"Yes," said Darcy, carelessly; "written probably soon after his return to England. I have no doubt it contains a most courtly acknowledgment of our poor hospitality, and an a.s.surance of undying regard."

"If it be of that tenor, I have no curiosity to read it," said Lady Eleanor, handing the letter to the Knight.

"Helen would like to study so great a master of epistolary flatteries,"

said the Knight, smiling; "and provided she will keep the whole for her private reading, I am willing to indulge her."

"I accept the favor with thanks," said Helen, receiving the letter; "you know I plead guilty to liking our n.o.ble relative. I 'm not skilled enough to distinguish between an article trebly gilded and one of pure gold, and his Lordship, to my eyes, looked as like the true metal as possible: he said so many pretty things to Mamma, and so many fine things of you and Lionel--"

"And paid so many compliments to the fair Helen herself," interposed the Knight.

"With so much of good tact--"

"And good taste, Helen," added Lady Eleanor, smiling; "why not say that?"

"Well, I see I shall have to defend myself as well as my champion, so I 'll even go and read my letter."

And so saying, she arose, and sauntered down to the sh.o.r.e; under the shelter of a tall rock, from whence the view extended for miles along, she sat down. "What a contrast!" said she, as she broke the seal, "a courtier's letter in such a scene as this!"

Lord Netherby's letter was, as the Knight suspected, written soon after his return to England, expressing, in his own most courtly phrase, the delightful memory he retained of his visit to Ireland. Gracefully contrasting the brilliant excitement of that brief period with the more staid quietude of the life to which he returned, he lightly suggested that none other than one native to the soil could support an existence so overflowing with pleasurable emotions. With all the artifice of a courtier, he recalled certain little incidents, too small, as mere matters of memory, to find a resting-place in the mind, but all of them indicative of the deep impression made, upon him who remarked them.

He spoke also of the delight with which his Royal Highness the Prince listened to his narrative of life in Ireland. "In truth," wrote his Lordship, "I do not believe that the exigencies of his station ever cost him more than when he reflected on the impossibility of his witnessing such perfection in the life of a country house as I feebly endeavored to convey to him. Again and again has he asked me to repeat the tale of the hunt--the brilliant ball the night of your arrival--and I have earned a character for story-telling of which Kelly and Sheridan are beginning to feel jealous, by the mere retail of your anecdotes. Lionel's return is anxiously looked for by all here, and the Prince has more than once expressed himself impatient to see him back again. My sweet favorite Helen, too,--when is she to be presented? There will be a court in the early part of next month, of which I shall not fail to apprise you, most earnestly entreating that my cousin Eleanor will not think the journey too far which shall bring her once again among those scenes she so gracefully adorned, and where her triumphs will be renewed in the admiration of her lovely daughter. I need not tell you that my house in town is entirely at her disposal, either as _my_ guests, or, if you prefer it, I shall be _theirs_, whenever I am not in waiting."

Here the writer detailed, with an eloquence all his own, the advantage to Helen of making her _entree_ into life under circ.u.mstances so favorable, remarking, with that conventional philosophy just then the popular cant of the day, that the enthusiasm of the world was never long-lived, and that even his beautiful cousin Helen should not be above profiting by the favorable reception the kindly disposition of the court was sure to procure for her. This was said in a tone of half-serious banter, but at the same time the invitation was reiterated with an evident desire for its acceptance.

As the letter drew near its conclusion, the lines became more closely written, as though some circ.u.mstances. .h.i.therto forgotten had suddenly occurred to the writer; and so it proved.

"I was about, my dear Knight, to write myself, with what truth I will not say, your 'most affectionate friend, Netherby,' when I received a letter which requires some mention at my hands. It is, indeed, one of the most extraordinary doc.u.ments I have ever perused; nothing very wonderful in that, when I tell you from whom it comes,--your old sweetheart, Julia Wallincourt, or, as you will better remember her, Julia d'Esterre; she is still very beautiful, and just as capricious, just as _maligne_, as when she endeavored, by every artifice of her coquetry, to make you jilt my cousin Eleanor. There 's no doubt of it, Darcy, this woman loved you! at least, as much as she could love anything, except the pleasure of torturing her fellow-creatures. Well, it would seem that a younger son of hers, popularly known as d.i.c.k Forester, paid you a visit in Ireland, and, no very unnatural occurrence, fell desperately in love with your daughter,--not so Helen with him. She probably regarded him as one of that cla.s.s upon which London has so stamped its impress of habit and manner that all individualism is lost in the quiet observance of certain proprieties.

He must have been a rare contrast to the high-souled enthusiasm and waywardness of her own brother! Certain it is she refused him; and he, taking the thing much more to heart than a young Guardsman usually does a similar catastrophe, hastened home, and endeavored to interest his mother in his suit. Lady Julia had an old vengeance to exact, and, like a true woman, could not forego it; she not only positively refused all intercession on her part, but went what you and I will probably feel to be a very unnecessary length, and actually declared she never would consent to such an alliance. We used to remember (some years ago), at Eton, of a certain Dido who never forgave, and we are told how, for many years after, the _lethalis arundo lateri adhosit_; but a.s.suredly the poet was speaking less of the woes of an individual than of the sorrows of fine ladies in all ages. Unfortunately, the similitude between her ladyship and Dido ends here; the cla.s.sic fair one exhibited, as we are told, the most delicate fondness for the son of her lover. But, to grow serious, Lady Wallincourt's conduct must have been peremptory and harsh; she actually went the length of writing to the Duke of York to request an exchange for her son into a regiment serving in India: whether Forester obtained some clew to this manouvre or not, he antic.i.p.ated the stroke by selling out and leaving the army altogether; whither he is gone, or what has become of him since, no one can tell. Such, my dear Knight, is the emergency in which Lady Wallincourt addresses her letter to me,--a letter so peculiarly her own, so full of reproaches against you, and vindication of herself, that I actually scruple to transmit to you this palpable evidence of still enduring affection.

"Were you both thirty years younger, I should claim great credit to my morality for the forbearance. Let that pa.s.s, however, and let me rather ask you if you know, or have heard anything, of this wayward boy?

Personally, I am unacquainted with him; but his friends agree in saying that he is high-spirited, honorable, and brave; and it would be a great pity that his affection for a young lady, and his anger with an old one, should mar all the prospects of his life. Could you, by any means, find a clew to him? I do not, of course, ask you to interfere in person, lest it might seem that you encouraged an attachment which you have far more reason to discountenance for your daughter than has Lady Wallincourt for her son; however, your doing so would go far to reconcile the young man to his mother by showing that, if there was a difficulty on one side, a still greater obstacle existed on the other."

Requesting a speedy answer, and begging that the whole might be in strict confidence between them, the letter concluded.

"I do not doubt, my dear Knight," said the postscript, "that you will see in all this a reason the more for coming up to town. Helen's appearance at the Drawing-Room would be the best, if not the only, rebuke Lady Wallin-court's insolence could receive. By all means, come.

"Another complication! Lady W., on first hearing of her son's duel, and the kind treatment he met with after being wounded, wrote a letter of grateful acknowledgments, which she enclosed to her son, neither knowing nor caring for the address of his benefactor. When she did hear it at length, she was excessively angry that she had been, as she terms it, 'the first to make advances.' Ainsi, telles sont les femmes du monde!"

Such was Lord Netherby's letter. With what a succession of emotions Helen read it we confess ourselves unable to depict. If she sometimes hesitated to read on, an influence, too powerful to control, impelled her to continue, while a secret interest in Forester's fortunes--a feeling she had never known till now--induced her to learn his fate.

More than once, in the alteration of her condition, had she recalled the proffer of affection she had with such determination rejected, and with what grat.i.tude did she remember the firmness of her decision!

"Poor fellow!" thought she, "I deemed it the mere caprice of one whose grat.i.tude for kindness had outrun his calmer convictions. And so he really loved me!"

We must avow the fact: Helen's indifference to Forester had, in the main, proceeded from a false estimate of his character; she saw in him nothing but a well-bred, good-looking youth, who, with high connections and moderate abilities, had formed certain ambitious views, to be realized rather by the advent.i.tious aid of fortune than his own merits.

He was, in her eyes, a young politician, cautions and watchful, trained up to regard Lord Castlereagh as the model of statesmen, and political intrigue as the very climax of intellectual display. To know that she had wronged him was to make a great revolution in her feelings towards him, to see that this reserved and calmly minded youth should have sacrificed everything--position, prospects, all--rather than resign his hope, faint as it was, of one day winning her affection!

If these were her first thoughts on reading that letter, those that followed were far less pleasurable. How should she ever be able to show it to her father? The circ.u.mstances alluded to were of a nature he never could be cognizant of without causing the greatest pain both to him and herself. To ask Lady Eleanor's counsel would be even more difficult.

Helen witnessed the emotion the sight of Lady Wallincourt's name had occasioned her mother the day Forester first visited them; the old rivalry had, then, left its trace on her mind as well as on that of Lady Julia! What embarra.s.sment on every hand! Where could she seek counsel, and in whom? Bagenal Daly, the only one she could have opened her heart to, was away; and was it quite certain she would have ventured to disclose, even to him, the story of that affection which already appeared so different from at first? Forester was not now in her eyes the fashionable guardsman, indulging a pa.s.sing predilection, or whiling away the tedious hours of a country-house by a flirtation, in which he felt interested because repulsed; he was elevated in her esteem by his misfortunes, and the very uncertainty of his fate augmented her concern.

And yet she must forego the hope of saving him, or else, by showing the letter to her father, acknowledge her acquaintance with events she should never have known, or, knowing, should never reveal.

There was no help for it, the letter could not be shown. In all likelihood neither the Knight nor Lady Eleanor would ever think more about it; and if they did, there was still enough to speak of in the courteous sentiments of the writer, and the polite attention of his invitation,--a civility which even Helen's knowledge of life informed her was rather proffered in discharge of a debt than as emanating from any real desire to play their host in London.

Thus satisfying herself that no better course offered for the present, she turned homewards, but with a heavier heart and more troubled mind than had ever been her fortune in life to have suffered.

END OF VOL. I.