Tales and Novels Volume X Part 3

The first morning, however, on seeing her ladyship immersed in papers with a brow of care, deeply intent, Helen paused on the threshold, "I am afraid I interrupt--I am afraid I disturb you."

"Come in, Helen, come in," cried Lady Davenant, looking up, and the face of care was cleared, and there was a radiance of pleasure--"Interrupt--yes: disturb--no. Often in your little life, Helen, you have interrupted--never disturbed me. From the time you were a child till this moment, never did I see you come into my room without pleasure."

Then sweeping away heaps of papers, she made room for Helen on the sofa beside her.

"Now tell me how things are with you--somewhat I have heard reported of my friend the dean's affairs--tell me all."

Helen told all as briefly as possible; she hurried on through her uncle's affairs with a tremulous voice, and before she could come to a conclusion Lady Davenant exclaimed,

"I foresaw it long since: with all my friend's virtues, all his talents--but we will not go back upon the painful past. You, my dear Helen, have done just what I should have expected from you,--right;--right, too, the condition Mr. Collingwood has made--very right. And now to the next point:--where are you to live, Helen? or rather with whom?"

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 s.p.a.ce 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 enn.o.bled 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 sc.r.a.p would make a sc.r.a.p-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 pa.s.sage 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sion--the ruling pa.s.sion 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 the 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.