Tales and Novels Volume X Part 46

"Every day will make it more difficult. The deception will be greater, and less pardonable. If we delay, it will become deliberate falsehood, a sort of conspiracy between us," said Helen.

"Conspiracy! Oh, Helen, do not use such a shocking word, when it is really nothing at all."

"Then why not tell it?" urged Helen.

"Because, though it is nothing at all in reality, yet Clarendon would think it dreadful--though I have done nothing really wrong."

"So I say--so I know," cried Helen; "therefore----"

"Therefore let me take my own time," said Cecilia. "How can you urge me so, hurrying me so terribly, and when I am but just recovered from one misery, and when you had made me so happy, and when I was thanking you with all my heart."

Helen was much moved, but answered as steadily as she could. "It seems cruel, but indeed I am not cruel."

"When you had raised me up," continued Cecilia, "to dash me down again, and leave me worse than ever!"

"Not worse--no, surely not worse, when your mother is safe."

"Yes, safe, thank you--but oh, Helen, have you no feeling for your own Cecilia?"

"The greatest," answered Helen; and her tears said the rest.

"You, Helen! I never could have thought you would have urged me so!"

"O Cecilia! if you knew the pain it was to me to make you unhappy again,--but I a.s.sure you it is for your own sake. Dearest Cecilia, let me tell you all that General Clarendon said about it, and then you will know my reasons." She repeated as quickly as she could, all that had pa.s.sed between her and the general, and when she came to this declaration that, if Cecilia had told him plainly the fact before, he would have married with perfect confidence, and, as he believed, with increased esteem and love: Cecilia started up from the sofa on which she had thrown herself, and exclaimed,

"O that I had but known this at the time, and I _would_ have told him."

"It is still time," said Helen.

"Time now?--impossible. His look this morning. Oh! that look!"

"But what is one look, my dear Cecilia, compared with a whole life of confidence and happiness?"

"A life of happiness! never, never for me; in that way at least, never."

"In that way and no other, Cecilia, believe me. I am certain you never could endure to go on concealing this, living with him you love so, yet deceiving him."

"Deceiving! do not call it deceiving, it is only suppressing a fact that would give him pain; and when he can have no suspicion, why give him that pain? I am afraid of nothing now but this timidity of yours--this going back. Just before you came in, Clarendon was saying how much he admired your truth and candour, how much he is obliged to you for saving him from endless misery; he said so to me, that was what made me so completely happy. I saw that it was all right for you as well as me, that you had not sunk, that you had risen in his esteem."

"But I must sink, Cecilia, in his esteem, and now it hangs upon a single point--upon my doing what I cannot do." Then she repeated what the general had said about that perfect openness which he was sure there would be in this case between her and Beauclerc. "You see what the general expects that I should do."

"Yes," said Cecilia; and then indeed she looked much disturbed. "I am very sorry that this notion of your telling Beauclerc came into Clarendon's head--very, very sorry, for he will not forget it. And yet, after all," continued she, "he will never ask you point blank, 'Have you told Beauclerc?'--and still more impossible that he should ask Beauclerc about it."

"Cecilia!" said Helen, "if it were only for myself I would say no more; there is nothing I would not endure--that I would not sacrifice--even my utmost happiness."--She stopped, and blushed deeply.

"Oh, my dearest Helen! do you think I could let you ever hazard that? If I thought there was the least chance of injuring you with Granville!--I would do any thing--I would throw myself at Clarendon's feet this instant."

"This instant--I wish he was here," cried Helen.

"Good Heavens! do you?" cried Lady Cecilia, looking at the door with terror--she thought she heard his step.

"Yes, if you would but tell him--O let me call him!"

"Oh no, no! Spare me--spare me, I cannot speak now. I could not utter the words; I should not know what words to use. Tell him if you will, I cannot."

"May I tell him?" said Helen, eagerly.

"No, no--that would be worse; if anybody tells him it must be myself."

"Then you will now--when he comes in?"

"He is coming!" cried Cecilia.

General Clarendon came to the door--it was bolted.

"In a few minutes," said Helen. Lady Cecilia did not speak, but listened, as in agony, to his receding footsteps.

"In a few minutes, Helen, did you say?--then there is nothing for me now, but to die--I wish I could die--I wish I was dead."

Helen felt she was cruel, she began to doubt her own motives; she thought she had been selfish in urging Cecilia too strongly; and, going to her kindly, she said, "Take your own time, my dear Cecilia: only tell him--tell him soon."

"I will, I will indeed, when I can--but now I am quite exhausted."

"You are indeed," said Helen, "how cruel I have been!--how pale you are!"

Lady Cecilia lay down on the sofa, and Helen covered her with a soft India shawl, trembling so much herself that she could hardly stand.

"Thank you, thank you, dear, kind Helen; tell him I am going to sleep, and I am sure I hope I shall."

Helen closed the shutters--she had now done all she could; she feared she had done too much; and as she left the room, she said to herself,--"Oh, Lady Davenant! if you could see--if you knew--what it cost me!"

END OF VOLUME THE SECOND

VOLUME THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

The overwrought state of Helen's feelings was relieved by a walk with Beauclerc, not in the dressed part of the park, but in what was generally undiscovered country: a dingle, a bosky dell, which he had found out in his rambles, and which, though so little distant from the busy hum of men, had a wonderful air of romantic seclusion and stillness--the stillness of evening. The sun had not set; its rich, red light yet lingered on the still remaining autumn tints upon the trees.

The birds hopped fearlessly from bough to bough, as if this sweet spot were all their own. The cattle were quietly grazing below, or slowly winding their way to the watering-place. By degrees, the sounds of evening faded away upon the ear; a faint chirrup here and there from the few birds not yet gone to roost, and now only the humming of the flies over the water were to be heard.

It was perfect repose, and Beauclerc and Helen sat down on the bank to enjoy it together. The sympathy of the woman he loved, especially in his enjoyment of the beauties of nature, was to Beauclerc an absolute necessary of life. Nor would he have been contented with that show taste for the picturesque, which is, as he knew, merely one of a modern young lady's many accomplishments. Helen's taste was natural, and he was glad to feel it so true, and for him here alone expressed with such peculiar heightened feeling, as if she had in all nature now a new sense of delight. He had brought her here, in hopes that she would be struck with this spot, not only because it was beautiful in itself, and his discovery, but because it was like another bushy dell and bosky bourne, of which he had been from childhood fond, in another place, of which he hoped she would soon be mistress. "Soon! very soon, Helen!" he repeated, in a tone which could not be heard by her with indifference. He said that some of his friends in London told him that the report of their intended union had been spread everywhere--(by Lady Katrine Hawksby probably, as Cecilia, when Lady Castlefort departed, had confided to her, to settle her mind about Beauclerc, that he was coming over as Miss Stanley's acknowledged lover). And since the report had been so spread, the sooner the marriage took place the better; at least, it was a plea which Beauclerc failed not to urge, and Helen's delicacy failed not to feel.

She sighed--she smiled. The day was named--and the moment she consented to be his, nothing could be thought of but him. Yet, even while he poured out all his soul--while he enjoyed the satisfaction there is in perfect unreservedness of confidence, Helen felt a pang mix with her pleasure. She felt there was one thing _she_ could _not_ tell him: he who had told her every thing--all his faults, and follies. "Oh! why,"