“Old David Price, ma’am. Maybe you forget him, you being a child at that time. But since you grew up, you have been the saving of me and many more——” Stepping quite close to her, he whispered that he had been paid under her goodness’s order by Mr. James, along with the other creditors that had been left.
Helen by this time recollected who the poor Welshman was—an upholsterer and cabinet-maker, who had been years before employed at the Deanery. Never having been paid at the time, a very considerable debt had accumulated, and having neither note nor bond, Price said that he had despaired of ever obtaining the amount of his earnings. He had, however, since the dean’s death, been paid in full, and had been able to retire to his native village, which happened to be near Llansillen, and most grateful he was; and as soon as he perceived that he was recognised, his gratitude became better able to express itself. Not well, however, could it make its way out for some time; between crying and laughing, and between two languages, he was at first scarcely intelligible. Whenever much moved, David Price had recourse to his native Welsh, in which he was eloquent; and Mrs. Pennant, on whom, knowing that she understood him, his eyes turned, was good enough to interpret for him. And when once fairly set a-going, there was danger that poor David’s garrulous gratitude should flow for ever. But it was all honest; not a word of flattery; and his old face was in a glow and radiant with feeling, and the joy of telling Miss Helen all, how, and about it; particularly concerning the last day when Mr. James paid him, and them, and all of them: that was a day Miss Stanley ought to have seen; pity she could not have witnessed it; it would have done her good to the latest hour of her life. Pity she should never see the faces of many, some poorer they might have been than himself; many richer, that would have been ruined for ever but for her. For his own part, he reckoned himself one of the happiest of them all, in being allowed to see her face to face. And he hoped, as soon as she was able to get out so far—but it was not so far—she would come to see how comfortable he was in his own house. It ended at last in his giving a shove to the work-box on the table, which, though nothing worth otherwise, he knew she could not mislike, on account it was made out of all the samples of wood the dean, her uncle, had given to him in former times.
Notwithstanding the immoderate length of his speeches, and the impossibility he seemed to find of ending his visit, Helen was not much tired. And when she was able to walk so far, Mrs. Pennant took her to see David Price, and in a most comfortable house she found him; and every one in that house, down to the youngest child, gathered round her by degrees, some more, some less shy, but all with gratitude beaming and smiling in their faces. It was delightful to Helen; for there is no human heart so engrossed by sorrow, so over whelmed by disappointment, so closed against hope of happiness, that will not open to the touch of gratitude.
CHAPTER XII.
But there was still in Helen’s inmost soul one deceitful hope. She thought she had pulled it up by the roots many times, and the last time completely; but still a little fibre lurked, and still it grew again. It was the hope that Cecilia would keep that last promise, though at the moment Helen had flung from her the possibility; yet now she took it up again, and she thought it was possible that Cecilia might be true to her word. If her child should be born alive, and if it should be a boy! It became a heart-beating suspense as the time approached, and every day the news might be expected. The post came in but three times a week at Llansillen, and every post day Miss Clarendon repeated her prophecy to her aunt, “You will see, ma’am, the child will be born in good time, and alive. You who have always been so much afraid for Lady Cecilia, will find she has not feeling enough to do her any harm.”
In due time came a note from the general. “A boy! child and mother doing well. Give me joy.”
The joy to Miss Clarendon was much increased by the triumph, in her own perfectly right opinion. Mrs. Pennant’s was pure affectionate joy for the father, and for Lady Cecilia, for whom, all sinner as she was in her niece’s eyes, this good soul had compassion. Helen’s anxiety to hear again and again every post was very natural, the aunt thought; quite superfluous, the niece deemed it: Lady Cecilia would do very well, no doubt, she prophesied again, and laughed at the tremor, the eagerness, with which Helen every day asked if there was any letter from Cecilia. At last one came, the first in her own hand-writing, and it was to Helen herself, and it extinguished all hope. Helen could only articulate, “Oh! Cecilia!” Her emotion, her disappointment, were visible, but unaccountable: she could give no reason for it to Miss Clarendon, whose wondering eye was upon her; nor even to sympathising aunt Pennant could she breathe a word without betraying Cecilia; she was silent, and there was all that day, and many succeeding days, a hopelessness of languor in her whole appearance. There was, as Miss Clarendon termed it, a “backsliding in her recovery,” which grieved aunt Pennant, and Helen had to bear imputation of caprice, and of indolence from Miss Clarendon; but even that eye immediately upon her, that eye more severe than ever, had not power to rouse her. Her soul was sunk within, nothing farther to hope; there, was a dead calm, and the stillness and loneliness of Llansillen made that calm almost awful. The life of great excitation which she had led previous to her illness, rendered her more sensible of the change, of the total want of stimulus. The walks to Price’s cottage had been repeated, but, though it was a very bright spot, the eye could not always be fixed upon it.
Bodily exertion being more easy to her now than mental, she took long walks, and came in boasting how far she had been, and looking quite exhausted. And Miss Clarendon wondered at her wandering out alone; then she tried to walk with Miss Clarendon, and she was more tired, though the walks were shorter—and that was observed, and was not agreeable either to the observer, or to the observed. Helen endeavoured to make up for it; she followed Miss Clarendon about in all her various occupations, from flower-garden to conservatory, and from conservatory to pheasantry, and to all her pretty cottages, and her schools, and she saw and admired all the good that Esther did so judiciously, and with such extraordinary, such wonderful energy.