Having learned these particulars, the colonel sought his father, not only to communicate them, but to ask his opinion as to the propriety of his accompanying Helen on this sad visit.
"I cannot bear," he added, "that she should go alone."
"Of course, young sir, you cannot," replied Sir Gilbert, with a sudden, and, as his son thought, not very feeling return of cheerfulness, "I should as soon think of letting her walk thither on all-fours: but your lovership must excuse me if I declare that it is my intention to accompany the young lady myself. I am sorry for you, William;—but so it must be. There's the carriage;—go to my lady's closet, and let her hear the news."
So saying, the baronet, without waiting to receive any answer, hastened to the door, and reached it just as Helen was stepping into the carriage. Without consulting her on the subject, he stepped in after her, and they drove away.
It would be doing an injustice to the essentially kind feelings of Sir Gilbert not to avow that his manner expressed very tender sympathy with Helen's natural and heavy sorrow: but the minds of both were full, and few words passed between them during their drive.
The lodge-gates were standing wide open, and they dashed through them without seeing any one of whom the trembling Helen could make inquiry; but once arrived at the house, all suspense was soon over: Mrs. Cartwright had breathed her last about ten minutes before they got there.
Poor Helen's first burst of grief was terrible. The remembrance of her poor mother's last embrace, though it became the most soothing comfort to her during her after life, seemed at that moment only to soften her heart to greater suffering. Passive, and almost unconscious, she suffered Sir Gilbert to lift her out of the carriage and lay her on a sofa in the drawing-room: and there, her tears flowing fast, and her very soul, as it seemed, melting within her, she might probably have long given way to her absorbing grief, had not surprise acted on her faculties more powerfully than salts or hartshorn, and forced her to open her eyes and her ears to witness the scene that passed before her.
Having seen her placed on a sofa with a female servant standing by her, Sir Gilbert turned his attention from Helen, and politely requested permission to wait on Mr. Cartwright.
Many, many things of an ordinary nature might have passed around her without rousing Helen from her deep and most true sorrow; but this request, and still more the tone in which it was spoken, awakened all her attention to what followed.
The servant to whom Sir Gilbert addressed himself executed his commission promptly and effectually; for almost immediately after closing the drawing-room door, he threw it open again, and his master entered.