“Oh, mother!” cried Lady Cecilia, laying her hand on her mother’s, “surely you do not think seriously—surely you are not angry—I cannot bear to see you displeased,” said she, looking up imploringly in her mother’s face, and softly, urgently pressing her hand. No pressure was returned; that hand was slowly and with austere composure withdrawn, and her mother walked away down the corridor to her own room. Lady Cecilia stood still, and the tears came into her eyes.
“My dear friend, I am exceedingly sorry,” said Helen. She could not believe that Cecilia meant to say what was not true, yet she felt that she had been to blame in not telling all, and her mother in saying too much.
Lady Cecilia, her tears dispersed, stood looking at the impression which her mother’s signet-ring had left in the palm of her hand. It was at that moment a disagreeable recollection that the motto of that ring was “Truth.” Rubbing the impress from her hand, she said, half speaking to herself, and half to Helen—“I am sure I did not mean anything wrong; and I am sure nothing can be more true than that I never formed a regular plan in my life. After all, I am sure that so much has been said about nothing, that I do not understand anything: I never do, when mamma goes on in that way, making mountains of molehills, which she always does with me, and did ever since I was a child; but she really forgets that I am not a child. Now, it is well the general was not by; he would never have borne to see his wife so treated. But I would not, for the world, be the cause of any disagreement. Oh! Helen, my mother does not know how I love her, let her be ever so severe to me! But she never loved me; she cannot help it. I believe she does her best to love me—my poor, dear mother!”
Helen seized this opportunity to repeat the warm expressions she had heard so lately from Lady Davenant, and melting they sunk into Cecilia’s heart. She kissed Helen again and again, for a dear, good peacemaker, as she always was—and “I’m resolved”—but in the midst of her good resolves she caught a glimpse through the glass door opening on the park, of the general, and a fine horse they were ringing, and she hurried out: all light of heart she went, as though
“Or shake the downy blowball from her stalk."
CHAPTER VII
Since Lord Davenant’s arrival, Lady Davenant’s time was so much taken up with him, that Helen could not have many opportunities of conversing with her, and she was the more anxious to seize every one that occurred. She always watched for the time when Lady Davenant went out in her pony phaeton, for then she had her delightfully to herself, the carriage holding only two.
It was at the door, and Lady Davenant was crossing the hall followed by Helen, when Cecilia came in with a look, unusual in her, of being much discomfited.