Tales and Novels Volume X Part 13

"Yes," said Lady Davenant, "but rashly generous; an uncommon fault in these days, when young men are in general selfishly prudent or selfishly extravagant."

"I hope," said Cecilia,--"I hope Lady Blanche Forrester will not--"

there she paused, and consulted her mother's countenance; her mother answered that Beauclerc had not spoken to her of Lady Blanche. After putting her hopes and fears, questions and conjectures, into every possible form and direction, Lady Cecilia was satisfied that her mother knew no more than herself, and this was a great comfort.

When Mr. Beauclerc reappeared, Helen was glad that she was settled at an embroidery frame, at the furthest end of the room, as there, apart from the world, she felt safe from all cause for embarra.s.sment, and there she continued happy till some one came to raise the light of the lamp over her head. It was Mr. Beauclerc, and, as she looked up, she gave a foolish little start of surprise, and then all her confusion returning, with thanks scarce audible, her eyes were instantly fixed on the vine leaf she was embroidering. He asked how she could by lamplight distinguish blue from green? a simple and not very alarming question, but she did not hear the words rightly, and thinking he asked whether she wished for a screen, she answered "No, thank you."

Lady Cecilia laughed, and covering Helen's want of hearing by Beauclerc's want of sight, explained--"Do not you see, Granville, the silk-cards are written upon, 'blue' and 'green;' there can be no mistake."

Mr. Beauclerc made a few more laudable attempts at conversation with Miss Stanley, but she, still imagining that this was forced, could not in return say anything but what seemed forced and unnatural, and as unlike her usual self as possible. Lady Cecilia tried to relieve her; she would have done better to have let it alone, for Beauclerc was not of the French wit's opinion that, _La modestie n'est bonne qu'a quinze ans_, and to him it appeared only a graceful timidity. Helen retired earlier than any one else, and, when she thought over her foolish awkwardness, felt as much ashamed as if Mr. Beauclerc had actually heard all that Lady Cecilia had said about him--had seen all her thoughts, and understood the reason of her confusion. At last, when Lady Cecilia came into her room before she went to bed, she began with--"I am sure you are going to scold me, and I deserve it, I am so provoked with myself, and the worst of it is, that I do not think I shall ever get over it--I am afraid I shall be just as foolish again tomorrow."

"I could find it in my heart to scold you to death," said Lady Cecilia, "but that I am vexed myself."

Then hesitating, and studying Helen's countenance, she seemed doubtful how to proceed. Either she was playing with Helen's curiosity, or she was really herself perplexed. She made two or three beginnings, each a little inconsistent with the other.

"Mamma is always right; with her--'coming events' really and truly 'cast their shadows before.' I do believe she has the fatal gift, the coming ill to know!"

"Ill!" said Helen; "what ill is coming?"

"After all, however, it may not be an ill," said Lady Cecilia; "it may be all for the best; yet I am shockingly disappointed, though I declare I never formed any--"

"Oh, my dear Cecilia, do tell me at once what it is you mean."

"I mean, that Granville Beauclerc, like all men of genius, has acted like the greatest fool."

"What has he done?"

"He is absolutely--you must look upon him in future--as a married man."

Helen was delighted. Cecilia could form no farther schemes on her account, and she felt relieved from all her awkwardness.

"Dearest Helen, this is well at all events," cried Cecilia, seeing her cleared countenance. "This comforts me; you are at ease; and, if I have caused you one uncomfortable evening, I am sure you are consoled for it by the reflection that my mother was right, and I, as usual, wrong. But, Helen," continued she earnestly, "remember that this is not to be known; remember you must not breathe the least hint of what I have told you to mamma or the general."

Something more than astonishment appeared in Helen's countenance. "And is it possible that Mr. Beauclerc does not tell them,--does not trust his guardian and such a friend as your mother?" said Helen.

"He will tell them, he will tell them--but not yet; perhaps not till--he is not to see his fiancee--they have for some reason agreed to be separated for some time--I do not know exactly, but surely every body may choose their own opportunity for telling their own secrets. In fact, Helen, the lady, I understand, made it a point with him that nothing should be said of it yet--to any one."

"But he told it to you?"

"No, indeed, he did not tell it; I found it out, and he could not deny it; but he charged me to keep it secret, and I would not have told it to any body living but yourself; and to you, after all I said about him, I felt it was necessary--thought I was bound--in short, I thought it would set things to rights, and put you at your ease at once."

And then, with more earnestness, she again pressed upon Helen a promise of secrecy, especially towards Lady Davenant. Helen submitted. Cecilia embraced her affectionately, and left the room. Quite tired, and quite happy, Helen was in bed and asleep in a few minutes.

Not the slightest suspicion crossed her mind that all her friend had been telling her was not perfectly true. To a more practised, a less confiding, person the perplexity of Lady Cecilia's prefaces, and some contradictions or inconsistencies, might have suggested doubts; hut Helen's general confidence in her friend's truth had never yet been seriously shaken. Lady Davenant she had always thought prejudiced on this point, and too severe. If there had been in early childhood a bad habit of inaccuracy in Cecilia, Helen thought it long since cured; and so perhaps it was, till she formed a friends.h.i.+p abroad with one who had no respect for truth.

But of this Helen knew nothing; and, in fact, till now Lady Cecilia's aberrations had been always trifling, almost imperceptible, errors, such as only her mother's strictness or Miss Clarendon's scrupulosity could detect. Nor would Cecilia have ventured upon a decided, an important, false a.s.sertion, except for a kind purpose. Never in her life had she told a falsehood to injure any human creature, or one that she could foresee might, by any possibility do harm to any living being. But here was a friend, a very dear friend, in an awkward embarra.s.sment, and brought into it by her means; and by a little innocent stretching of the truth she could at once, she fancied, set all to rights. The moment the idea came into her head, upon the spur of the occasion, she resolved to execute it directly. It was settled between the drawing-room door and her dressing-room. And when thus executed successfully, with happy sophistry she justified it to herself. "After all," said she to herself, "though it was not absolutely true, it was _ben trovato_, it was as near the truth, perhaps, as possible. Beauclerc's best friends really feared that he was falling in love with the lady in question. It was very likely, and too likely, it might end in his marrying this Lady Blanche Forrester. And, on every account, and every way, it was for the best that Helen should consider him as a married man. This would restore Helen by one magical stroke to herself, and release her from that wretched state in which she could neither please nor be pleased." And as far as this good effect upon Helen was concerned, Lady Cecilia's plan was judicious; it succeeded admirably.

Wonderful! how a few words spoken, a single idea taken, out of or put into the mind, can make such a difference, not only in the mental feelings, but in the whole bodily appearance, and in the actual powers of perception and use of our senses.

When Helen entered the breakfast-room the next morning, she looked, and moved, and felt, quite a different creature from what she had been the preceding day. She had recovered the use of her understanding, and she could hear and see quite distinctly; and the first thing she saw was, that n.o.body was thinking particularly about her; and now she for the first time actually saw Mr. Beauclerc. She had before looked at him without seeing him, and really did not know what sort of looking person he was, except that he was like a gentleman; of that she had a sort of intuitive perception;--as Cuvier could tell from the first sight of a single bone what the animal was, what were its habits, and to what cla.s.s it belonged, so any person early used to good company can, by the first gesture, the first general manner of being, pa.s.sive or active, tell whether a stranger, even scarcely seen, is or is not a gentleman.

At the beginning of breakfast, Mr. Beauclerc had all the perfect English quiet of look and manners, with somewhat of a high-bred air of indifference to all sublunary things, yet saying and doing whatever was proper for the present company; yet it was done and said like one in a dream, performed like a somnambulist, correctly from habit, but all unconsciously. He awakened from his reverie the moment General Clarendon came in, and he asked eagerly,--

"General! how far is it to Old Forest?" These were the first words which he p.r.o.nounced like one wide awake. "I must ride there this morning; it's absolutely necessary."

The general replied that he did not see the necessity.

"But when I do, sir," cried Beauclerc; the natural vivacity of the young man breaking through the conventional manner. Next moment, with a humble look, he hoped that the general would accompany him, and the look of proud humility vanished from his countenance the next instant, because the general demurred, and Beauclerc added, "Will not you oblige me so far? Then I must go by myself."

The general, seeming to go on with his own thoughts, and not to be moved by his ward's impatience, talked of a review that was to be put off, and at length found that he could accompany him. Beauclerc then, delighted, thanked him warmly.

"What is the object of this essential visit to Old Forest, may I ask?"

said Lady Davenant.

"To see a dilapidated house," said the general.

"To save a whole family from ruin," cried Beauclerc; "to restore a man of first-rate talents to his place in society."

"Pshaw!" said the general.

"Why that contemptuous exclamation, my dear general?" said Beauclerc.

"I have told you, and again I tell you, the thing is impossible!" said the general.

"So I hear you say, sir," replied his ward; "but till I am convinced, I hold to my project."

"And what is your project, Granville?" said Lady Davenant.

"I will explain it to you when we are alone," said Beauclerc.

"I beg your pardon, I was not aware that there was any mystery," said Lady Davenant. "No mystery," said Beauclerc, "only about lending some money to a friend."

"To which I will not consent," said the general.

"Why not, sir?" said Beauclerc, throwing back his head with an air of defiance in his countenance; there was as he looked at his guardian a quick, mutable succession of feelings, in striking contrast with the fixity of the general's appearance.

"I have given you my reasons, Beauclerc," said the general, "It is unnecessary to repeat what I have said, you will do no good."

"No good, general? When I tell you that if I lend Beltravers the money, to put his place in repair, to put it in such a state that his sisters could live in it, he would no longer be a banished man, a useless absentee, a wanderer abroad, but he would come and settle at Old Forest, re-establish the fortune and respectability of his family, and above all, save his own character and happiness. Oh, my dear general!"

General Clarendon, evidently moved by his ward's benevolent enthusiasm, paused and said that there were many recollections which made it rather painful to him to revisit Old Forest. Still he would do it for Beauclerc, since nothing but seeing the place would convince him of the impracticability of his scheme. "I have not been at Old Forest,"

continued the general, "since I was a boy--since it was deserted by the owners, and sadly changed I shall find it.

"In former times these Forresters were a respectable, good old English family, till the second wife, pretty and silly, took a fancy for figuring in London, where of course she was n.o.body. Then, to make herself somebody, she forced her husband to stand for the county. A contested election--bribery--a pet.i.tion--another election--ruinous expense. Then that Beltravers t.i.tle coming to them: and they were to live up to it,--and beyond their income. The old story--over head and shoulders in debt. Then the new story,--that they must go abroad for economy!"

"Economy! The cant of all those who have not courage to retrench at home," said Lady Davenant.

"They must," they said, "live abroad, it is so cheap," continued the general. "So cheap to leave their house to go to ruin! Cheap education too! and so good--and what does it come to?"