Part 2

"Not so," said I eagerly: "I humbly trust that even your example would not make me swerve from my duty; and my observation was a general one. Still, my favourite and constant prayer is 'Let me not be led into temptation;' and believe me, Pendarves, that she who is able to admit that she may possibly err, is less liable to do so than the woman who seems to believe she is incapable of it."

"Helen," said my husband, "I never for one moment associated together the idea of you and frailty: therefore, dear girl, I will carry you to Ranelagh again and again; for I do love to see you admired! and I feel proud while I think and know that even princes would woo your smiles in vain."

He kept his word, and we never missed a full night at Ranelagh. But one evening completely destroyed the unmixed pleasure which I had hitherto enjoyed there.

We had not been round the room more than twice when we were joined by Lord Charles Belmour, a former associate of my husband's, who, after a little while, begged to have some private conversation with him; and taking his arm, Pendarves consigned me to the care of the gentleman with us, on whose other arm hung a lady to whom he was busily making love: consequently, his attention was wholly directed to her, and I had nothing to divert mine from the conversation which occasionally met my ear between my husband and his noble friend, who walked close behind us.

Sometimes this conversation was held in a low voice, and then I ceased to listen to it; but when they spoke as usual, I thought I was justified in attending to them.

"Look there!" said Lord Charles, as we were passing a box in which sat two ladies splendidly dressed, accompanied by two gentlemen, "look, Pendarves, there is an old friend of yours!"

"Ha!" said my husband, lowering his voice, "I protest it is she! I did not know she was in England. Who are those men with her?"

"What, are you jealous?"

"Nonsense! Who are they?"

"The man in brown is husband to the lady in blue; and for the sake of associating with a titled lady, which your friend is, you know, he allows his wife, who is not pretty enough to be in danger, to go about with her and her _cher ami_--the young man in green. You know she was always a favourite with young men."

"True, and young indeed must the man be who is taken in by her fascinations."

"But she is wonderfully handsome still."

"I hardly looked at her."

"We are passing her again--_Now_, then, look at her if you dare."

"Dare!"

"Yes: for her eyes are very like the basilisk's."

"I will risk it."

_I_ too now looked towards the box we were approaching; at the end of which stood a young man in green, hanging over a woman, who though no longer young, and wholly indebted to art for her bloom, appeared to my now jealous eyes the handsomest woman I had ever beheld. I also observed that she saw and recognised my husband; for she suddenly started, and looked disordered, while an expression of anger stole over her face. A sudden stop in the crowd, to allow the PRINCE and his party to pass, who were just entering, forced us to be stationary a few minutes before her box. Oh! how my heart beat during this survey! But one thing gratified me: I was sure as I did not see her bow her head or curtsy, that Pendarves did not notice her. And yet, Lord Charles had, uncontradicted, called her his old friend!

Who, then, and what was she? would he tell me? Perhaps he would when he got home; if he did not, I felt that I should be uneasy.

We soon moved on again, and I heard Lord Charles say,

"Cruel Pendarves, not even to look at or touch your hat to her! Surely that would not have committed you in any way."

"It would have been acknowledging her for an acquaintance, which I do not now wish to do, especially in my wife's presence," I conclude he said, for he spoke too low for me to hear; but I judge so from the answer of Lord Charles.

"Oh! then, if your wife was not present, you would not be so cruel?"

"I did not say so."

"No: but you implied it."

"I deny that also."

Then coming up to me, my husband again offered me his arm, and Lord Charles left us. I soon after saw this beautiful woman walking in the circle, and heard her named by the gentleman next me as Lady Bell Singleton--a dashing widow more famed for her beauty and her fascinations than her morals. But Pendarves said nothing; and though she looked very earnestly at him, and examined me from head to foot as I passed, I saw that he never turned his eyes on her, and seemed resolved not to see her.

I had therefore every reason to be pleased with my husband's conduct; but I felt great distrust of Lord Charles. I thought he was a man, from what I had overheard, whom I could never like as a companion for Pendarves; and I disliked him the more, because, if I had given him the slightest encouragement, he would have been my devoted and public admirer, and would have delighted to make his attachment to me and our intimacy the theme of conversation. I also saw that my cold reserve had changed his partiality into dislike; and I could readily believe that he would be glad in revenge to wean my husband from me. Still I could not wish that I had treated him otherwise than I did; for I could not have done it without compromising my sense of right, as half measures in such cases are of no avail; and if a married woman does not at once show that pointed and particular admiration is offensive to her, the man who offers it has a right to think his devoirs may in time be acceptable.

Here I may as well give you the character of this friend of my husband's.

Lord Charles Belmour was the son of the Duke of ----; and never was any man more proud of the pre-eminence bestowed by rank and birth: but to do him justice, he began life with a wish to possess more honourable distinctions; and had he been placed in better circumstances, the world might have heard of him as a man of science, of learning, and of talents. But he had every thing to deaden his wish of studious fame, and nothing to encourage it. Besides, he was too indolent to toil for that renown which he was ambitious to enjoy; and instead of reading hard at college, he was soon led away into the most unbounded dissipation, while he saw honours daily bestowed on others which he had once earnestly wished to deserve and gain himself. But he quickly drove all weak repinings from him, proudly resolving in future to scorn and undervalue those laurels which could now never be his.

He therefore chose to declare it was beneath a nobleman, or even a gentleman, to gain a prize, or take a high degree; and this assertion, in which he did not himself believe, was quoted by many an idle dunce, glad so to excuse the ignorance which disgraced him.

But, spite of this pernicious opinion, Lord Charles never sought the society of those who acted upon it; and Pendarves, who had distinguished himself at Oxford, was his favourite companion there.

When Lord Charles entered the world, he gave himself up to all its vanities and irregularities. But he was conscious of great powers, and also conscious that he had suffered them to run waste. Still if he could not employ them in a way to excite admiration, he knew he could do so in a way to excite fear; and after all, power was power, and to possess it was the first wish of his heart.

Accordingly, though conscious he had himself the follies which he lashed, he had no mercy on those of his acquaintance; for, as he himself observed, "it is easier to laugh at the follies of others than amend one's own;" and though courted as an amusing companion, he was often shunned as a dangerous one.

Women, also, who defied him either as a suitor or an enemy, have rued the day when they ventured to dispute his power: but, as I at length discovered, there was one way to disarm him; and that was to own his ability to do harm, and try to conciliate him as an active and efficient friend.

In that case his generous and kind feelings conquered his less amiable ones, and his friendship was as sincere and valuable as his enmity was pernicious.

But, with no uncommon inconsistency, while he declared that he thought a nobleman would disgrace himself if he sung well, or sung at all, or entered the lists in any way with persons _a talens_, he condescended to indulge before those whom he respected in the lowest of all talents, though certainly one of the most amusing, that of mimickry--a gift which usually appertains to other talents, as a border of shining gold to the fag end of a piece of India muslin, looking more showy indeed than the material to which it adheres; but how inferior in value and in price!

But to resume my narrative. My husband did _not_ mention Lady Bell to me. The next time I went to Ranelagh with mixed feelings--for I dreaded to see this lady again, and to observe that Pendarves had chosen at length to own her for an acquaintance; for, had he been sure of never renewing his acquaintance, why should he not have named her to me?

It was also with contending feelings that I found myself obliged to have Mrs. Pendarves as my companion; for though I wished to be informed on the subject of my anxiety, I dreaded it at the same time: and I was sure that she would tell me all she knew.

A nephew of Mrs. Pendarves was our escort to Ranelagh; and my husband, who dined with Lord Charles Belmour (much to my secret sorrow), was to join us there.

My eyes looked every where in search of Lady Bell Singleton, and at length I discovered her. My companion did the same; and with a sort of scream of surprise, she said, "Oh, dear! if there is not Lady Bell Singleton! I thought she was abroad. Do you know, my dear, when she returned to England?"

"How should I know, madam? The very existence of the lady was a stranger to me till the other evening."

"Indeed! Why, do not you really know that is the lady on whose account your mother forbade your marriage with Pendarves?"

"No, madam, my mother was too discreet to explain her reasons."

"Well, my dear, you need not look so uneasy--it was all off long before he married you--though she is a very dangerous woman where she gets a hold, and looks

'So sure of her beholder's heart, Neglecting for to take them.'"

I scarcely heard what she said, for a sick faint feeling came over me at the consciousness that I was now in the presence of a woman for whom Pendarves had undoubtedly felt some sort of regard; but it was jealousy for the past, not of the present, that overcame me, though my husband's total silence with regard to this lady was, I could not but think, an alarming circumstance. And "it was on her account your mother forbade your marriage with Pendarves" still vibrated painfully in my ears, when Lord Charles and he appeared. With a smile by no means as unconstrained as usual I met him, and accepted his proffered arm. Lord Charles walked with us for a round or two--then left us, whispering as he did so, "Remember! _do_ notice her, she expects it, and I think she has a right to it."

Pendarves muttered, "Well, if it must be so," and his companion disappeared.

"Soon after we saw him with Lady Bell Singleton leaning on his arm; and I felt convinced he had made the acquaintance since we were last at Ranelagh, as he never noticed her till that night. We were now meeting them for the second time, and passing close to them, when I saw Lady Bell pointedly try to catch my husband's eye: and no longer avoiding it, he took off his hat, and civilly, though distantly, returned the cordial but silent salutation which she gave him.

"This," thought I, "is in consequence of Lord Charles's interference, and explains what Pendarves meant by 'Well, if I must, I must.'"

How I wished that he would break his silence on this subject, and be ingenuous! But I felt it was a delicate subject for him to treat--and I resolved to break the ice myself.

"That was a very beautiful woman to whom you bowed just now," said I, glad to find that Mrs. Pendarves was looking another way.

"She _has_ been beautiful indeed!" was his reply.

Then looking at me, surprised I doubt not at the tremor of my voice, he was equally surprised at my excessive paleness, and with some little sarcasm in his tone, he said,

"My dear Helen, is my only bowing to a fine woman capable of making your cheek pale, and your voice trembling?"

"No," said I, "not so--you wrong me indeed; nor did I know that my cheek was pale." I said no more, shrinking from the seeming indelicacy of forcing a confidence which he was disposed to withhold.

"Helen," said he, looking up in my face, "I see our aunt Pendarves has been at her old work, telling tales of me. I protest I shall insist on my uncle's sending her muzzled into your company."

"The best way of muzzling her would be to anticipate all her communications yourself. It would be such an effectual silence to a woman like our little aunt, to be able to say, 'I know that already!'"

"That's artfully put, Helen! But, really, there are some things which I have respected you too much to name to you. A general knowledge of my past faults and follies you have long had; but, from no unworthy motive, I have shrunk from talking to you of any particular one: and I feel pained and shocked, my beloved wife, to know that you are aware of that lady's having once been very near, if not very dear, to me in the days of my early youth."

"Enough," said I, "enough! Forget that I know any thing which you wished me not to know, and assure yourself that I will forget also."

"You are a wise and good girl," he replied, kindly pressing the arm that reposed in his: "but my little aunt is capable of making much mischief between married persons, where the mind of the wife is weak, and her temper suspicious."

But how irritated I was against Lord Charles that evening! He forced conversation with Pendarves whenever we passed him, and gave Lady Bell an opportunity of fixing her dark eyes on him in a manner which having once seen, I took care never to see again. I am sure it offended him as much as it did me; for though Lady Bell was not absolutely excluded from society, she was by no means a woman to be forced on the notice of any man who had a virtuous wife leaning on his arm; and in returning her bow, Pendarves had done all that civility required of him: but I am convinced that Lord Charles wished to give me pain; and he was also in hopes that I should resent the appearance of any acquaintance remaining between the quondam lovers, and thereby occasion a coolness between my husband and myself.

This was the longest and the only painful evening I had ever passed at Ranelagh; and from that moment I took such a dislike to it, that I was very glad when the great heat of the weather made my usual companions at such places substitute Vauxhall for Ranelagh. But at Vauxhall the same lovely and unwelcome vision crossed my path; and I once overheard a gentleman say, looking back at my husband, who had stopt to speak to some ladies, "What a lucky fellow that Pendarves is! The two finest women in the garden--aye, or in London, are his wife, and his quondam mistress." The compliment to myself was deprived of its power to please me, by these wounding words, my husband's "quondam mistress." And was then that disgraceful connexion so well known? The thought was an overwhelming one, and I began to resent my husband's having bowed to this woman in my presence. But perhaps he was entreated to do so in order to shield her reputation? If so, could he do otherwise? And as I was always glad to find an excuse for Pendarves, I satisfied myself thus, and my recent displeasure was forgotten.

When we had extended the six weeks we meant to pass in London to two months, I expressed a wish of returning into the country; and Seymour complied with so little reluctance, that I prepared to return home with a much lighter heart than I had expected ever to feel again. But Mrs. Pendarves had a parting gift for me in her own way--a piece of intelligence which clouded over the unexpected brilliancy of my home prospects.

"Well my dear niece," said she, "I am glad you are going, though I am sorry to part with you; for I do not like Seymour's friend, Lord Charles Belmour. He seems to me, my dear, to have, in the words of the poet,

'That low cunning which from fools supplies, And aptly too, the means of being wise.'

"And I have thought no good of him ever since I saw him come out of Lady Bell Singleton's house with your husband."

"What!" cried I, catching hold of a chair, for my strength seemed suddenly to fail me, "does my husband visit Lady Bell?"

"Yes, that once I am sure he did: but then I do not doubt but that Lord Charles took him there; for I am told his great pleasure is to alienate his married friends from their wives."

Alas! from what a pinnacle of happiness and confidence did this foolish woman cast me down in one moment! Reply I could not; and she went on to give me one piece of advice, and that was, never, if I could help it, to admit Lord Charles within my doors, and to discourage his intimacy with my husband as much as I could.

By this time I had a little recovered this overwhelming blow; and I resolved in self-defence, and in defence of my husband's character, to tell her I must believe she was mistaken in thinking she saw Pendarves come out of Lady Bell's house; but whether that were true or false, I must request her to keep such communications to herself in future, as a wife was the last person whom any one should presume to inform of the errors of her husband. But company came in; and soon after my uncle drove up to the house in his travelling carriage, and in a few minutes more they were both on the road to Cornwall. If Seymour, when he came in, had found me alone with Mrs. Pendarves, he would have attributed the strange abstraction of my manner to some information which she had given me; but he now imputed it to the head-ach of which I complained; and when my visitors went he urged me to go and lie down.

This was unfortunate, as I should have disliked excessively to tell him what his aunt had seen, and to let him observe how uneasy the communication had made me; for I was aware that a wife whose jealousy is so very apt to take alarm, is as troublesome to a husband as one whose nerves are so weak that she goes into a fit at the slightest noise, and starts at the mere shutting of a door. Still, my husband's ignorance of the cause of my indisposition was a great trial to me; for it forced me to have, for the first time, a secret from him. And he too, it seemed, was keeping a secret from me; for, spite of my entreaties that he would always tell me himself what it might grieve me to hear from others, he had called on Lady Bell Singleton, without telling me that he had done so!

Alas! I did indeed lie down, and I did indeed darken my room; but it was to hide my agitation and my tears: nor till Pendarves went out to dinner, which, with some difficulty I prevailed on him to do, did I suffer the light to penetrate into my apartments, or my swollen eye-lids to be seen of any one. But then I rose; then, too, I rallied my spirits; for, in the first place I was cheered by my husband's affectionate unwillingness to leave me, and in the next I had nearly convinced myself that Mrs. Pendarves had not seen him when she fancied she did.

By this resolute endeavour to look only on the bright side, I was enabled when my husband returned, which he did very early, to receive him with unforced smiles and cheerfulness.

The next day we set off immediately after breakfast on our journey home; and I met my mother with a countenance so happy, that the look of anxious inquiry with which she beheld me was immediately exchanged for one of tearful joy.

"Thank God! my dearest child," she fervently exclaimed, "that I see you again, and see you thus!"

Why had she looked so anxious, and so inquiringly? and why was she thus so evidently surprised, as well as rejoiced?

No doubt, thought I, she is in correspondence with our gossiping aunt, and she has told my mother all she told me.--No doubt, also, she has all along been that secret source whence was derived my mother's fear of uniting me to Pendarves.--But then, was not her information derived from her husband, and was it not always only too authentic?

As these thoughts passed my mind, it was well for me that my mother was talking to Seymour, and did not observe me.

Two months had greatly embellished the appearance of our abode; and it looked so green and gay, and was so fragrant from the summer flowers, that Pendarves, always alive to present objects and present impressions, exclaimed as we followed my mother through the grounds, "Dearest Helen! why should we ever leave this paradise of sweets? Here let us live and die!"

"Agreed," said I; and my mother looked at us with delighted eyes, but eyes that beamed through tears.

Calm and tranquil were the months that followed--though my husband's brow was always clouded when letters arrived bearing the London post-mark; and when I asked who his correspondent was, he answered, "Lord Charles;" but never communicated to me the contents of these letters.

In walking, riding, receiving and paying visits, passed the time till September, when my husband had an invitation to spend a few days in Norfolk, on a shooting excursion; and when he returned he found me confined to my sofa with indisposition. Never had woman a tenderer nurse than he proved himself during the three succeeding months: at the end of that time I was quite recovered; and as he had business in London, he declared his intention of going thither for some days, as he could not bear, he said, to leave me some few months later, and when a time was approaching so dear to his wishes and expectations.

To London therefore he went, and left me to combat and indulge alternately the fears of a jealous and the confidence of a tender wife.

His letters became a study to me. I tried to find out by his expressions in what state of mind he wrote. Sometimes I fancied them hurried, and expressive of a mind not at ease with itself; then in another passage I read the unembarrassed eloquence of faithful and confiding love.

During his absence my mother found me a bad companion: I was for ever falling into reverie, and a less penetrating eye than hers would have discovered that my symptoms were those of mental uneasiness.

At length he returned, and he gazed on my faded cheek and evidently anxious countenance with such tender concern, that my care-worn brow instantly resumed its wonted cheerfulness; and when my mother came to welcome him, she was surprised at the alteration in my looks.

"Foolish child!" said she in a faltering voice, when Pendarves left the room, "Foolish child! to depend thus for happiness, nay health and life itself perhaps, on one of frail and human mould! I see how it is with you: you were ill and anxious yesterday, but he is come, and you need no other physician."

"Did you see much of Lord Charles?" said I the next day, looking earnestly for my needle while I spoke, as I was conscious that my countenance was not tranquil.

"No--yes--on the whole I did. But why do you ask? I believe he is no favourite of yours."

"Certainly not."

"But I hope, Helen, you are not so _very_ a wife as to wish me to give up an old friend merely because he does not please you?"

"No: I am not so unreasonable, even though I could give substantial reasons for my dislike."

"And pray what are these reasons? Oh! that reminds me of a joke Lord Charles has against you, Helen. He tells me he is sure you thought that he fell in love with you when, on being first presented to you, he expressed his admiration in his usual frank way, which means nothing; for he says your prudery took alarm, and you drew up your beautiful neck to its utmost height, and have My lorded and Your lordship'd him ever since into the most awful distance."