“If I had any to begin with—” said Helen.
“You have some, Helen, a great deal in one particular, else why should I have any more regard for you, or more hope of you, than of any other well-dressed, well-taught beauty, any of the tribe of young ladies who pass before me without ever fixing my mind’s eye for one moment?”
“But in what particular, my dear Lady Davenant, do you mean?” said Helen, anxiously; “I am afraid you are mistaken; in what do you think I ever showed strength of mind? Tell me, and I will tell you the truth.”
“That you will, and there is the point that I mean. Ever since I have known you, you have always, as at this moment, coward as you are, been brave enough to speak the truth; and truth I believe to be the only real lasting foundation for friendship; in all but truth there is a principle of decay and dissolution. Now good bye, my dear;—stay, one word more—there is a line in some classic poet, which says ‘the suspicion of ill-will never fails to produce it’—Remember this in your intercourse with General Clarendon; show no suspicion of his bearing you ill-will, and to show none, you must feel none. Put absolutely out of your head all that you may have heard or imagined about Miss Clarendon, or her brother’s prejudices on her account.”
“I will—I will indeed,” said Helen, and so they parted. A few words have sometimes a material influence on events in human life. Perhaps even among those who hold in general that advice never does good, there is no individual who cannot recollect some few words—some conversation which has altered the future colour of their lives.
Helen’s over-anxiety concerning General Clarendon’s opinion of her, being now balanced by the higher interest Lady Davenant had excited, she met him with new-born courage; and Lady Cecilia, not that she suspected it was necessary, but merely by way of prevention, threw in little douceurs of flattery, on the general’s part, repeated sundry pretty compliments, and really kind things which he had said to her of Helen. These always pleased Helen at the moment, but she could never make what she was told he said of her quite agree with what he said to her: indeed, he said so very little, that no absolute discrepancy could be detected between the words spoken and the words reported to have been said; but still the looks did not agree with the opinions, or the cordiality implied.
One morning Lady Cecilia told her that the general wished that she would ride out with them, “and you must come, indeed you must, and try his pretty Zelica; he wishes it of all things, he told me so last night.”
The general chancing to come in as she spoke, Lady Cecilia appealed to him with a look that almost called upon him to enforce her request; but he only said that if Miss Stanley would do him the honour, he should certainly be happy, if Zelica would not be too much for her; but he could not take it upon him to advise. Then looking for some paper of which he came in search, and passing her with the most polite and deferential manner possible, he left the room.
Half vexed, half smiling, Helen looked at Cecilia, and asked whether all she had told her was not a little—“plus belle que la vérité.”
Lady Cecilia, blushing slightly, poured out rapid protestations that all she had ever repeated to Helen of the general’s sayings was perfect truth—“I will not swear to the words—because in the first place it is not pretty to swear, and next, because I can never recollect anybody’s words, or my own, five minutes after they have been said.”