Her history for these weeks—indeed for some months afterwards—can be only the diary of an invalid and of a convalescent. Miss Clarendon meanwhile received from her brother, punctually, once a week, bulletins of Churchill’s health; the surgical details, the fears of the formation of internal abscess, reports of continual exfoliations of bone, were judiciously suppressed, and the laconic general reported only “Much the same—not progressing—cannot be pronounced out of danger.” These bulletins were duly repeated to Helen, whenever she was able to hear them; and at last she was considered well enough to read various letters, which had arrived for her during her illness; several were from Lady Cecilia, but little in them. The first was full only of expressions of regret, and self-reproach; in the last, she said, she hoped soon to have a right to claim Helen back again. This underlined passage Helen knew alluded to the promise she had once made, that at the birth of her child all should be told; but words of promise from Cecilia had lost all value—all power to excite even hope, as she said to herself as she read the words, and sighed.
One of her letters mentioned what she would have seen in the first newspaper she had opened, that Lady Blanche Forrester was gone with her sister, the Comtesse de St. Cymon, to Paris, to join her brother Lord Beltravers. But Lady Cecilia observed, that Helen need not be alarmed by this paragraph, which she was sure was inserted on purpose to plague her. Lady Cecilia seemed to take it for granted that her rejection of Beauclerc was only a ruse d’amour, and went on with her usual hopes, now vague and more vague every letter—that things would end well sometime, somehow or other.
Helen only sighed on reading these letters, and quick as she glanced her eye over them, threw them from her on the bed; and Miss Clarendon said, “Ay! you know her now, I see!”
Helen made no reply: she was careful not to make any comment which could betray how much, or what sort of reason she had to complain of Lady Cecilia; but Miss Clarendon, confident that she had guessed pretty nearly the truth, was satisfied with her own penetration, and then, after seeming to doubt for a few moments, she put another letter into Helen’s hand, and with one of those looks of tender interest which sometimes softened her countenance, she left the room.
The letter was from Beauclerc; it appeared to have been written immediately after he had received Helen’s letter, and was as follows:—
“Not write to you, my dearest Helen! Renounce my claim to your hand! submit to be rejected by you, my affianced bride! No, never—never! Doubt! suspicion!—suspicion of you!—you, angel as you are—you, who have devoted, sacrificed yourself to others. No, Helen, my admiration, my love, my trust in you, are greater than they ever were. And do I dare to say these words to you? I, who am perhaps a murderer! I ought to imitate your generosity, I ought not to offer you a hand stained with blood:—I ought at least to leave you free till I know when I may return from banishment. I have written this at the first instant I have been able to command during my hurried journey, and as you know something of what led to this unhappy business, you shall in my next letter hear the whole; till then, adieu! GRANVILLE BEAUCLERC.”
The next day, when she thought Helen sufficiently recovered from the agitation of reading Beauclerc’s letter, aunt Pennant produced one letter more, which she had kept for the last, because she hoped it would give pleasure to her patient. Helen sat up in her bed eagerly, and stretched out her hand. The letter was directed by General Clarendon, but that was only the outer cover, they knew, for he had mentioned in his last dispatch to his sister, that the letter enclosed for Miss Stanley was from Lady Davenant. Helen tore off the cover, but the instant she saw the inner direction, she sank hack, turned, and hid her face on the pillow.
It was directed—“To Mrs. Granville Beauclerc.”
Lady Davenant had unfortunately taken it for granted, that nothing could have prevented the marriage.
Aunt Pennant blamed herself for not having foreseen, and prevented this accident, which she saw distressed poor Helen so much. But Miss Clarendon wondered that she was so shocked, and supposed she would get over it in a few minutes, or else she must be very weak. There was nothing that tended to raise her spirits much in the letter itself, to make amends for the shock the direction had given. It contained but a few lines in Lady Davenant’s own handwriting, and a postscript from Lord Davenant. She wrote only to announce their safe arrival at Petersburgh, as she was obliged to send off her letter before she had received any dispatches from England; and she concluded with, “I am sure the first will bring me the joyful news of Beauclerc’s happiness and yours, my dear child.”