“I will ask you no more, Helen, by word or look,” said Esther; “I understand it all, my brother and Lady Cecilia are separated for life. And now let us go to aunt Pennant: she will not annoy you by her curiosity, but how she will be able to manage her sympathy amongst you with these crossing demands I know not; Lady Cecilia’s wretchedness will almost spoil my aunt’s joy for you—it cannot be pure joy.”
Pure joy! how far from it Helen’s sigh told; and Miss Clarendon had scarcely patience enough with Lady Cecilia to look at her again; had scarcely seconded, at least with good grace, a suggestion of Mrs. Pennant’s that they should prevail on Lady Cecilia to take a turn in the park with them, she looked so much in want of fresh air.
“We can go now, my dear Esther, you know, before it is time for that picture sale, at which you are to be before two o’clock.” Lady Davenant desired Cecilia to go. “Helen will be with me, do, my dear Cecilia, go.”
She went, and before the awkwardness of Miss Clarendon’s silence ceased, and before Mrs. Pennant had settled which glass or which blind was best up or down, Lady Cecilia burst into tears, thanked aunt Pennant for her sympathy, and now, above the fear of Miss Clarendon—above all fear but that of doing further wrong by concealment, she at once told the whole truth, that they might, as well as the general, do full justice to Helen, and that they might never, never blame Clarendon for the separation which was to be.
That he should have mentioned nothing of her conduct even to his sister, was not surprising. “I know his generous nature,” said Cecilia.
“But I never knew yours till this moment, Cecilia,” cried Miss Clarendon, embracing her; “my sister, now,—separation or not.”
“But there need be no separation,” said kind aunt Pennant. Cecilia sighed, and Miss Clarendon repeated, “You will find in me a sister at all events.”
She now saw Cecilia as she really was—faults and virtues. Perhaps indeed in this moment of revulsion of feeling, in the surprise of gratified confidence, she overvalued Lady Cecilia’s virtues, and was inclined to do her more than justice, in her eagerness to make generous reparation for unjust suspicion.