Part 8

"Helen!" he exclaimed, seating himself by me, and seizing my hand, "is what I heard true--am I the most wretched of men--is this hand promised to De Walden?"

"No--not yet promised."

"Then you mean to give it to him?"

"Certainly not _now_."

"Why that emphasis on _now_?"

"Because I am sure I do not love him sufficiently."

"And since when have you found this out?"

I did not answer; but my tell-tale silence emboldened him to put his own interpretation on what I had said; and now, for the first time, unrestrained by any unwelcome witness, he passionately pleaded the interests of his own love, and drew from me an open confession of mine. Nor was there long a secret of my heart which was withheld from him; and while he rejoiced over the certainty that his rival's hopes were destroyed by this interview, I rejoiced in hearing that the conviction he had received of my affection for him, had preserved him from temptations to which he would probably otherwise have yielded.

"But they are returning," cried he; "tell me where you are, and promise to see me to-morrow, my own precious Helen! Never, never was I so happy before."

"Nor I," I could have added; but I believe my eyes spoke for me, and I promised to see him the next day at eleven. He had just time to resume his chair when Mr. and Mrs. Ridley returned.

"I have been very unwell," said Ridley, "and am so still; but I would come back, as she would not leave me, because I was sure, what with the uneasy chairs, and Miss Pen's ugly face, you would be so fretted, Mr. Pendarves, that you would never come hither again.

"'But then, my dear,' said Fanny, 'you forget they are relations, and must love each other.'

"'That I deny,' said I, 'if they are not both loveable.'

"'And then,' says she, 'they have not met for so long a time, and have so much to say.'

"'I don't believe that,' says I: 'if so, they would have taken care to meet sooner'----but pray what has happened to you both since we went away? Well, I declare, such roses on cheeks, and diamonds in eyes! and, I protest, Miss Pen has learnt to look straight-forward, and is all dimples and smiles! and this, too, when, for aught you both knew, I might be dying!"

Seymour and I were now too happy not to be disposed to laugh at any absurdity which Ridley uttered; and never before or since did I pass so merry an evening. Seymour was as gay and delightful as nature intended him to be: you will own that the word "_fascinating_" seemed made on purpose to express him; and I, as he has since told me, appeared to him to exceed in personal appearance that evening (animated as I was with the consciousness of loving and being beloved) all the promises of my early youth; nor could he help saying--

"Really, Helen, I cannot but look at you!"

"That is very evident," observed Ridley.

"Yes, but I mean that I look at her because--because----"

"You cannot help it, and it requires no apology. I have a tendency to the same weakness myself."

"But I mean you are so surprisingly altered--so grown--so----"

"Say no more, my dear sir," cried Ridley, interrupting him, "for it must mortify the young lady to see how much she has outgrown your knowledge and your liking! and she is such a disgrace to your family, that it is a pity there is no chance for her changing _her name_, poor thing! those blear eyes must prevent that. I see very clearly, indeed, she is likely to die _Helen Pendarves_."

This observation, much to Ridley's sorrow, evidently clouded over the brows of us both; for we both thought of my mother, and I of poor De Walden. But the cloud soon passed away; for we were together, we were assured of each other's love, and _we were happy_.--Nor did we hear the watchman call "past one o'clock," without as much surprise as pain. However, Pendarves walked home with me, and that walk was not less interesting than the evening had been.

But, alas! my mother's image awaited me on my pillow. I could not help mourning over the blighted hopes of De Walden, nor could I drive from my startled fancy the suspicion that I had committed a breach of duty in receiving and returning vows unsanctioned by her permission, or satisfy my conscience that I had done right in allowing him to call on me the next day. But I quieted myself by resolving that I would instantly write to my mother, tell her what had passed, and see Seymour only that once, till she gave me her permission to see him more frequently.

He came at eleven, and I told him what I meant to do. He fully approved, but declared he would not consent to meet evil more than half way, and give up seeing me. On the contrary, he was resolved to see me every day till she came; and as Mr. Pendarves our uncle was just come to his house in town, he meant to tell him how we were situated, and he was very sure that he would approve our meeting as much as possible. On leaving me he proceeded to lay his case before our uncle, while I sat down to write to my mother. It was a long letter bathed with my tears; for was I not now pleading almost for life and death? If I loved Pendarves when my affection was not fed by his professions of mutual love, how must that flame be now increased in fervour, when I had heard him plead his cause two days successively, and had enjoyed with him hours of the tenderest uninterrupted intercourse! Wisely had my mother acted in forbidding us to meet, as she wished to annihilate our partiality; for absence and distance are the best preventives, if not the certain cures of love.

My letter, which was full of passion, regrets, apologies and pity for De Walden, was scarcely finished, when I was told that a gentleman who was going immediately into Warwickshire, and would pass close by my mother's door, would take charge of it. I foolishly confided it to his care; I say "foolishly," because the post was a surer conveyance. However, I could not foresee that this gentleman would fall ill on the road; that he would not deliver my packet till ten days after it was written; and that I was therefore allowed to spend many hours with Pendarves unprohibited; for my uncle approved our meeting, and desired our union, declaring that he had always thought my mother severe in her judgment of his nephew, and that while considering the fancied interests of her own child, she had disregarded his.

"Besides," added he, "I am the head of the family, and I command you to meet as often, and to love as much, as ever you choose."

Alas! I obeyed him only too well, though my judgment was not blinded to the certainty that he had no rights which could invalidate those of my mother; and though I rejoiced at not receiving her command to cease to receive Pendarves, I was beginning to feel uneasy at her silence, when a letter from her reached me, saying, she was on her road to London, where she would arrive that night, and should take up her abode with our friend Mr. Nelson.

Never before had I been parted from my mother, and till I met Pendarves I had longed for her every day during my stay in London; but now, self-reproved and ashamed, I felt that a yet dearer object had acquired possession of my thoughts and wishes, and the once devoted child dreaded, rather than desired, to be re-united to one of the best of mothers.

She came; and we met again, as we had parted, with tears; but the nature of those tears was altered, and neither of us would have liked to analyze the difference.

Long and painful was the conversation we had together that night, before we attempted to sleep. I found my mother fully convinced that there was a necessity for my not marrying De Walden, a necessity of which he was now himself convinced; for she had gone round by Cambridge, in order to see him: but she was not equally convinced that there was a necessity for my marrying Pendarves, as all her objections to that marriage remained in the fullest force.

The next morning she opened her heart on the subject to Mrs. Nelson, who was Seymour's warm advocate, and assured her, that if she made proper inquiries, she would find that the character of Pendarves was universally spoken of as unexceptionable; and that whatever might have been the errors of _the youth_, they were forgotten by other people in the merits of _the man_.

"Ay, but a mother's heart can't forget them," she exclaimed, "when her child's happiness is at stake!" and she begged to have no private conversation with Seymour till the next day. In consequence, she saw him only in a party at my uncle's, where she was struck with the great improvement both of his face and person, for both now wore the appearance of health; and the countenance which, when she last surveyed it, bore the stamp of sickness and sorrow, now beamed with all the vivacity of youth and hope.

The party was a mixed one of cards and dancing; and as she gazed on Pendarves when he stood talking to me, he recalled forcibly to her mind the image of my father, as she first beheld him in a similar scene, four-and-twenty years before.

The next day Seymour obtained the desired interview with my mother. She brought forward his former errors in array against him, his debts, his dissipations, and his love of play; and though she expressed her readiness to believe him reformed, still, as he ingenuously admitted that his improvement was chiefly owing to my influence over him, she could not deem it sufficiently well-founded to obviate her objections; and he was still pleading, and she objecting, when Mr. Pendarves insisted on entering. Mrs. Nelson and I accompanied him.

"I tell you what, niece," said he, "you do not use this young man well: you bring up a parcel of old tales, and dwell upon the naughtiness of them, as if he was the only young man who ever erred. I know all his sins; he has made me his confessor. In the affair to which you allude he was much more to be pitied than censured, and yielded at seventeen to temptations which might have overcome seven-and-thirty. Since then he has distinguished himself at college: he has paid all his old debts, and incurred no new ones; he has steered clear of the quicksands of foreign travel, shielded (as he says) by the hopes of one day possessing Helen, and by the idea that he was the object of her love; and what would you have more? Besides, Helen tells me he once saved her life."

"I did so," cried Seymour, eagerly seizing her hands, "I did so, and you promised to be for ever grateful!"

"How was it, my dear nephew?"

"_I_ will tell you, sir," cried I, gathering hope from my mother's agitation. "It was at the Isle of Wight, soon after we came to England: he and I were playing on the shore, and I, not knowing the tide was coming in, paddled across a run of water to what I called a pretty little island, and there amused myself with picking up sea-weed, when the sea flowed in, and he saw that I must perish; no one was near us. Luckily, he spied a boat on the dry land, which, with all his boyish strength, he pushed off to my assistance, and jumped into it. In one minute more it floated towards me, just as my cries had reached the ears of my mother, who was reading on the rock, and who now saw my situation."

"Helen! Helen!" cried my mother, "I can't bear it--the scene was too horrible to recall." But I persevered.

"Seymour seized my hand just as I was sinking, and dragged me into the boat; but in another moment the waves came swelling round us, and, without oar or help, I and my preserver were both tossed to and fro upon the ocean."

"Helen!" cried Seymour, with great feeling, and clasping me fondly to his heart, "I could almost wish we then had died, for then we should have died together!"

"Go on," said my uncle, "I hope you will live together yet!"

"I have not much more to tell, except that my mother's screams had now procured assistance, and a boat was sent out to follow our uncertain course. When we were overtaken, they found Seymour holding me on his lap, and crying over me in agony unutterable, for he thought that I was dead, and he had come too late. Who can paint my mother's transports, when she received me safe and living in her arms?"

"And how she embraced me, Helen," cried Seymour, "and called me her noble boy--the preserver of her child! (for she saw all I had done;) and how she owned she should ever love me as her own child--and vowed her gratitude should end but with her life!"

"It never _will_ end but with my life!" cried my mother, throwing herself on Seymour's neck. "But is your having saved my child's life an argument for my authorizing you to risk the happiness of that life?"

"Julia, Julia, I am _ashamed_ of you!" cried my uncle. "Was there ever a better or more devoted wife than yourself? Yet, what did you do at Helen's age? You ran away from your parents, out of an ungovernable passion for a handsome young man."

"But is my error an excuse or justification of his?"

"No; but you are a proof that error can be atoned for and never repeated, as you have been a model for wives and mothers. But beware, Mrs. Pendarves, of carrying things too far; beware, lest you tempt Helen and Seymour to copy your example, rather than conform to your precepts."

"Ha!" cried my mother, clasping her hands in agony.

"Now, then," said Seymour, with every symptom of deep emotion, "the moment is come when I am authorized to obey the commands of the beloved dead, and fulfil the last injunctions of my mother."

A pause which no one seemed inclined to break, followed this unexpected observation; and Seymour, taking a letter from his bosom, kissed it, and presented it to my mother.

"'Tis Helen's hand," cried she.

"And her seal, too, you observe," said Seymour: "the _envelope_, you perceive, is addressed to me, and I have therefore broken it; the other is entire."

My mother read the _envelope_ to herself, and these were its contents:--

"My conscience reproaches me, my beloved son, with having too lightly surrendered your rights, and probably your wishes, in giving my friend back her promise to promote your union with her daughter, as I know Julia's ability to act up to her strict sense of a mother's duty, even at the expense of her own happiness, and risk of her child's safety. But I have given up that promise, which might have pleaded for you, my poor child! when I was no more, and ensured to you opportunities of securing Helen's affections, which may now, perhaps, be for ever denied to you. However, I may be mistaken; therefore, if Helen's affections should ever be _yours_--_avowedly_ yours, and her mother still withhold her consent, give her the enclosed letter, and probably the voice of the dead may have more power over her than that of the living.

"For your sake I have thus written, with a trembling hand, and with a dying pulse; but value it as a last proof of that affection which can end only with my life.

"HELEN PENDARVES."

The letter to my mother was as follows:--

"I speak to you from the grave, my dearest Julia! and in behalf of that child on whom my soul doted while on earth. But this letter will not be given you till he is _assured_ he possesses the heart of your daughter; and when, if your consent is denied to their union, nothing but an act of disobedience can make them happy in each other. Are you prepared, Julia, to expose them to such a risk, and thus tempt the child you love to the crime of disobedience? that crime which, though it dwelt but lightly on your mind, weighed upon mine through the whole of my existence, as it helped to plunge my mother in an untimely tomb. Perhaps you flatter yourself that Helen's education has fortified her against indulging her passion at the expense of her duty. But remember, that your precepts are forcibly counteracted by your example.

"Anxious, however, as I am that Helen should not err, I am still more anxious that my son should not lead her into error, as I feel that he is doubly armed against her filial piety, by the example of her mother and his own.

"And must my crime be thus perpetuated by those whom I hold most dear? must the misery of my life be renewed, perhaps, in that of her whom I have loved as my own child? and must my son be the cause of wretchedness to the dearest of my friends, through the medium of her daughter?

"Forbid it Heaven! I conjure you, my beloved Julia! by our past love--by _tanta fede, e si, dolce memorie, e si lungo costume_, listen to this my warning, my supplicating voice; and let your consent give dignity and happiness to the union of our children.

"HELEN PENDARVES."

My mother, after having read this letter, covered her face with her hands, and rushed out of the room. It was in a state of anxious suspense that we awaited her return. When she appeared, her eyes were swelled, but her countenance was calm, her look resigned, and her deportment, as usual, dignified. Her assumed composure, however, failed again, when her eyes met those of Pendarves.

"My son!" cried she, opening her arms to him, into which Seymour threw himself, as much affected as she was; then, beckoning me to her, she put my hand in his, and prayed God to bless our union.

Little of this part of my life remains to be told. My mother had given her consent, and in two months from that period we were MARRIED.

Here ends my narrative of a WOMAN'S LOVE. When next I treat of it, it will be as united to a WIFE'S DUTY.