Tales and Novels Volume X Part 12

"'I hope it is in my power, my dear,' said he; 'I am sure you would not ask--' and there he stopped.

"I told him it was in his power, and that I would not ask it for any creature living, but--' He put his hand upon my lips, told me he knew what I was going to say, and begged me not to say it; but I, hoping to carry it off playfully, kissed his hand, and putting it aside said, 'I must ask, and you must grant this to my mother.' He replied, 'It cannot be, Anne, consistently with public justice, and with my public duty.

I--'

"'Nonsense, nonsense,' I said, 'such words are only to mask a refusal.'

_Mask_, I remember, was the word that hurt him. Of all I could have used, it was the worst: I knew it the instant I had said it. Lord Davenant stepped back, and with such a look! You, Helen, who have seen only his benign countenance, his smiling eyes, cannot conceive it. I am sure he must have seen how much it alarmed me, for suddenly it changed, and I saw all the melting softness of love.

"Oh fool! vain wicked fool that I was! I thought of 'victory,' and pursued it. My utmost power of persuasion--words--smiles--and tears I tried--and tried in vain; and then I could not bear to feel that I had in vain made this trial of power and love. Shame and pride and anger seized me by turns, and raised such a storm within me--such confusion--that I knew not what I did or said. And he was so calm!

looked so at least, though I am sure he was not. His self-possession piqued and provoked me past all bearing. I cannot tell you exactly how it was--it was so dreadfully interesting to me that I am unable to recall the exact words; but I remember at last hearing him say, in a voice I had never before heard, 'Lady Davenant!'--He had never called me so before; he had always called me 'Anne:' it seemed as if he had dismissed me from his heart.

"'Call me Anne! O call me Anne!'

"And he yielded instantly, he called me Anne, and caressing me, 'his Anne.' 'O Helen! never do as I did.' I whispered, 'Then, my love, you will do this for me--for me, your own Anne?'

"He put me gently away, and leaned against the chimney-piece in silence.

Then turning to me, in a low suppressed voice, he said,--

"'I have loved you--love you as much as man can love woman, there is nothing I would not sacrifice for you except--'

"'No exceptions!' cried I, in an affected tone of gaiety.

"'Except honour,' he repeated firmly.--Helen, my dear, you are of a generous nature, so am I, but the demon of pride was within me, it made me long to try the extent of my power. Disappointed, I sunk to meanness; never, never, however tempted, however provoked, never do as I did, never reproach a friend with any sacrifice you have made for them; this is a meanness which your friend may forgive, but which you can never forgive yourself.

"I reproached him with the sacrifice of my feelings, which I had made in marrying him! His answer was, 'I feel that what you say is true, I am now convinced you are incapable of loving me; and since I cannot make you happy, we had better--part.'

"These were the last words I heard. The blow was wholly unexpected.

"Whether I sunk down, or threw myself at his feet, I know not; but when I came to myself he was standing beside me. There were other faces, but my eyes saw only his: I felt his hand holding mine, I pressed it, and said, 'Forget.' He stooped down and whispered, 'It is forgotten.'

"I believe there is nothing can touch a generous mind so much as the being treated with perfect generosity--nothing makes us so deeply feel our own fault."

Lady Davenant was here so much moved that she could say no more. By an involuntary motion, she checked the reins, and the horses stopped, and she continued quite silent for a few minutes: at length two or three deeply drawn sighs seemed to relieve her; she looked up, and her attention seemed to be caught by a bird that was singing sweetly on a branch over their heads. She asked what bird it was? Helen showed it to her where it sat: she looked up and smiled, touched the horses with her whip, and went on where she had left off.--"The next thing was the meeting my mother in the morning; I prepared myself for it, and thought I was now armed so strong in honesty that I could go through with it well: my morality, however, was a little nervous, was fluttered by the knock at the door, and, when I heard her voice as she came towards my room, asking eagerly if I was alone, I felt a sickness at the certainty that I must at once crush her hopes. But I stood resolved; my eyes fixed on the door through which she was to enter. She came in, to my astonishment, with a face radiant with joy, and hastening to me she embraced me with the warmest expression of fondness and grat.i.tude.--I stood petrified as I heard her talk of my kindness--my generosity. I asked what she could mean, said there must be some mistake. But holding before my eyes a note, 'Can there be any mistake in this?' said she.

That note, for I can never forget it, I will repeat to you.

"'What you wish can be done in a better manner than you proposed.

The public must have no concern with it; Lady Davenant must have the pleasure of doing it her own way; an annuity to the amount required shall be punctually paid to your banker. The first instalment will be in his hands by the time you receive this.--DAVENANT.'

"When I had been formerly disenchanted from my trance of love, the rudeness of the shock had benumbed all my faculties, and left me scarcely power to think; but now, when thus recovered from the delirium of power, I was immediately in perfect possession of my understanding, and when I was made to comprehend the despicable use I would have made of my influence, or the influence my husband possessed, I was so shocked, that I have ever since, I am conscious, in speaking of any political corruption, rather exaggerated my natural abhorrence of it.

Not from the mean and weak idea of convincing the world how foreign all such wrong was to my soul, but because it really is foreign to it, because I know how it can debase the most honourable characters; I feel so much shocked at the criminal as at the crime, because I saw it once in all its hideousness so near myself.

"A change in the ministry took place this year, Lord Davenant's resignation was sent in and accepted, and in retirement I had not only leisure to be good, but also leisure to cultivate my mind. Of course I had read all such reading as ladies read, but this was very different from the kind of study that would enable me to keep pace with Lord Davenant and his highly informed friends. Many of these, more men of thought than of show, visited us from time to time in the country.

Though I had pa.s.sed very well in London society, blue, red, and green, literary, fas.h.i.+onable, and political, and had been extolled as both witty and wise, especially when my husband was in place; yet when I came into close contact with minds of a higher order, I felt my own deficiencies. Lord Davenant's superiority I particularly perceived in the solidity of the ground he uniformly took and held in reasoning. And when I, too confident, used to venture rashly, and often found myself surrounded, and in imminent danger in argument, he used to bring me off and ably cover my retreat, and looked so pleased, so proud, when I made a happy hit, or jumped to a right conclusion.

"But what I most liked, most admired, in him was, that he never triumphed or took unfair advantages on the strength of his learning, of his acquirements, or of what I may call his logical training.

"I mention these seeming trifles because it is not always in the great occasions of life that a generous disposition shows itself in the way which we most feel. Little instances of generosity shown in this way, unperceived by others, have gone most deeply into my mind; and have most raised my opinion of his character. The sense that I was over rather than under valued, made me the more ready to acknowledge and feel my own deficiencies. I felt the truth of an aphorism of Lord Verulam's, which is now come down to the copy-books; that 'knowledge is power.' Having made this notable discovery, I set about with all my might to acquire knowledge. You may smile, and think that this was only in a new form the pa.s.sion for power; no, it was something better. Not to do myself injustice, I now felt the pure desire of knowledge, and enjoyed the pure pleasure of obtaining it; a.s.sisted, supported, and delighted, by the sympathy of a superior mind.

"As to intellectual happiness, this was the happiest time of my life.

As if my eyes had been rubbed by your favourite dervise in the Arabian tales, with this charmed ointment, which opened at once to view all the treasures of the earth, I saw and craved the boundless treasures opened to my view. I now wanted to read all that Lord Davenant was reading, that I might be up to his ideas, but this was not to be done in an instant. There was a Frenchwoman who complained that she never could learn any thing, because she could not find anybody to teach her all she wanted to know in two words. I was not quite so _exigeante_ as this lady; but, after having skated on easily and rapidly, far on the superficies of knowledge, it was difficult and rather mortifying to have to go back and begin at the beginning. Yet, when I wanted to go a little deeper, and really to understand what I was about, this was essentially necessary. I could not have got through without the a.s.sistance of one who showed me what I might safely leave unlearned, and who pointed out what fruit was worth climbing for, what would only turn to ashes.

"This happy time of my life too quickly pa.s.sed away. It was interrupted, however, not by any fault or folly of my own, but by an infliction from the hand of Providence, to which I trust I submitted with resignation--we lost our dear little boy; my second boy was born dead, and my confinement was followed by long and severe illness. I was ordered to try the air of Devons.h.i.+re.

"One night--now, my dear, I have kept for the last the only romantic incident in my life--one night, a vessel was wrecked upon our coast; one of the pa.s.sengers, a lady, an invalid, was brought to our house; I hastened to her a.s.sistance--it was my beautiful rival!

"She was in a deep decline, and had been at Lisbon for some time, but she was now sent home by the physicians, as they send people from one country to another to die. The captain of the s.h.i.+p in which she was mistook the lights upon the coast, and ran the s.h.i.+p ash.o.r.e near to our house.

"Of course we did for her all we could, but she was dying: she knew nothing of my history, and I trust I soothed her last moments--she died in my arms.

"She had one child, a son, then at Eton: we sent for him; he arrived too late; the feeling he showed interested us deeply; we kept him with us some time; he was grateful; and afterwards as he grew up he often wrote to me. His letters you have read."

"Mr. Beauclerc!" said Helen.

"Mr. Beauclerc.--I had not seen him for some time, when General Clarendon presented him to me as his ward at Florence, where I had opportunities of essentially serving him. You may now understand, my dear, why I had expected that Mr. Granville Beauclerc might have preferred coming to Clarendon Park this last month of my stay in England to the pleasures of London. I was angry, I own, but after five minutes'

grace I cooled, saw that I must be mistaken, and came to the just conclusion of the old poet, that no one sinks at once to the depth of ill, and ingrat.i.tude I consider as the depth of ill. I opine, therefore, that some stronger feeling than friends.h.i.+p now operates to detain Granville Beauclerc. In that case I forgive him, but, for his own sake, and with such a young man I should say for the sake of society--of the public good--for he will end in public life, I hope the present object is worthy of him, whoever she may be.

"Have I anything more to tell you? Yes, I should say that, when by changes in the political world Lord Davenant was again in power, I had learned, if not to be less ambitious, at least to show it less. D----, who knew always how to put sense into my mind, so that I found it there, and thought it completely my own, had once said that 'every public man who has a cultivated and high-minded wife, has in fact two selves, each holding watch and ward for the other.' The notion pleased me--pleased both my fancy and my reason; I acted on it, and Lord Davenant a.s.sures me that I have been this second self to him, and I am willing to believe it, first because he is a man of strict truth, and secondly, because every woman is willing to believe what she wishes."

Lady Davenant paused, and after some minutes of reflection said, "I confess, however, that I have not reason to be quite satisfied with myself as a mother; I did not attend sufficiently to Cecilia's early education: engrossed with politics, I left her too much to governesses, at one period to a very bad one. I have done what I can to remedy this, and you have done more perhaps; but I much fear that the early neglect can never be completely repaired; she is, however, married to a man of sense, and when I go to Russia I shall think with satisfaction that I leave you with her."

After expressing how deeply she had been interested in all that she had heard, and how grateful she felt for the confidence reposed in her, Helen said she could not help wis.h.i.+ng that Cecilia knew all that had been just told her of Lady Davenant's history. If Cecilia could but know all the tenderness of her mother's heart, how much less would she fear, how much more would she love her!

"It would answer no purpose," replied Lady Davenant; "there are persons with intrinsic differences of character, who, explain as you will, can never understand one another beyond a certain point. Nature and art forbid--no spectacles you can furnish will remedy certain defects of vision. Cecilia sees as much as she can ever see of my character, and I see, in the best light, the whole of hers. So Helen, my dear, take the advice of a Scotch proverb--proverbs are vulgar, because they usually contain common sense--'Let well alone.'"

"You are really a very good little friend," added she, "but keep my personal narrative for your own use."

CHAPTER IX.

It was late before they reached home, and Helen dressed as fast as possible, for the general's punctual habits required that all should a.s.semble in the drawing-room five minutes at least before dinner. She was coming down the private turret staircase, which led from the family apartments to the great hall, when, just at the turn, and in the most awkward way possible, she met a gentleman, a stranger, where never stranger had been seen by her before, running up full speed, so that they had but barely s.p.a.ce and time to clear out of each other's way.

Pardons were begged of course. The manner and voice of the stranger were particularly gentlemanlike. A servant followed with his portmanteau, inquiring into which room Mr. Beauclerc was to go?

"Mr. Beauclerc!"--When Helen got to the drawing-room, and found that not even the general was there, she thought she could have time to run up the great staircase to Lady Davenant's room, and tell her that Mr.

Beauclerc was come.

"My dear Lady Davenant, Mr. Beauclerc!"--He was there! and she made her retreat as quickly as possible. The quant.i.ty that had been said about him, and the awkward way in which they had thus accidentally met, made her feel much embarra.s.sed when they were regularly introduced.

At the beginning of dinner, Helen fancied that there was unusual silence and constraint; perhaps this might be so, or perhaps people were really hungry, or perhaps Mr. Beauclerc had not yet satisfied the general and Lady Davenant: however, towards the end of dinner, and at the dessert, he was certainly entertaining; and Lady Cecilia appeared particularly amused by an account which he was giving of a little French piece he had seen just before he left London, called "Les Premieres Amours," and Helen might have been amused too, but that Lady Cecilia called upon her to listen, and, Mr. Beauclerc turning his eyes upon her, she saw, or fancied that he was put out in his story, and though he went on with perfect good breeding, yet it was evidently with diminished spirit. As soon as politeness permitted, at the close of the story, she, to relieve him and herself, turned to the aide-de-camp on her other side, and devoted, or seemed to devote, to him her exclusive attention. He was always tiresome to her, but now more than ever; he went on, when once set a-going, about his horses and his dogs, while she had the mortification of hearing almost immediately after her seceding, that Mr.

Beauclerc recovered the life and spirit of his tone, and was in full and delightful enjoyment of conversation with Lady Cecilia. Something very entertaining caught her ear every now and then; but, with her eyes fixed in the necessary direction, it was impossible to make it out, through the aid-de-camp's never-ending tediousness. She thought the sitting after dinner never would terminate, though it was in fact rather shorter than usual.

As soon as they reached the drawing-room, Lady Cecilia asked her mother what was the cause of Granville's delay in town, and why he had come to-day, after he had written it was impossible?

Lady Davenant answered, that he had 'trampled,' as Lord Chatham did, 'on impossibilities.' "It was not a physical impossibility, it seems."

"I'm sure--I hope," continued Cecilia, "that none of the Beltravers' set had any thing to do with his delay, yet from a word or two the general let fall, I'm almost sure that they have--Lady Blanche, I'm afraid--."

There she stopped. "If it were only a money difficulty with Lord Beltravers," resumed she, "that might be easily settled, for Beauclerc is rich enough."