Tales and Novels Volume X Part 8

"It was from my uncle Stanley I heard it," said Helen.

"Superior man that uncle must have been."

"I will leave you now," said Helen.

"Do, I see we shall like one another in time, Miss Stanley; in time,--I hate sudden friends.h.i.+ps."

That evening Miss Clarendon questioned Helen more about her friends.h.i.+p with Cecilia, and how it was she came to hive with her. Helen plainly told her.

"Then it was not an original promise between you?"

"Not at all," said Helen.

"Lady Cecilia told me it was. Just like her,--I knew all the time it was a lie."

Shocked and startled at the word, and at the idea, Helen exclaimed, "Oh!

Miss Clarendon, how can you say so? anybody may be mistaken. Cecilia mistook--" Lady Cecilia joined them at this moment. Miss Clarendon's face was flushed. "This room is insufferably hot. What can be the use of a fire at this time of year?"

Cecilia said it was for her mother, who was apt to be chilly in the evenings; and as she spoke, she put a screen between the flushed cheek and the fire. Miss Clarendon pushed it away, saying, "I can't talk, I can't hear, I can't understand with a screen before me. What did you say, Lady Cecilia, to Lady Davenant, as we came out from dinner, about Mr. Beauclerc?"

"That we expect him to-morrow."

"You did not tell me so when you wrote!"

"No, my dear."

"Why pray?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know, Lady Cecilia! why should people say they do not know, when they do know perfectly well?"

"If I had thought it was of any consequence to you, Esther," said Cecilia, with an arch look----

"Now you expect me to answer that it was not of the least consequence to me--that is the answer you would make; but my answer is, that it was of consequence to me, and you knew it was."

"And if I did?"

"If you did, why say 'If I had thought it of any consequence to you?'--why say so? answer me truly."

"Answer me truly!" repeated Lady Cecilia, laughing. "Oh, my dear Esther, we are not in a court of justice."

"Nor in a court of honour," pursued Miss Clarendon.

"Well, well! let it be a court of love at least," said Lady Cecilia.

"What a pretty proverb that was, Helen, that we met with the other day in that book of old English proverbs--'Love rules his kingdom without a sword.'"

"Very likely; but to the point," said Miss Clarendon, "when do you expect Mr. Beauclerc?"

"To-morrow."

"Then I shall go to-morrow!"

"My dear Esther, why?"

"You know why; you know what reports have been spread; it suits neither my character nor my brother's to give any foundation for such reports.

Let me ring the bell and I will give my own orders."

"My dear Esther, but your brother will be so vexed--so surprised."

"My brother is the best judge of his own conduct, he will do what he pleases, or what you please. I am the judge of mine, and certainly shall do what I think right."

She rang accordingly, and ordered that her carriage should be at the door at six o'clock in the morning.

"Nay, my dear Esther," persisted Cecilia, "I wish you would not decide so suddenly; we were so glad to have you come to us--"

"Glad! why you know--"

"I know," interrupted Lady Cecilia, colouring, and she began as fast as possible to urge every argument she could think of to persuade Miss Clarendon; but no arguments, no entreaties of hers or the general's, public or private, were of any avail,--go she would, and go she did at six o'clock.

"I suppose," said Helen to Lady Davenant, "that Miss Clarendon is very estimable, and she seems to be very clever: but I wonder that with all her abilities she does not learn to make her manners more agreeable."

"My dear," said Lady Davenant, "we must take people as they are; you may graft a rose upon an oak, but those who have tried the experiment tell us the graft will last but a short time, and the operation ends in the destruction of both; where the stocks have no common nature, there is ever a want of conformity which sooner or later proves fatal to both."

But Beauclerc, what was become of him?--that day pa.s.sed, and no Beauclerc; another and another came, and on the third day, only a letter from him, which ought to have come on Tuesday.--But "_too late_," the shameful brand of procrastination was upon it--and it contained only a few lines blotted in the folding, to say that he could not possibly be at Clarendon Park on Tuesday, but would on Wednesday or Thursday if possible.

Good-natured Lord Davenant observed, "When a young man in London, writing to his friends in the country, names two days for leaving town, and adds an '_if possible_' his friends should never expect him till the last of the two named."

The last of the two days arrived--Thursday. The aide-de-camp asked if Mr. Beauclerc was expected to-day. "Yes, I expect to see him to-day,"

the general answered.

"I hope, but do not expect," said Lady Davenant, "for, as learned authority tells me, 'to expect is to hope with some degree of certainty'--"

The general left the room repeating, "I expect him to-day, Cecilia."

The day pa.s.sed, however, and he came not--the night came. The general ordered that the gate should be kept open, and that a servant should sit up. The servant sat up all night, cursing Mr. Beauclerc. And in the morning he replied with malicious alacrity to the first question his master asked, "No, Sir, Mr. Beauclerc is not come."

At breakfast, the general, after b.u.t.tering his bread in silence for some minutes, confessed that he loved punctuality. It might be a military prejudice;--it might be too professional, martinet perhaps,--but still he owned he did love punctuality. He considered it as a part of politeness, a proper attention to the convenience and feelings of others; indispensable between strangers it is usually felt to be, and he did not know why intimate friends should deem themselves privileged to dispense with it.

His eyes met Helen's as he finished these words, and smiling, he complimented her upon her constant punctuality. It was a voluntary grace in a lady, but an imperative duty in a man--and a young man.

"You are fond of this young man, I see general," said Lord Davenant.

"But not of his fault."

Lady Cecilia said something about forgiving a first fault.

"Never!" said Lady Davenant. "Lord Collingwood's rule was--never forgive a first fault, and you will not have a second. You love Beauclerc, I see, as Lord Davenant says."