And she departed from the room and from the house, leaving Helen bewildered by a host of perplexing reflections. She remembered what Randolph said concerning that miniature, but she was unaware of the promise exacted from him at their father's death-bed. She scarcely understood in what manner the law-suit had been only the final step in a career of vengeance. But she felt that she had been grievously insulted, and she perceived the ambiguity of her situation at Mrs. Winston's. She resolved on returning to Hampstead without delay.
It was a pity, for she had been an angel of peace to Gertrude. She had taught the husband and wife to know one another, and the knowledge might soon become affection. Yet her hostess confessed to herself that the resolution was correct, even though she was ignorant of the conversation which had immediately inspired it. She did not so much as attempt to delay its execution, and the same afternoon found Helen once more an inmate of Mr. Peach's modest, but pleasant and pretty dwelling.
Comfort followed her there. Rereworth's letter to Polydore Riches came to revive hope, and to bring oblivion of the affronts and menaces of the morning. The news exhilarated the chaplain's drooping spirits, and inclined him to regard the elopement with less severity. And Helen thought with gratitude of the writer, and perhaps remembered those readings of Scott and Byron in Mrs. Winston's little drawing-room.
Besides this, the fugitives were now approaching the metropolis, and might possibly arrive the same night. Here were copious sources of conversation to fill the evening when the chaplain talked with Helen in the pleasant parlour, where she had sat during the past winter, and which had witnessed the extinction of all those hopes, so long and so fondly cherished at Trevethlan Castle, the day-dreams of Merlin's Cave.
If Mrs. Pendarrel inflicted much pain in her short interview with Helen, she did not quit it herself unscathed. The sight of her portrait aroused a thousand recollections, familiar indeed to Esther's hours of reverie, but never so vividly presented before. She thought of the day when she permitted that miniature to be taken from her neck. In the morning she hung it there, not without an idea that it might pass into another's possession before night. Often had the favour been solicited by the lover, and as often refused by the coquette. But at last assiduity might triumph over waywardness. Side by side they strolled over the lawns of Pendarrel, enjoying converse such as is only derided by the unhappy wights who have never shared it. There was a secluded little pool, formed by the rivulet which murmured through the wilderness, surrounded by flowering shrubs, and over-arched so closely by spreading forest-trees, that the sunshine scarcely penetrated to the surface of the water. It was in that bower, under the thickest of the leafy canopy, that Henry Trevethlan detached the miniature from the chain by which it hung, and his lips met those of Esther in the first kiss of love. How well she remembered it now! Every little circumstance, the attitude in which they stood, the few whispered words, came back to her mind, fresh as the things of yesterday. A bright-winged butterfly alighted for a moment upon her wrist, and he called her Psyche, his soul, without whom he should die. The butterfly rested but a second—was its flight ominous of what had occurred since? And had he virtually died? Had his subsequent existence been a mere life in death? Had his soul indeed remained always with her? So, Esther thought, it would seem. And had he forgiven the ruin into which he was driven by despair? Had he pardoned the despair itself, the wreck of all his hopes and feelings, the anguish which abided with him to the last?
Questions like these passed rapidly through Esther's mind, while she gazed on the fair young face which once had been her own. Very different was her aspect now. The round and glowing cheeks had become hollow and pale. The smooth white forehead was furrowed with the lines of sorrow. Silver threads mingled with the dark tresses. The eyes, in the miniature deep and inscrutable, were now wild and bright. The passions of the girl had been developed in the woman, and had left their trace on every feature.
And then Esther turned to self-justification. Had she made no atonement? Had she suffered nothing? Had her heart been unwasted? Resolutely as she had striven to repress all memory of that early dream, had she succeeded in the attempt? Was not the lava still hot beneath the foliage which grew over it? Had not the smouldering fire broken forth anew on the news of Henry's death? And again she thought she had been hardly used by the precipitation with which he abandoned her. It was cruel to afford her no chance of reconciliation. If he might charge her with vanity or wilfulness, surely she might accuse him of rancour and pride. If the happiness of her lover had been shattered by the storm, neither had her own escaped its ravages.
She had endeavoured to forget them in the gratification of her love of rule, and her eager pursuit of revenge. The first she enjoyed in the management of her own household, the second in the downfall of Trevethlan. Ambition and appetite grew with what they fed on. "Pendar'l and Trevethlan shall own one name." Not till that prediction had been fulfilled to the letter, and to her own glory, could Esther rest. Her old lover had departed from the scene; she prolonged the contest with his children. They increased her ardour by the mode in which they met her first advances. For a season she seemed to be foiled. But the check gave new vigour to her never-dying wrath.
And before long the orphans crossed her path. And soon he, the heir of all his father's pride, encountered her, face to face, as the companion of her child. She had trembled to think of what that meeting might call forth. But then she learned the tale, which would fulfil all her desires to an extent beyond her dreams, and forgot her danger in the exultation of approaching triumph. Triumph came, but only as the precursor of defeat; for her enemy, ruined and dishonoured, had suborned the affection of her daughter, and made her house desolate in the very hour of victory.
Yes, scandal made merry with the name of Pendarrel. Esther, with all her rigid discipline, with all her cherished authority, had seen the child, for whose marriage with another her word was pledged, elude her control, and steal to a furtive union with the man whom she had been labouring to bring to want and shame. It was nearly enough to deprive her of her reason. No time was this to think of forgiveness. She would not believe that Helen Trevethlan was so innocent as she pretended. The production of the miniature was a theatrical trick. The picture should revive the memory of a never-forgiven wrong.