CHAPTER XI. LOVE AND INNOCENCE.
During this conference between these execrable and ravening birds ofnight and prey, Helen and her boy-lover were thus conversing inthe garden; while the autumn sun--for it was in the second week ofOctober--broke pleasantly through the yellowing leaves of the tranquilshrubs, and the flowers, which should have died with the gone summer,still fresh by tender care, despite the lateness of the season, smiledgratefully as their light footsteps passed.
"Yes, Helen," said Percival,--"yes, you will love my mother, for she isone of those people who seem to attract love, as if it were a propertybelonging to them. Even my dog Beau (you know how fond Beau is of me!)always nestles at her feet when we are at home. I own she has pride,but it is a pride that never offended any one. You know there are someflowers that we call proud. The pride of the flower is not more harmlessthan my mother's. But perhaps pride is not the right word,--it is ratherthe aversion to anything low or mean, the admiration for everything pureand high. Ah, how that very pride--if pride it be--will make her loveyou, my Helen!"
"You need not tell me," said Helen, smiling seriously, "that I shalllove your mother,--I love her already; nay, from the first moment yousaid you had a mother, my heart leaped to her. Your mother,--if everyou are really jealous, it must be of her! But that she should loveme,--that is what I doubt and fear. For if you were my brother,Percival, I should be so ambitious for you. A nymph must rise from thestream, a sylphid from the rose, before I could allow another to stealyou from my side. And if I think I should feel this only as your sister,what can be precious enough to satisfy a mother?"
"You, and you only," answered Percival, with his blithesomelaugh,--"you, my sweet Helen, much better than nymph or sylphid, aboutwhom, between ourselves, I never cared three straws, even in a poem. Howpleased you will be with Laughton! Do you know, I was lying awake alllast night to consider what room you would like best for your own? Andat last I have decided. Come, listen,--it opens from the music-gallerythat overhangs the hall. From the window you overlook the southern sideof the park, and catch a view of the lake beyond. There are two nichesin the wall,--one for your piano, one for your favourite books. Itis just large enough to hold four persons with ease,--our mother andmyself, your aunt, whom by that time we shall have petted into goodhumour; and if we can coax Ardworth there,--the best good fellow thatever lived,--I think our party will be complete. By the way, I am uneasyabout Ardworth, it is so long since we have seen him; I have calledthree times,--nay, five,--but his odd-looking clerk always swears he isnot at home. Tell me, Helen, now you know him so well,--tell me how Ican serve him? You know, I am so terribly rich (at least, I shall bein a month or two), I can never get through my money, unless my friendswill help me. And is it not shocking that that noble fellow should beso poor, and yet suffer me to call him 'friend,' as if in friendship oneman should want everything, and the other nothing? Still, I don't knowhow to venture to propose. Come, you understand me, Helen; let us layour wise heads together and make him well off, in spite of himself."
It was in this loose boyish talk of Percival that he had found the way,not only to Helen's heart, but to her soul. For in this she (grand,undeveloped poetess!) recognized a nobler poetry than we chain torhythm,--the poetry of generous deeds. She yearned to kiss the warm handshe held, and drew nearer to his side as she answered: "And sometimes,dear, dear Percival, you wonder why I would rather listen to you than toall Mr. Varney's bitter eloquence, or even to my dear cousin's aspiringambition. They talk well, but it is of themselves; while you--"
Percival blushed, and checked her.
"Well," she said,--"well, to your question. Alas! you know little ofmy cousin if you think all our arts could decoy him out of his ruggedindependence; and much as I love him, I could not wish it. But do notfear for him; he is one of those who are born to succeed, and withouthelp."
"How do you know that, pretty prophetess?" said Percival, with thesuperior air of manhood. "I have seen more of the world than you have,and I cannot see why Ardworth should succeed, as you call it; or, ifso, why he should succeed less if he swung his hammock in a better berththan that hole in Gray's Inn, and would just let me keep him a cab andgroom."
Had Percival talked of keeping John Ardworth an elephant and a palaquin,Helen could not have been more amused. She clapped her little hands ina delight that provoked Percival, and laughed out loud. Then, seeing herboy-lover's lip pouted petulantly, and his brow was overcast, she said,more seriously,--
"Do you not know what it is to feel convinced of something which youcannot explain? Well, I feel this as to my cousin's fame and fortunes.Surely, too, you must feel it, you scarce know why, when he speaks ofthat future which seems so dim and so far to me, as of something thatbelonged to him."
"Very true, Helen," said Percival; "he lays it out like the map of hisestate. One can't laugh when he says so carelessly: 'At such an age Ishall lead my circuit; at such an age I shall be rich; at such an ageI shall enter parliament; and beyond that I shall look as yet--nofarther.' And, poor fellow, then he will be forty-three! And in the meanwhile to suffer such privations!"
"There are no privations to one who lives in the future," said Helen,with that noble intuition into lofty natures which at times flashed fromher childish simplicity, foreshadowing what, if Heaven spare her life,her maturer intellect may develop; "for Ardworth there is no such thingas poverty. He is as rich in his hopes as we are in--" She stoppedshort, blushed, and continued, with downcast looks: "As well might youpity me in these walks, so dreary without you. I do not live in them, Ilive in my thoughts of you."
Her voice trembled with emotion in those last words. She slid fromPercival's arm, and timidly sat down (and he beside her) on a littlemound under the single chestnut-tree, that threw its shade over thegarden.
Both were silent for some moments,--Percival, with grateful ecstasy;Helen, with one of those sudden fits of mysterious melancholy to whichher nature was so subjected.
He was the first to speak. "Helen," he said gravely, "since I have knownyou, I feel as if life were a more solemn thing than I ever regarded itbefore. It seems to me as if a new and more arduous duty were added tothose for which I was prepared,--a duty, Helen, to become worthy ofyou! Will you smile? No, you will not smile if I say I have had mybrief moments of ambition. Sometimes as a boy, with Plutarch in my hand,stretched idly under the old cedar-trees at Laughton; sometimes as asailor, when, becalmed on the Atlantic, and my ears freshly filled withtales of Collingwood and Nelson, I stole from my comrades and leanedmusingly over the boundless sea. But when this ample heritage passed tome, when I had no more my own fortunes to make, my own rank to build up,such dreams became less and less frequent. Is it not true that wealthmakes us contented to be obscure? Yes; I understand, while I speak, whypoverty itself befriends, not cripples, Ardworth's energies. But sinceI have known you, dearest Helen, those dreams return more vividly thanever. He who claims you should be--must be--something nobler than thecrowd. Helen,"--and he rose by an irresistible and restless impulse,--"Ishall not be contented till you are as proud of your choice as I ofmine!"
It seemed, as Percival spoke and looked, as if boyhood were cast fromhim forever. The unusual weight and gravity of his words, to which histone gave even eloquence; the steady flash of his dark eyes; his erect,elastic form,--all had the dignity of man. Helen gazed on him silently,and with a heart so full that words would not come, and tears overflowedinstead.
That sight sobered him at once; he knelt down beside her, threw his armsaround her,--it was his first embrace,--and kissed the tears away.
"How have I distressed you? Why do you weep?"
"Let me weep on, Percival, dear Percival! These tears are likeprayers,--they speak to Heaven--and of you!"
A step came noiselessly over the grass, and between the lovers and thesunlight stood Gabriel Varney.