Helen had seen some of them before at Cecilhurst and at the Deanery. By her uncle’s friends she was kindly recognised, by others of course politely noticed; but miserably would she have been disappointed and mortified, if she had expected to fix general attention, or excite general admiration. Past and gone for ever are the days, if ever they were, when a young lady, on her entrance into life, captivated by a glance, overthrew by the first word, and led in triumph her train of admirers. These things are not to be done now-a-days.
Yet even when unnoticed Helen was perfectly happy. Her expectations were more than gratified in seeing and in hearing these distinguished people, and she sat listening to their conversation in delightful enjoyment, without even wanting to have it seen how well she understood.
There is a precious moment for young people, if taken at the prime, when first introduced into society, yet not expected, not called upon to take a part in it, they, as standers by, may see not only all the play, but the characters of the players, and may learn more of life and of human nature in a few months, than afterwards in years, when they are themselves actors upon the stage of life, and become engrossed by their own parts. There is a time, before the passions are awakened, when the understanding, with all the life of nature, fresh from all that education can do to develop and cultivate, is at once eager to observe and able to judge, for a brief space blessed with the double advantages of youth and age. This time once gone is lost irreparably; and how often it is lost—in premature vanity, or premature dissipation!
Helen had been chiefly educated by a man, and a very sensible man, as Dean Stanley certainly was in all but money matters. Under his masculine care, while her mind had been brought forward on some points, it had been kept back on others, and while her understanding had been cultivated, it had been done without the aid of emulation or competition; not by touching the springs of pride, but by opening sources of pure pleasure; and this pure pleasure she now enjoyed, grateful to that dear uncle. For the single inimitable grace of simplicity which she possessed, how many mothers, governesses, and young ladies themselves, willingly, when they see how much it charms, would too late exchange half the accomplishments, all the acquirements, so laboriously achieved!
Beauclerc, who had seen something of the London female world, was, both from his natural taste and from contrast, pleased with Helen’s fresh and genuine character, and he sympathised with all her silent delight. He never interrupted her in her enthusiastic contemplation of the great stars, but he would now and then seize an interval of rest to compare her observations with his own; anxious to know whether she estimated their relative magnitude and distances as he did. These snatched moments of comparison and proof of agreement in their observations, or the pleasure of examining the causes of their difference of opinion, enhanced the enjoyment of this brilliant fortnight; and not a cloud obscured the deep serene.
Notwithstanding all the ultra-refined nonsense Beauclerc had talked about his wish not to see remarkable persons, no one could enjoy it more, as Helen now perceived; and she saw also that he was considered as a man of promise among all these men of performance. But there were some, perhaps very slight things, which raised him still more in her mind, because they showed superiority of character. She observed his manner towards the general in this company, where he had himself the ‘vantage ground—so different now from what it had been in the Old-Forest battle, when only man to man, ward to guardian. Before these distinguished persons there was a look—a tone of deference at once most affectionate and polite.
“It is so generous,” said Lady Cecilia to Helen; “is not it?” and Helen agreed.
This brilliant fortnight ended too soon, as Helen thought, but Lady Cecilia had had quite enough of it. “They are all to go to-morrow morning, and I am not sorry for it,” said she at night, as she threw herself into an arm-chair, in Helen’s room; and, after having indulged in a refreshing yawn, she exclaimed, “Very delightful, very delightful! as you say, Helen, it has all been; but I am not sure that I should not be very much tired if I had much more of it. Oh! yes, I admired them all amazingly, but then admiring all day long is excessively wearisome. The very attitude of looking up fatigues both body and mind. Mamma is never tired, because she never has to look up; she can always look down, and that’s so grand and so easy. She has no idea how the neck of my poor mind aches this minute; and my poor eyes! blasted with excess of light. How yours have stood it so well, Helen, I cannot imagine! how much stronger they must be than mine. I must confess, that, without the relief of music now and then, and ecarté, and that quadrille, bad as it was, I should never have got through it to-night alive or awake. But,” cried she, starting up in her chair, “do you know Horace Churchill stays to-morrow. Such a compliment from him to stay a day longer than he intended! And do you know what he says of your eyes, Helen?—that they are the best listeners he ever spoke to. I should warn you though, my dear, that he is something, and not a little, I believe, of a male coquette. Though he is not very young, but he well understands all the advantages of a careful toilette. He has, like that George Herbert in Queen Elizabeth’s time, ‘a genteel humour for dress.’ He is handsome still, and his fine figure, and his fine feelings, and his fine fortune, have broken two or three hearts; nevertheless I am delighted that he stays, especially that he stays on your account.”
“Upon my account!” exclaimed Helen. “Did not you see that, from the first day when Mr. Churchill had the misfortune to be placed beside me at dinner, he utterly despised me: he began to talk to me, indeed, but left his sentence unfinished, his good story untold, the instant he caught the eye of a grander auditor.”
Lady Cecilia had seen this, and marvelled at a well-bred man so far forgetting himself in vanity; but this, she observed, was only the first day; he had afterwards changed his manner towards Helen completely.