, when I think you have done so, will return to ask if you cannot in some degree comprehend what must have been felt at its not obtaining an answer.”

  Having said this, Lady Harrington retired without waiting for a reply, and leaving Helen unable for a moment to learn what her heart throbbed with such violence to know.

  The letter of which Helen now held the copy has been already presented to the reader; and if she chance to be one of Helen’s age, having at her heart a love unbreathed to any human ear, she may guess what my Helen’s feelings were at finding such love had met an equal, an acknowledged return. Such a one may guess Helen’s feelings; — but no other can.

  Lady Harrington’s presently now seemed to Helen as much shorter than it really was as the last had seemed longer. She had read the letter but four times through, and pressed it to her heart, kissed it, and so forth, not half so much as she desired, and it deserved, when a knock was heard at the door, and the old lady again entered.

  The happy, but agitated girl stood up to receive her, and though she spoke not a single word, the manner in which she rushed into her maternal arms, and hid her face upon her bosom, spoke plainly enough that the gallant colonel had no reason to despair.

  “What must he have thought of me!” were Helen’s first words— “And you? — and Sir Gilbert? — Such a letter! Dearest, dearest Lady Harrington, you could not really think I had ever received it!”

  “You have struck the right chord there, my Helen. We all deserve to have suffered ten thousand times more than we have done, for having for a moment believed it possible you should have received that letter and not invented some means to answer it — let the answer be what it might. And this answer? — you have not yet told me what it is to be. I do not know how much, or how little, you may happen to like William, my dear; but in case you should have no insuperable aversion to him, the business is made delightfully easy by this adventure. The elopement is done and over already.”

  Helen only pressed Lady Harrington’s hand to her heart, but said nothing.

  “Yes, — you have found the way to let me into your secret, without speaking. This little heart throbs violently enough to prevent any suspicion of indifference. But what am I to say to my impatient hero below? — That you will, or you won’t marry him, as soon as the lawyers will let you?”

  “Oh! Lady Harrington!”

  “Come down stairs, my dear; — you had better come down, I do assure you; for I expect Sir Gilbert will be up in a moment, and you cannot suppose that William will remain behind; and my bed-room would by no means be so dignified a scene for the denouement as the great saloon. Come, dear, come.”

  And Helen went — trembling, blushing, with tears in her eyes, and such palpitation at her heart that she was very sure she could not pronounce a word. But what need was there of words? The happy colonel was soon perfectly satisfied, and thanked her on his bended knee for a consent more looked than spoken.

  Even Sir Gilbert himself, though si
ngularly attached to plain speaking, seemed well content on the present occasion to dispense with it; and pressed Helen to his heart, and kissed her forehead, and called her his dear daughter, apparently with as much satisfaction as if she had declared herself ready to accept of his son in the very best arranged words ever spoken upon such an occasion.

  When the first few decisive moments were past, and each one of the party felt that all things were settled, or about to be settled, in exact conformity to their most inward and earnest desires, and when Helen was placed as the centre of the six loving and admiring eyes that were fixed upon her, she closed her own; but it was neither to faint, nor to sleep, but to meditate for a moment with the more intensity upon the miraculous change wrought in her destiny within the last few hours.

  “What are you thinking of, my Helen?” said the colonel, jealous, as it should seem, of losing sight of those dear eyes, even for a moment.

  “I am endeavouring to believe that it is all real,” replied Helen with beautiful simplicity.

  “Bless you, my darling child,” said the rough baronet, greatly touched. “What an old villain I have been to you, Helen! — abusing you, hating you, calling you all manner of hard names, — and your little heart as true as steel all the time.”