Tales and Novels Volume X Part 41

She had prescribed rest, and Cecilia had herself desired to be left quite alone. After dinner Lady Davenant went up again to see her, found her not so well--feverish; she would not let Helen go to her--they would talk if they were together, and she thought it necessary to keep Cecilia very quiet. If she would but submit to this, she would be well again probably in the morning. At tea-time, and in the course of the evening twice, Cecilia sent to beg to speak to Helen; but Lady Davenant and the general joined in requesting her not to go. The general went himself to Lady Cecilia to enforce obedience, and he reported that she had submitted with a good grace.

Helen was happily engaged by Beauclerc's conversation during the rest of the evening. It was late before they retired, and when she went up-stairs, Felicie said that her lady was asleep, and had been asleep for the last two hours, and she was sure that after such good rest her ladys.h.i.+p would be perfectly well in the morning. Without further anxiety about her friend, therefore, Helen went to her own room. It was a fine moonlight night, and she threw open the shutters, and stood for a long time looking out upon the moonlight, which she loved; and even after she had retired to bed it was long before she could sleep. The only painful thought in her mind was of Lady Davenant's approaching departure; without her, all happiness would be incomplete; but still, hope and love had much that was delightful to whisper, and, as she at last sank to sleep, Beauclerc's voice seemed still speaking to her in soft sounds.

Yet the dream which followed was uneasy; she thought that they were standing together in the library, at the open door of the conservatory, by moonlight, and he asked her to walk out, and when she did not comply, all changed, and she saw him walking with another--with Lady Castlefort; but then the figure changed to one younger--more beautiful--it must be, as the beating of Helen's heart in the dream told her--it must be Lady Blanche. Without seeing Helen, however, they seemed to come on, smiling and talking low to each other along the matted alley of the conservatory, almost to the very door where she was still, as she thought, standing with her hand upon the lock, and then they stopped, and Beauclerc pulled from an orange-tree a blossom which seemed the very same which Helen had given to him that evening, he offered it to Lady Blanche, and something he whispered; but at this moment the handle of the lock seemed to slip, and Helen awoke with a start; and when she was awake, the noise of her dream seemed to continue; she heard the real sound of a lock turning--her door slowly opened, and a white figure appeared. Helen started up in her bed, and awaking thoroughly, saw that it was only Cecilia in her dressing-gown.

"Cecilia! What's the matter, my dear? are you worse?"

Lady Cecilia put her finger on her lips, closed the door behind her, and said, "Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ or you'll waken Felicie; she is sleeping in the dressing-room to-night. Mamma ordered it, in case I should want her."

"And how are you now? What can I do for you?"

"My dear Helen, you can do something for me indeed. But don't get up.

Lie down and listen to me. I want to speak to you."

"Sit down, then, my dear Cecilia, sit down here beside me."

"No, no, I need not sit down, I am very well, standing. Only let me say what I have to say. I am quite well."

"Quite well! indeed you are not. I feel you all trembling. You must sit down, indeed, my dear," said Helen, pressing her.

She sat down. "Now listen to me--do not waste time, for I can't stay.

Oh! if the general should awake and find me gone."

"What is the matter, my dear Cecilia? Only tell me what I can do for you."

"That is the thing; but I am afraid, now it is come to the point." Lady Cecilia breathed quick and short. "I am almost afraid to ask you to do this for me."

"Afraid! my dear Cecilia, to ask me to do anything in this world for you! How can you be afraid? Tell me only what it is at once."

"I am very foolish--I am very weak. I know you love me--would do anything for me, Helen. And this is the simplest thing in the world, but the greatest favour--the greatest service. It is only just to receive a packet, which the general will give you in the morning. He will ask if it is for you. And you will just accept of it. I don't ask you to say it is yours, or to say a word about it--only receive it for me."

"Yes, I will, to be sure. But why should he give it to me, and not to yourself?"

"Oh, he thinks, and you must let him think, it is for you, that's all. Will you promise me?"--But Helen made no answer. "Oh, promise me, promise me, speak, for I can't stay. I will explain it all to you in the morning." She rose to go.

"Stay, stay! Cecilia," cried Helen, stopping her; "stay!--you must, indeed, explain it all to me now--you must indeed!"

Lady Cecilia hesitated--said she had not time. "You said, Helen, that you would take the packet, and you know you must; but I will explain it all as fast as I can. You know I fainted, but you do not know why? I will tell you exactly how it all happened:--you recollect my coming into the library after I was dressed, before you went up-stairs, and giving you a sprig of orange flowers?"

"Oh yes, I was dreaming of it just now when you came in," said Helen.

"Well, what of that?"

"Nothing, only you must have been surprised to hear so soon afterwards that I had fainted."

"Yes," Helen said, she had been very much surprised and alarmed; and again Lady Cecilia paused.

"Well, I went from you directly to Clarendon, to give him a rose, which you may remember I had in my hand for him. I found him in the study, talking to corporal somebody. He just smiled as I came in, took the rose, and said, 'I shall be ready this moment:' and looking to a table on which were heaps of letters and parcels which Granville had brought from town, he added, 'I do not know whether there is anything there for you, Cecilia?' I went to look, and he went on talking to his corporal.

He was standing with his back to the table."

Helen felt that Lady Cecilia told all these minute details as if there was some fact to which she feared to come. Cecilia went on very quickly.

"I did not find anything for myself; but in tossing over the papers I saw a packet directed to General Clarendon. I thought it was a feigned hand--and yet that I knew it--that I had seen it somewhere lately. There was one little flourish that I recollected; it was like the writing of that wretched Carlos."

"Carlos!" cried Helen: "well!"

"The more I looked at it," continued Lady Cecilia, "the more like I thought it; and I was going to say so to the general, only I waited till he had done his business: but as I was examining it through the outer cover, of very thin foreign paper, I could distinguish the writing of some of the inside, and it was like your hand or like mine. You know, between our hands there is such a great resemblance, there is no telling one from the other."

Helen did not think so, but she remained silent.

"At least," said Cecilia, answering her look of doubt, "at least the general says so; he never knows our hands asunder. Well! I perceived that there was something hard inside--more than papers; and as I felt it, there came from it an uncommon perfume--a particular perfume, like what I used to have once, at the time--that time that I can never bear to think of, you know--"

"I know," said Helen, and in a low voice she added, "you mean about Colonel D'Aubigny."

"The perfume, and altogether I do not know what, quite overcame me. I had just sense enough to throw the packet from me: I made an effort, and reached the window, and I was trying to open the sash, I remember; but what happened immediately after that, I cannot tell you. When I came to myself, I was in my husband's arms; he was carrying me up-stairs--and so much alarmed about me he was! Oh, Helen, I do so love him! He laid me on the bed, and he spoke so kindly, reproaching me for not taking more care of myself--but so fondly! Somehow I could not bear it just then, and I closed my eyes as his met mine. He, I knew, could suspect nothing--but still! He stayed beside me, holding my hand: then dinner was ready; he had been twice summoned. It was a relief to me when he left me. Next, I believe, my mother came up, and felt my pulse, and scolded me for over-fatiguing myself, and for that leap; and I pleaded guilty, and it was all very well. I saw she had not an idea there was anything else.

Mamma really is not suspicious, with all her penetration--she is not suspicious."

"And why did you not tell her all the little you had to tell, dear Cecilia? If you had, long ago, when I begged of you to do so--if you had told your mother all about--"

"Told her!" interrupted Cecilia; "told my mother!--oh no, Helen!"

Helen sighed, and feebly said, "Go on."

"Well! when you were at dinner, it came into my poor head that the general would open that parcel before I could see you again, and before I could ask your advice and settle with you--before I could know what was to be done. I was so anxious, I sent for you twice."

"But Lady Davenant and the general forbade me to go to you."

"Yes,"--Lady Cecilia said she understood that, and she had seen the danger of showing too much impatience to speak to Helen; she thought it might excite suspicion of her having something particular to say, she had therefore refrained from asking again. She was not asleep when Helen came to bed, though Felicie thought she was; she was much too anxious to sleep till she had seen her husband again; she was awake when he came into his room; she saw him come in with some letters and packets in his hand; by his look she knew all was still safe--he had not opened _that_ particular packet--he held it among a parcel of military returns in his hand as he came to the side of the bed on tiptoe to see if she was asleep--to ask how she did; "He touched my pulse," said Lady Cecilia,--"and I am sure he might well say it was terribly quick.

"Every instant I thought he would open that packet. He threw it, however, and all the rest, down on the table, to be read in the morning, as usual, as soon as he awoke. After feeling my pulse again, the last thing, and satisfying himself that it was better--'Quieter now,' said he, he fell fast asleep, and slept so soundly, and I--"

Helen looked at her with astonishment, and was silent.

"Oh speak to me!" said Lady Cecilia, "what do you say, Helen?"

"I say that I cannot imagine why you are so much alarmed about this packet."

"Because I am a fool, I believe," said Lady Cecilia, trying to laugh. "I am so afraid of his opening it."

"But why?" said Helen, "what do you think there is in it?"

"I have told you, surely! Letters--foolish letters of mine to that D'Aubigny. Oh how I repent I ever wrote a line to him! And he told me, he absolutely swore, he had destroyed every note and letter I ever wrote to him. He was the most false of human beings!"

"He was a very bad man--I always thought so," said Helen; "but, Cecilia, I never knew that he had any letters of yours."

"Oh yes, you did, my dear, at the time; do not you recollect I showed you a letter, and it was you who made me break off the correspondence?"

"I remember your showing me several letters of his," said Helen, "but not of yours--only one or two notes--asking for that picture back again which he had stolen from your portfolio."

"Yes, and about the verses; surely you recollect my showing you another letter of mine, Helen!"

"Yes, but these were all of no consequence; there must be more, or you could not be so much afraid, Cecilia, of the general's seeing these, surely." At this moment Lady Davenant's prophecy, all she had said about her daughter, flashed across Helen's mind, and with increasing eagerness she went on. "What is there in those letters that can alarm you so much?"