Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  When Beauclerc was repeating this conversation to Helen, Lady Davenant came into the room just as he was telling these last particulars. She marked the smile, the hope that was excited, but shook her head, and said, “Raise no false hopes in my daughter’s mind, I conjure you;” and she turned the conversation to other subjects. Beauclerc had been to see Mr. Churchill, and of that visit Lady Davenant wished to hear.

  As to health, Beauclerc said that Mr. Churchill had recovered almost perfectly; “but there remains, and I fear will always remain, a little lameness, not disabling, but disfiguring — an awkwardness in moving, which, to a man of his personal pretensions, is trying to the temper; but after noticing the impediment as he advanced to meet me, he shook my hand cordially, and smiling, said, ‘You see I am a marked man; I always wished to be so, you know, so pray do not repent, my good friend.’ He saw I was too much moved for jesting, then he took it more seriously, but still kindly, assuring me that I had done him real service; it is always of service, he said, to be necessitated to take time for quiet reflection, of which he had had sufficient in his hours of solitary confinement — this little adversity had left him leisure to be good.

  “And then,” continued Beauclerc, “Churchill adverting to our foolish quarrel, to clear that off my mind, threw the whole weight of the blame at once comfortably upon the absent — on Beltravers. Churchill said we had indeed been a couple of bravely blind fools; he ought, as he observed, to have recollected in time, that

  ‘A full hot horse, who being allowed his way,

  Self-mettle tires him.’

  “So that was good, and Horace, in perfect good-humour with me and himself, and all the world, played on with the past and the future, glad he had no more of his bones to exfoliate; glad, after so many months of failure in ‘the first intention,’ to find himself in a whole skin, and me safe returned from transportation — spoke of Helen seriously; said that his conduct to her was the only thing that weighed upon his mind, but he hoped that his sincere penitence, and his months of suffering, would be considered as sufficient atonement for his having brought her name before the public; and he finished by inviting himself to our wedding, if it were only for the pleasure of seeing what sort of a face Lady Katrine Hawksby will have upon the occasion. — It was told of a celebrated statesman, jealous of his colleagues, Horace says, that every commonly good speech cost him a twinge of the gout; and every uncommonly good one sent him to bed with a regular fit. Now Horace protests that every commonly decent marriage of her acquaintance costs Lady Katrine at least a sad headache; but Miss Stanley’s marriage, likely as it is to be so happy after all, as he politely said, foredooms poor Lady Katrine to a month’s heartache at the least, and a face full ell long.”

  Whether in his penitence he had forsworn slander or not, it was plain that Churchill had not lost either his taste, talent, or power of sarcasm, and of this Beauclerc could have given, and in time gave, further illustrations; but it was in a case which came home to him rather too nearly, and on which his reports did not flow quite so fluently — touching Lord Beltravers, it was too tender a subject. Beauclerc was ashamed of himself for having been so deceived when, after all his guardian had done to save his fortune, after all that noble sacrifice had been made, he found that it was to no good end, but for the worst purpose possible. Lord Beltravers, as it was now clear, never had the slightest intention of living in that house of his ancestors on which Beauclerc had lavished his thousands, ay, and tens of thousands: but while he was repairing, and embellishing, and furnishing Old Forest, fit for an English aristocrat of the first water, the Lord Beltravers at the gaming-table, pledged it, and lost it, and sold it; and it went to the hammer. This came out in the first fury of Lord Beltravers upon his sister’s marriage at Paris: and then and there Beauclerc first came to the perception that his good friend had predestined him and his fortune for the Lady Blanche, whom, all the time, he considered as a fool and a puppet, and for whom he had not the slightest affection: it was all for his own interested purposes.

  Beauclerc suddenly opened his eyes wide, and saw it all at once: how it had happened that they had never seen it before, notwithstanding all that the general on one side, and Lady Davenant on the other, had done to force them open, was incomprehensible; but, as Lady Davenant observed, “A sort of cataract comes over the best eyes for a time, and the patient will not suffer himself to be couched; and if you struggle to perform the operation that is to do him good against his will, it is odds but you blind him for life.”

  Helen could not, however, understand how Granville could have been so completely deceived, except that it had been impossible for him to imagine the exquisite meanness of that man’s mind.

  “There,” cried Beauclerc, “you see my fault was having too little, instead of too much imagination.”

  Lady Davenant smiled, and said, “It has been admirably observed, that it is among men as among certain tribes of animals, it is sometimes only necessary that one of the herd should step forward and lead the way, to make all the others follow with alacrity and submission; and I solve the whole difficulty thus: I suppose that Lord Beltravers, just following Beauclerc’s lead, succeeded in persuading him that he was a man of genius and a noble fellow, by allowing all Beauclerc’s own paradoxes, adopting all his ultra-original opinions, and, in short, sending him back the image of his own mind, till Granville had been caught by it, and had fairly fallen in love with it — a mental metaphysical Narcissus.” [Footnote: Lord Mahon.] “After all,” continued Lady Davenant, smiling, “of all the follies of youth, the dangerous folly of trying to do good — that for which you stand convicted, may be the most easily pardoned, the most safely left to time and experience to cure. You know, Granville, that ever since the time of Alexander the Great’s great tutor, the characteristic faults of youth and age have been the ‘too much’ and the ‘too little.’ In youth, the too much confidence in others and in themselves, the too much of enthusiasm — too much of benevolence; — in age, alas! too little. And with this youth, who has the too much in every thing — what shall we do with him, Helen? Take him, for better for worse, you must; and I must love him as I have done from his childhood, a little while longer — to the end of my life.”

  “A little longer, to the end of her life!” said Beauclerc to himself, as leaning on the back of Helen’s chair he looked at Lady Davenant. “I cannot believe that she whom I see before me is passing away, to be with us but a little longer; so full of life as she appears; such energy divine! No, no, she will live, live long!”

  And as his eyes looked that hope, Helen caught it, and yet she doubted, and sighed, but still she had hope. Cecilia had none; she was sitting behind her mother; she looked up at Helen, and shook her head; she had seen more of her mother’s danger, she had been with her in nights of fearful struggle. She had been with her just after she had written to Lord Davenant what she must have felt to be a farewell letter — letter, too, which contained the whole history of Cecilia’s deception and Helen’s difficulties, subjects so agitating that the writing of them had left her mother in such a state of exhaustion that Cecilia could think only with terror for her, yet she exerted all her power over herself to hide her anguish, not only for her mother’s but for Helen’s sake.

  The preparations for the wedding went on, pressed forward by Lady Davenant as urgently as the general could desire. The bridesmaids were to be Lady Emily Greville’s younger sister, Lady Susan, and, at Helen’s particular request, Miss Clarendon. Full of joy, wonder, and sympathy, in wedding haste Miss Clarendon and Mrs. Pennant arrived both delighted that it was all happily settled for Helen: which most, it was scarcely possible to say; but which most curious as to the means by which it had been settled, it was very possible to see. When Miss Clarendon had secured a private moment with Helen, she began.

  “Now tell me — tell me everything about yourself.”

  Helen could only repeat what the general had already written to her sister — that he was now convinced that th
e reports concerning Miss Stanley were false, his esteem restored, his public approbation to be given, Beauclerc satisfied, and her rejection honourably retracted.

  “I will ask you no more, Helen, by word or look,” said Esther; “I understand it all, my brother and Lady Cecilia are separated for life. And now let us go to aunt Pennant: she will not annoy you by her curiosity, but how she will be able to manage her sympathy amongst you with these crossing demands I know not; Lady Cecilia’s wretchedness will almost spoil my aunt’s joy for you — it cannot be pure joy.”

  Pure joy! how far from it Helen’s sigh told; and Miss Clarendon had scarcely patience enough with Lady Cecilia to look at her again; had scarcely seconded, at least with good grace, a suggestion of Mrs. Pennant’s that they should prevail on Lady Cecilia to take a turn in the park with them, she looked so much in want of fresh air.

  “We can go now, my dear Esther, you know, before it is time for that picture sale, at which you are to be before two o’clock.” Lady Davenant desired Cecilia to go. “Helen will be with me, do, my dear Cecilia, go.”

  She went, and before the awkwardness of Miss Clarendon’s silence ceased, and before Mrs. Pennant had settled which glass or which blind was best up or down, Lady Cecilia burst into tears, thanked aunt Pennant for her sympathy, and now, above the fear of Miss Clarendon — above all fear but that of doing further wrong by concealment, she at once told the whole truth, that they might, as well as the general, do full justice to Helen, and that they might never, never blame Clarendon for the separation which was to be.

  That he should have mentioned nothing of her conduct even to his sister, was not surprising. “I know his generous nature,” said Cecilia.

  “But I never knew yours till this moment, Cecilia,” cried Miss Clarendon, embracing her; “my sister, now, — separation or not.”

  “But there need be no separation,” said kind aunt Pennant. Cecilia sighed, and Miss Clarendon repeated, “You will find in me a sister at all events.”

  She now saw Cecilia as she really was — faults and virtues. Perhaps indeed in this moment of revulsion of feeling, in the surprise of gratified confidence, she overvalued Lady Cecilia’s virtues, and was inclined to do her more than justice, in her eagerness to make generous reparation for unjust suspicion.

  CHAPTER XV.

  After setting down Lady Cecilia at her mother’s, the aunt and niece proceeded to the picture sale which Miss Clarendon was eager to attend, as she was in search of a pendant to a famous Berghem she possessed; and while she was considering the picture, she had the advantage of hearing a story, which seemed, indeed, to be told for the amusement of the whole room, by a party of fashionables who were standing near her: — a wonderful story of a locket, which was going about; it was variously told, but all agreed in one point — that a young married lady of high rank had never dared to appear in the World since her husband had seen this locket in her hands — it had brought out something — something which had occurred before marriage; — and here mysterious nods were interchanged.

  Another version stated that the story had not yet been fully explained to the husband, that he had found the locket on the table in a room that he had suddenly entered, where he discovered her kneeling to the person in question,—”the person in question” being sometimes a woman and sometimes a man.

  Then leaned forward, stretching her scraggy neck, one who had good reason to believe that the husband would soon speak out — the public would soon hear of a separation: and everybody must be satisfied that there could not be a separation without good grounds.

  Miss Clarendon inquired from a gentleman near them, who the lady was with the outstretched scraggy neck — Lady Katrine Hawksby. Miss Clarendon knew her only by reputation. She did not know Miss Clarendon either by reputation or by sight; and she went on to say, she would “venture any wager that the separation would take place within a month. In short, there could be no doubt that before marriage,” — and she ended with a look which gave a death-blow to the reputation.

  Exceedingly shocked, Miss Clarendon, not only from a sense of justice to Lady Cecilia, but from feeling for her brother’s honour, longed to reply in defence; but she constrained herself for once, and having been assured by Lady Cecilia that all had been confessed to her mother, she thought that Lady Davenant must be the best person to decide what should be done. She went to her house immediately, sent in word that she begged to see Lady Davenant for two or three minutes alone, was admitted; Cecilia immediately vacated the chair beside her mother’s bed, and left the room. Miss Clarendon felt some difficulty in beginning, but she forced herself to repeat all she had heard. Then Lady Davenant started up in her bed, and the colour of life spread over her face —

  “Thank you, thank you, Miss Clarendon! a second time I have to thank you for an inestimable service. It is well for Cecilia that she made the whole truth known to us both — made you her friend; now we can act for her. I will have that locket from Madame de St. Cymon before the sun goes down.”

  Now Lady Davenant had Madame de St. Cymon completely in her power, from her acquaintance with a disgraceful transaction which had come to her knowledge at Florence. The locket was surrendered, returned with humble assurances that Madame de St. Cymon now perfectly understood the thing in its true light, and was quite convinced it had been stolen, not given. Lady Davenant glanced over her note with scorn, and was going to throw it from her into the fire, but did not. When Miss Clarendon called upon her again that evening as she had appointed, she showed it to her, and desired that she would, when her brother arrived next day, tell him what she had heard, what Lady Davenant had done, and how the locket was now in her possession.

  Some people who pretend to know, maintain that the passion of love is of such an all-engrossing nature that it swallows up every other feeling; but we who judge more justly of our kind, hold differently, and rather believe that love in generous natures imparts a strengthening power, a magnetic touch, to every good feeling. Helen was incapable of being perfectly happy while her friend was miserable; and even Beauclerc, in spite of all the suffering she had caused, could not help pitying Lady Cecilia, and he heartily wished the general could be reconciled to her; yet it was a matter in which he could not properly interfere; he did not attempt it.

  Lady Davenant determined to give a breakfast to all the bridal party after the marriage. In her state of health, Helen and Cecilia remonstrated, but Lady Davenant had resolved upon it, and at last they agreed it would be better than parting at the church-door — better that she should at her own house take leave of Helen and Beauclerc, who would set out immediately after the breakfast for Thorndale.

  And now equipages were finished, and wedding paraphernalia sent home — the second time that wedding-dresses had been furnished for Miss Stanley; — and never once were these looked at by the bride elect, nor even by Cecilia, but to see that all was as it should be — that seen, she sighed, and passed on.

  Felicie’s ecstasies were no more to be heard: we forgot to mention that she had, before Helen’s return from Llansillen, departed, dismissed in disgrace; and happy was it for Lady Cecilia and Helen to be relieved from her jabbering, and not exposed to her spying and reporting. Nevertheless, the gloom that hung over the world above could not but be observed by the world below; it was, however, naturally accounted for by Lady Davenant’s state of health, and by the anxiety which Lady Cecilia must feel for the general, who, as it had been officially announced by Mr. Cockburn, was to set out on foreign service the day after the marriage.

  Lady Cecilia, notwithstanding the bright hopefulness of her temper, and her habits of sanguine belief that all would end well in which she and her good fortune had any concern, seemed now, in this respect, to have changed her nature; and ever since her husband’s denunciations, had continued quite resigned to misery, and submissive to the fate which she thought she had deserved. She was much employed in attendance upon her mother, and thankful that she was so permitted to be. She never mentioned her
husband’s name, and if she alluded to him, or to what had been decreed by him, it was with an emotion that scarcely dared to touch the point. She spoke most of her child, and seemed to look to the care of him as her only consolation. The boy had been brought from Kensington for Lady Davenant to see, and was now at her house. Cecilia once said she thought he was very like his father, and hoped that he would at least take leave of his boy at the last. To that last hour — that hour when she was to see her husband once more, when they were to meet but to part, to meet first at the wedding ceremony, and at a breakfast in a public company, — altogether painful as it must be, yet she looked forward to it with a sort of longing ardent impatience. “True, it will be dreadful, yet still — still I shall see him again, see him once again, and he cannot part with his once so dear Cecilia without some word — some look, different from his last.”