“Yes,” Helen said, she had been very much surprised and alarmed; and again Lady Cecilia paused.
“Well, I went from you directly to Clarendon, to give him a rose, which you may remember I had in my hand for him. I found him in the study, talking to corporal somebody. He just smiled as I came in, took the rose, and said, ‘I shall be ready this moment:’ and looking to a table on which were heaps of letters and parcels which Granville had brought from town, he added, ‘I do not know whether there is anything there for you, Cecilia?’ I went to look, and he went on talking to his corporal. He was standing with his back to the table.”
Helen felt that Lady Cecilia told all these minute details as if there was some fact to which she feared to come. Cecilia went on very quickly. “I did not find anything for myself; but in tossing over the papers I saw a packet directed to General Clarendon. I thought it was a feigned hand—and yet that I knew it—that I had seen it somewhere lately. There was one little flourish that I recollected; it was like the writing of that wretched Carlos.”
“Carlos!” cried Helen: “well!”
“The more I looked at it,” continued Lady Cecilia, “the more like I thought it; and I was going to say so to the general, only I waited till he had done his business: but as I was examining it through the outer cover, of very thin foreign paper, I could distinguish the writing of some of the inside, and it was like your hand or like mine. You know, between our hands there is such a great resemblance, there is no telling one from the other.”
Helen did not think so, but she remained silent.
“At least,” said Cecilia, answering her look of doubt, “at least the general says so; he never knows our hands asunder. Well! I perceived that there was something hard inside—more than papers; and as I felt it, there came from it an uncommon perfume—a particular perfume, like what I used to have once, at the time—that time that I can never bear to think of, you know—”
“I know,” said Helen, and in a low voice she added, “you mean about Colonel D’Aubigny.”
“The perfume, and altogether I do not know what, quite overcame me. I had just sense enough to throw the packet from me: I made an effort, and reached the window, and I was trying to open the sash, I remember; but what happened immediately after that, I cannot tell you. When I came to myself, I was in my husband’s arms; he was carrying me up-stairs—and so much alarmed about me he was! Oh, Helen, I do so love him! He laid me on the bed, and he spoke so kindly, reproaching me for not taking more care of myself—but so fondly! Somehow I could not bear it just then, and I closed my eyes as his met mine. He, I knew, could suspect nothing—but still! He stayed beside me, holding my hand: then dinner was ready; he had been twice summoned. It was a relief to me when he left me. Next, I believe, my mother came up, and felt my pulse, and scolded me for over-fatiguing myself, and for that leap; and I pleaded guilty, and it was all very well. I saw she had not an idea there was anything else. Mamma really is not suspicious, with all her penetration—she is not suspicious.”
“And why did you not tell her all the little you had to tell, dear Cecilia? If you had, long ago, when I begged of you to do so—if you had told your mother all about—”