CHAPTER XXIX
The day after this fête, Helen received a letter from her mother that alarmed her much. Lady Eskdale thought Sophia's recovery far from satisfactory; she was weak and low, with a tendency to a cough, and was anxious to be moved to Eskdale Castle, which she thought agreed with her better than any other place, and, above all things, she wished to see Helen. "I must go to her," thought Lady Teviot; "there can be no difficulty about it. Mr. G. goes to-morrow, and the Douglases the next day, and I am sure Lady Portmore has been here long enough, and if she goes, there will only be some gentlemen left; and Lord Teviot may do very well without me, at all events, for a few days. Beaufort could go over to Eskdale with me." She did not like to investigate how much or how little she wished that some of their party should insist on remaining at St. Mary's, so as to keep Lord Teviot at home; but she went the length of thinking that he would be bored in a house where there was illness, and that she would be more useful to Sophia if she went without him.
She was pursuing this train of thought when he entered the room so suddenly as to startle her. She threw her handkerchief over the letter she was writing to her mother, hardly knowing why, but she always had in Lord Teviot's presence the painful consciousness that her feelings towards her family would be misunderstood or condemned. Perhaps she was wrong in dwelling on this idea, perhaps he was wrong in the manner that gave rise to it; but so it was, and this difference of feeling, with which their married life had commenced, was every day creating and increasing fresh misunderstandings. Lord Teviot was so distractedly in love with his wife that the greatest devotion on her part would hardly have satisfied him; he had never had brothers or sisters of his own, and had no clue in his own life or feelings that could lead him to judge of the strength of early family affection. Helen was all in all to him, and he expected to be the same to her. She was too young and guileless to affect what she did not feel, and too inexperienced to trace to their right source the variations of Lord Teviot's temper. She had, as we have already seen, begun to fear him before her marriage; and this fear had been increased rather than diminished by his subsequent conduct. She saw that he was courteous and attentive to other women; therefore, the taunts and reproaches which he occasionally vented on her she imputed to dislike, and his want of sympathy in her affection for her family she ascribed to a desire to make her unhappy. She was totally unable to imagine that he could be jealous of sentiments so natural and right in themselves; for Helen was still almost a child, and the obliquities and injustices of strong passions were incomprehensible to her. She would have been surprised if she had known the trifles, the absolute nothings, by which, in the course of every day, she roused or irritated his jealousy—how he brooded over a careless word or a negligent look—how he tortured a kindness to another into an insult to himself, and an enjoyment into which she entered without him into a misery purposely inflicted on him. And numerous as were the little reproachful scenes that passed between them, she would have blessed her good fortune if she had known how many more she had escaped—if she had guessed the long array of her crimes and his wrongs, that he drew up against her, and which were not poured out, because some gentle, careless word of hers changed the current of his thoughts, and turned his rage to love.
He had now come to her with a proposition which, whatever interest it might have in itself, was important to him principally as a trial of his wife's feelings: it was one of those measures by which statesmen say they will stand or fall.
"Helen, I have been all the morning with G., transacting business, as the newspapers would call it. Do you remember Beaufort's prophecy about me?"
"What, that Mr. G. would bring you into office? Is that really settled? I am so glad. And what are you to be?"
"Nothing can be absolutely settled till Parliament meets, when I am probably to succeed Lisle, who takes the Privy Seal; but in the meanwhile, G. has another employment for me—one that I was at first unwilling to undertake. I hardly know what you will say to it."
"I know so little on those subjects, that I am afraid you cannot consult a less good adviser. But tell me what it is."
"He wants to send me off on a special mission to Lisbon."
He looked earnestly at her as he spoke, and his heart swelled as he waited for her answer. He was divided between his wish to hear the degree of concern she would express for his departure, and his latent hope that she would insist on accompanying him.
"To Lisbon! Oh, Teviot, what an odious plan! What can make him think of sending you to that hot, dusty place? I do not like it at all. But a special mission entails only a short stay, does it? It is merely going out with a message and coming back again?"
"Something like that; the business may be concluded in a fortnight, or I may be detained there a month, and then the passage to and fro will take perhaps a week each time."
"The passage! Yes, and that dreadful Bay of Biscay to cross, too. Well, I think it much the worst arrangement that could have been made. And have you actually consented to it? "
"Very nearly. I said I would first consult you; but I do not see how I can well refuse."
"And when are you to go? "
"Immediately; I must be off in less than a week if I am to be of any use. That does not leave much time for preparation." He looked wistfully at her, for her words had been so vague, he was still in doubt as to her intentions.
"No time at all. In every respect it is a bad scheme, except, to be sure, in one point,"—and she brightened as she spoke. "If it is to take place so soon, our company must all leave us directly."
"Of course."
"Well, then, I should be very dull here without you; and I should naturally pass the six weeks of your absence with my own people. Mamma writes me word that Sophia is very unwell and wants to see me; and, indeed, when you came in, I was just on the point of sending for you to ask when we could go to her."
"Go now—this afternoon, if you like. Please yourself."
Helen looked at him, and saw that one of his blackest clouds had come over his countenance. She went on in a hurried voice:
"No, not now; if you are to go so soon, I should like to be with you till the last moment," and she took his hand as she spoke.
"I can go before the end of the week if it will be any convenience to you "; and he coldly withdrew his hand.
"I have half a mind to go up to town with Lady Portmore and Miss Forrester the day after to-morrow."
"Mary is going with me to Eskdale—at least, mamma asks her to come."
"Well, then, I shall go with Lady Portmore; she will be the more glad of my company." He got up, and walked moodily up and down the room. "You must have had a wonderful foreknowledge of my prospects, for you seem to have arranged all your plans with the certainty that I should not be here to interfere with them."
"Indeed, I have arranged nothing. I have not even asked Mary if she will go with me; and I never could have guessed or believed that you would go off to Lisbon in this sudden way."
"I have surpassed your fondest expectations, evidently, and given you a most agreeable surprise; but another time you shall have a longer notice of my departure, that you may be able to get up a little show of feeling on the occasion. You know it is usual, it is considered to be really almost indispensable to affect—only to affect—nobody would be so unreasonable as to expect you to feel; but you should affect some slight regret that your husband is going to leave you."
"I need not affect it," she said in a low, broken voice. "I am very sorry you will go."
"How flattering! it is a pity you did not think of mentioning it sooner."
"I did say so," she whispered through her tears. "I told you from the first I disliked your going."
"I had not the good fortune to hear you; you hardly think it worth while to raise your voice upon such an immaterial point as my coming or going. And moreover, I might have thought that you did not approve of the expedition on your own account; not that I did think so for a moment. I am cured of that, but many husbands would have expected that their wives would insist on accompanying them."
"Do you wish me to go with you?" and Helen felt that she ought to have offered to do so. "If you do, I can be ready in time."
"No, no, it is too late. I do not wish you, Lady Teviot, to give yourself any trouble on my account. I am the last person in the world to be gratified by a sacrifice. I have known all along, that you did not care for me, that you never have cared for me: and if I had wanted any further proof of the fact, I have been amply furnished with it in this conversation. No protestations, I beg, but leave me the pleasant conviction that in going abroad without you I am for once doing what you like."
"You are unjust, Teviot, you know you are."
"I do not know it. I appeal to yourself. Are you not in your inmost soul delighted that I am going? How should it be otherwise? Is there one of the name of Beaufort whom you do not love a thousand times better than me? I might ask, have you ever loved me at all? Why, did I not see you, in this very room, almost go down on your knees to your brother, to persuade him to stay a few more days? and when I tell you I am going away for six weeks, your countenance absolutely brightens; you almost said you were glad of it."
"Not glad that you were going; indeed I am not; but glad that I might go to Sophia without inconvenience to you. Indeed, Teviot, my sister is very ill. If you will read mamma's letter, you will see that I had good reason to be absorbed in that when you came in."
"It is no business of mine, why should I read it?"
"That you may see how ill poor Sophia is."
"I do not want to know anything about it," said Lord Teviot, who had worked himself up into such a rage that he hardly knew what he said. "I scarcely know Lady Sophia; why should I care whether she is ill or well?"
Helen's tears stopped instantly, and she gave him a look of indignation which startled him. It was the first he had ever seen. "Why indeed? No, it was foolish of me to expect you would."
She tore up her mother's letter as she spoke, and then, bending down over her own, employed herself with apparent eagerness in the attempt to finish it; but her hand trembled, and though her face was concealed, her round graceful throat was burning red, and the beatings of her full heart might almost be heard as she leaned against the table. Lord Teviot had done more towards losing his wife's affection by these few words than by all the taunting speeches he had ever addressed to her. Her natural gentleness and sweetness of temper enabled her to bear, with grief indeed, but without resentment, his starts of violence towards herself; but causeless unkindness to her sick sister she could not endure.
The utmost she could do was to keep silence, but perhaps she wished he might repeat his question, "Have you ever loved me?" that she might answer, "If I ever did, I do not now." But he saw he had gone too far, and a long silence ensued; she finished her letter, folded and directed it; still he walked up and down the room. She wished he would go. She wished somebody would come in; she should not have objected to hear that the house was on fire; a slight earthquake would not have been unacceptable, so that this scene might come to an end. At last the bright thought occurred to her of ringing for a lighted taper, and desiring the servant to wait while she sealed her letters; and Lord Teviot, who was by this time as eager for a finale as she was, took that opportunity to withdraw, merely saying, "Well, I shall tell G. I accept, and shall name Tuesday as my day."
"As you please," she answered, without looking at him; and he departed. The servant followed with the letters, and Helen threw herself back on the sofa, and gave herself up to melancholy and a bad headache.
At dressing-time she was obliged to account for her wan appearance to Mrs. Tomkinson, who was afraid her ladyship was not well, she looked "so bad."
"I am very uneasy about Lady Sophia, who is ill."
"Dear me! I am so sorry: I hope her ladyship is not dangerous."
"Not dangerously ill, you mean. No, I trust not, but I am very anxious to see her, and I shall go and meet her at Eskdale on Tuesday, so you must have everything ready for that morning."
"Yes, my lady; does my lord go with us?" This was asked in a stiff, affronted tone. "Mr. Phillips was speaking at the tea of my lord's being going to London on Tuesday, but I suppose he meant Eskdale Castle."
"No, my lord has business in London. Give me my gloves and some Eau de Cologne, my head aches so much."
"I wish your ladyship would let me bring you some dinner up here, and keep quiet against the evening. Them lights and all that clatter will be so bad for your head: just lie down for an hour, my lady."
"Well, perhaps it will be the best thing I can do."
"There's my lord's room door just gone to. Shall I call his lordship, and you tell him, my lady, that you don't feel well?"
"No, no, don't call him. There is no use in making a fuss about a headache. My handkerchief, Tomkinson, I will go down"; and she went.
"Well, if my lord has not turned out a brute at last, I'm much mistaken, and that is what I never was yet. I wish we'd never seen him; and to think of him, indeed, lording it over my lady, who is too good by half for him. See if I don't tell them all at Eskdale what he is; and yet I won't neither, for Lady Walden's maid is always casting up to me how happy her lord and lady is. And as for letting her have a triumph, I am not so mean as that neither. As for Lady Sophia's illness, I don't think much of that. She was always a one for making much of a little, and I think my lady's headache is all my lord's monstrous crossness. However, I shall put up my lady's very best gowns, just to make them think we are very happy. My lord is rich, that nobody can deny"; and with this consolation Mrs. Tomkinson descended to the housekeeper's room.