Helena

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

  CHAPTER XII

  Buntingford and French reached home between ten and eleven o'clock. Whenthey entered the house, they heard sounds of music from the drawing-room.Peter Dale was playing fragments from the latest musical comedy, with awhistled accompaniment on the drawing-room piano. There seemed to benothing else audible in the house, in spite of the large party itcontained. Amid the general hush, unbroken by a voice or a laugh, the"funny bits" that Peter was defiantly thumping or whistling made a kindof goblin chorus round a crushed and weary man, as he pushed past thedoor of the drawing-room to the library. Geoffrey followed him.

  "No one knows it yet," said the young man, closing the door behind them."I had no authority from you to say anything. But of course they allunderstood that something strange had happened. Can I be any help withthe others, while--"

  "While I tell Helena?" said Buntingford, heavily. "Yes. Better get itover. Say, please--I should be grateful for no more talk than isinevitable."

  Geoffrey stood by awkwardly, not knowing how to express the painfulsympathy he felt. His very pity made him abrupt.

  "I am to say--that you always believed--she was dead?"

  Under what name to speak of the woman lying at the Rectory puzzled him.The mere admission of the thought that however completely in the realm ofmorals she might have forfeited his name, she was still Buntingford'swife in the realm of law, seemed an outrage.

  At the question, Buntingford sprang up suddenly from the seat on which hehad fallen; and Geoffrey, who was standing near him involuntarilyretreated a few steps, in amazement at the passionate animation which forthe moment had transformed the whole aspect of the elder man.

  "Yes, you may say so--you must say so! There is no other account you cangive of it!--no other account I can authorize you to give it. It isfour-fifths true--and no one in this house--not even you--has any rightto press me further. At the same time, I am not going to put even thefraction of a lie between myself and you, Geoffrey, for you have been--adear fellow--to me!" He put his hand a moment on Geoffrey's shoulder,withdrawing it instantly. "The point is--what would have come about--ifthis had not happened? That is the test. And I can't give a perfectlyclear answer." He began to pace the room--thinking aloud. "I have beenvery anxious--lately--to marry. I have been so many years alone; andI--well, there it is!--I have suffered from it, physically and morally;more perhaps than other men might have suffered. And lately--you must tryand understand me, Geoffrey!--although I had doubts--yes, deep down, Istill had doubts--whether I was really free--I have been much more readyto believe than I used to be, that I might now disregard thedoubts--silence them!--for good and all. It has been my obsession--youmay say now my temptation. Oh! the divorce court would probably havefreed me--have allowed me to presume my wife's death after these fifteenyears. But the difficulty lay in my own conscience. Was I certain? No! Iwas not certain! Anna's ways and standards were well known to me. I couldimagine various motives which might have induced her to deceive me. Atthe same time"--he stopped and pointed to his writing-table--"thesedrawers are stuffed full of reports and correspondence, from agents allover Europe, whom I employed in the years before the war to find outanything they could. I cannot accuse myself of any deliberate or wilfulignorance. I made effort after effort--in vain. I was entitled--atlast--it often seemed to me to give up the effort, to take my freedom.But then"--his voice dropped--"I thought of the woman I might love--andwish to marry. I should indeed have told her everything, and the lawmight have been ready to protect us. But if Anna still lived, and weresuddenly to reappear in my life--what a situation!--for a sensitive,scrupulous woman!"

  "It would have broken--spoiled--everything!" said Geoffrey, under hisbreath, but with emphasis. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, andhis face was hidden from his companion. Buntingford threw him a strange,deprecating look.

  "You are right--you are quite right. Yet I believe, Geoffrey, I mighthave committed that wrong--but for this--what shall I call it?--this 'actof God' that has happened to me. Don't misunderstand me!" He came tostand beside his nephew, and spoke with intensity. "It was _only_ apossibility--and there is no guilt on my conscience. I have no realperson in my mind. But any day I might have failed my own sense ofjustice--my own sense of honour--sufficiently--to let a woman risk it!"

  Geoffrey thought of one woman--if not two women--who would have riskedit. His heart was full of Helena. It was as though he could onlyappreciate the situation as it affected her. How deep would the blowstrike, when she knew? He turned to look at Buntingford, who had resumedhis restless walk up and down the room, realizing with mingled affectionand reluctance the charm of his physical presence, the dark head, thekind deep eyes, the melancholy selfishness that seemed to enwrap him.Yet all the time he had not been selfless! There had been no individualwoman in the case. But none the less, he had been consumed with the samepersonal longing--the same love of loving; the _amor amandi_--as othermen. That was a discovery. It brought him nearer to the young man'stenderness; but it made the chance of a misunderstanding on Helena'spart greater.

  "Shall I tell Helena you would like to speak to her?" he said, breakingthe silence.

  Buntingford assented.

  Philip, left alone, tried to collect his thoughts. He did not concealfrom himself what had been implied rather than said by Geoffrey. The hinthad startled and disquieted him. But he could not believe it had any realsubstance; and certainly he felt himself blameless. A creature soradiant, with the world at her feet!--and he, prematurely aged, who hadseemed to her, only a few weeks ago, a mere old fogy in her path! Thatshe should have reconsidered her attitude towards him, was surelynatural, considering all the pains he had taken to please her. But as toanything else--absurd!

  Latterly, indeed, since she had come to that tacit truce with Jim, he waswell aware how much her presence in his house had added to the pleasantmoments of daily life. In winning her good will, in thinking for her, intrying to teach her, in watching the movements of her quick untrainedintelligence and the various phases of her enchanting beauty, he hadfound not only a new occupation, but a new joy. Rachel's prophecy for himhad begun to realize itself. And, all the time, his hopes as toGeoffrey's success with her had been steadily rising. He and Geoffrey hadindeed been at cross-purposes, if Geoffrey really believed what he seemedto believe! But it was nothing--it could be nothing--but the fantasy of alover, starting at a shadow.

  And suddenly his mind, as he stood waiting, plunged into matters whichwere not shadows--but palpitating realities. _His son_!--whom he was tosee on the morrow. He believed the word of the woman who had been hiswife. Looking back on her character with all its faults, he did not thinkshe would have been capable of a malicious lie, at such a moment. Fortymiles away then, there was a human being waiting and suffering, to whomhis life had given life. Excitement--yearning--beat through his pulses.He already felt the boy in his arms; was already conscious of the ardourwith which every device of science should be called in, to help restoreto him, not only his son's body, but his mind.

  There was a low tap at the door. He recalled his thoughts and wentto open it.

  "Helena!--my dear!"

  He took her hand and led her in. She had changed her white dress of theafternoon for a little black frock, one of her mourning dresses for hermother, with a bunch of flame-coloured roses at her waist. Thesemi-transparent folds of the black brought out the brilliance of thewhite neck and shoulders, the pale carnations of the face, the beautifulhair, following closely the contours of the white brow. Even through allhis pain and preoccupation, Buntingford admired; was instantly consciousof the sheer pleasure of her beauty. But it was the pleasure of anartist, an elder brother--a father even. Her mother was in his mind, andthe strong affection he had begun to feel for his ward was shot throughand through by the older tenderness.

  "Sit there, dear," he said, pushing forward a chair. "Has Geoffrey toldyou anything?"

  "No. He said you wanted to tell me something yourself, and he would speakto the others."

&nb
sp; She was very pale, and the hand he touched was cold. But she wasperfectly self-possessed.

  He sat down in front of her collecting his thoughts.

  "Something has happened, Helena, to-day--this very evening--which must--Ifear--alter all your plans and mine. The poor woman whom Geoffrey saw inthe wood, whose bag you found, was just able to make her escape, when youand Geoffrey landed. She wandered about the rest of the night, and in theearly morning she asked for shelter--being evidently ill--at the Rectory,but it was not till this evening that she made a statement which inducedthem to send for me. Helena!--what did your mother ever tell you about mymarriage?"

  "She told me very little--only that you had married someone abroad--whenyou were studying in Paris--and that she was dead."

  Buntingford covered his eyes with his hand.

  "I told your mother, Helena, all I knew. I concealed nothing fromher--both what I knew--and what I didn't know."

  He paused, to take from his pocket a small leather case and to extractfrom it a newspaper cutting. He handed it to her. It was from the firstcolumn of the _Times_, was dated 1907, and contained the words:--"On July19th at Lyons, France, Anna, wife of Philip Bliss, aged 28."

  Helena read it, and looked up. Buntingford anticipated the words thatwere on her lips.

  "Wait a moment!--let me go on. I read that announcement in the _Times_,Helena, three years after my wife had deserted me. I had spent thosethree years, first in recovering from a bad accident, and then inwandering about trying to trace her. Naturally, I went off to Lyons atonce, and could discover--nothing! The police there did all they could tohelp me--our own Embassy in Paris got at the Ministry of theInterior--useless! I recovered the original notice and envelope from the_Times_. Both were typewritten, and the Lyons postmark told us no morethan the notice had already told. I could only carry on my search, andfor some years afterwards, even after I had returned to London, I spentthe greater part of all I earned and possessed upon it. About that timemy friendship with your mother began. She was already ill, and spent mostof her life--as you remember--except for those two or three invalidwinters in Italy--in that little drawing-room, I knew so well. I couldalways be sure of finding her at home; and gradually--as yourecollect--she became my best friend. She was the only person in Englandwho knew the true story of my marriage. She always suspected, from thetime she first heard of it, that the notice in the _Times_--"

  Helena made a quick movement forward. Her lips parted.

  "--was not true?"

  Buntingford took her hand again, and they looked at each other, shetrembling involuntarily.

  "And the woman last night?" she said, breathlessly--"was she someone whoknew--who could tell you the truth?"

  "She was my wife--herself!"

  Helena withdrew her hand.

  "How strange!--how strange!" She covered her eyes. There was a silence.After it, Buntingford resumed:

  "Has Geoffrey told you the first warning of it--you left this room?"

  "No."

  He described the incident of the sketch.

  "It was a drawing I had made of her only a few weeks before she left me.I had no idea it was in that portfolio. We had scarcely time to put itaway before Mr. Alcott's note arrived--sending for me at once."

  Helena's hands had dropped, while she hung upon his story. And awonderful unconscious sweetness had stolen into her expression. Her youngheart was in her eyes.

  "Oh, I am so glad--so glad--you had that warning!"

  Buntingford was deeply touched.

  "You dear child!" he said in a rather choked voice, and, rising, hewalked away from her to the further end of the room. When he returned, hefound a pale and thoughtful Helena.

  "Of course, Cousin Philip, this will make a great change--in yourlife--and in mine."

  He stood silently before her--preferring that she should make her ownsuggestions.

  "I think--I ought to go away at once. Thanks to you--I have Mrs.Friend--who is such a dear."

  "There is the London house, Helena. You can make any use of it you like."

  "No, I think not," she said resolutely. Then with an odd laugh whichrecalled an earlier Helena--"I don't expect Lucy Friend would want tohave the charge of me in town; and you too--perhaps--would still beresponsible--and bothered about me--if I were in your house."

  Buntingford could not help a smile.

  "My responsibility scarcely depends--does it--upon where you are?" Thenhis voice deepened. "I desire, wherever you are, to cherish and care foryou--in your mother's place. I can't say what a joy it has been to me tohave you here."

  "No!--that's nonsense!--ridiculous!--" she said, suddenly breaking down,and dashing the tears from her eyes.

  "It's very true," he said gently. "You've been the dearest pupil, andforgiven me all my pedantic ways. But if not London--I will arrangeanything you wish."

  She turned away, evidently making a great effort not to weep. He too wasmuch agitated, and for a little while he busied himself with some letterson his table.

  When, at her call, he returned to her, she said, quite in herusual voice:

  "I should like to go somewhere--to some beautiful place--and draw. Thatwould take a month--perhaps. Then we can settle." After a pause, sheadded without hesitation--"And you?--what is going to happen?"

  "It depends--upon whether it's life at the Rectory--or death."

  She was evidently startled, but said nothing, only gave him her beautifuleyes again, and her unspoken sympathy.

  Then an impulse which seemed invincible came upon him to be really frankwith her--to tell her more.

  "It depends, also,--upon something else. But this I asked Geoffrey notto tell the others in the drawing-room--just yet--and I ask you thesame. Of course you may tell Mrs. Friend." She saw his face work withemotion. "Helena, this woman that was my wife declares to me--that Ihave a son living."

  He saw the light of amazement that rushed into her face, and hurriedon:--"But in the same breath that she tells me that, she tells me thetragedy that goes with it." And hardly able to command his voice, herepeated what had been told him.

  "Of course everything must be enquired into--verified. I go to townto-morrow--with Ramsay. Possibly I shall bring him back--perhaps toRamsay's care, for the moment. Possibly, I shall leave him withsomeone in town."

  "Couldn't I help," she said, after a moment, "if I stayed?"

  "No, no!" he said with repugnance, which was almost passion. "I couldn'tlay such a burden upon you, or any young creature. You must go and behappy, dear Helena--it is your duty to be happy! And this home for a timewill be a tragic one. Well, but now, where would you like to go? Will youand Geoffrey and Mrs. Friend consult? I will leave any money you want inGeoffrey's hands."

  "You mean"--she said abruptly--"that I really ought to go atonce--to-morrow."

  "Wouldn't it be best? It troubles me to think of you here--under theshadow--of this thing."

  "I see!--I see! All right. You are going to London to-morrow morning?"She had risen, and was moving towards the door.

  "Yes, I shall go to the Rectory first for news. And then on to thestation."

  She paused a moment.

  "And if--if she--I don't know what to call her--if she lives?"

  "Well, then--I must be free," he said, gravely; adding immediately--"Shepassed for fifteen years after she left me as the wife of an Italian Iused to know. It would be very quickly arranged. I should provide forher--and keep my boy. But all that is uncertain."

  "Yes, I understand." She held out her hand. "Cousin Philip--I am awfullysorry for you. I--I realized--somehow--only after I'd come downhere--that you must have had--things in your life--to make you unhappy.And you've been so nice--so awfully nice to me! I just want to thankyou--with all my heart."

  And before he could prevent her, she had seized his hands and kissedthem. Then she rushed to the door, turning to show him a face betweentears and laughter.

  "There!--I've paid you back!"

  And with that she vanished.
/>   Helena was going blindly through the hall, towards her own room, whenPeter Dale emerged from the shadows. He caught her as she passed.

  "Let me have just a word, Helena! You know, everything will be broken uphere. I only want to say my mother would just adore to have you for theseason. We'd all make it nice for you--we'd be your slaves--just let mewire to Mater to-morrow morning."

  "No, thank you, Peter. Please--please! don't stop me! I want to seeMrs. Friend."

  "Helena, do think of it!" he implored.

  "No, I can't. It's impossible!" she said, almost fiercely. "Let me go,Peter! Good-night!"

  He stood, a picture of misery, at the foot of the stairs watching her runup. Then at the top she turned, ran down a few steps again, kissed herhand to him, and vanished, the bright buckles on her shoes flashing alongthe gallery overhead.

  But in the further corner of the gallery she nearly ran into the arms ofGeoffrey French, who was waiting for her outside her room.

  "Is it too late, Helena--for me to have just a few words in yoursitting-room?"

  He caught hold of her. The light just behind him showed him a tense andfrowning Helena.

  "Yes--it is much too late! I can't talk now."

  "Only a few words?"

  "No"--she panted--"no!--Geoffrey, I shall _hate_ you if you don'tlet me go!"

  It seemed to her that everybody was in league to stand between her andthe one thing she craved for--to be alone and in the dark.

  She snatched her dress out of his grasp, and he fell back.

  She slipped into her own room, and locked the door. He shook his head,and went slowly downstairs. He found Peter pacing the hall, and they wentout into the June dark together, a discomfited pair.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Friend waited for Helena. She heard voices in the passageand the locking of Helena's door. She was still weak from her illness, soit seemed wisest to get into bed. But she had no hope or intention ofsleep. She sat up in bed, with a shawl round her, certain that Helenawould come. She was in a ferment of pity and fear,--she scarcely knewwhy--fear for the young creature she had come to love with all her heart;and she strained her ears to catch the sound of an opening door.

  But Helena did not come. Through her open window Lucy could hear stepsalong the terrace coming and going--to and fro. Then they ceased; allsounds in the house ceased. The church clock in the distance struckmidnight, and a little owl close to the house shrieked and wailed like ahuman thing, to the torment of Lucy's nerves. A little later she wasaware of Buntingford coming upstairs, and going to his room on thefurther side of the gallery.

  Then, nothing. Deep silence--that seemed to flow through the house andall its rooms and passages like a submerging flood.

  Except!--What was that sound, in the room next to hers--in Helena's room?

  Lucy Friend got up trembling, put on a dressing-gown, and laid an earto the wall between her and Helena. It was a thin wall, mostly indeed apanelled partition, belonging to an old bit of the house, in which thebuilding was curiously uneven in quality--sometimes inexplicablystrong, and sometimes mere lath and plaster, as though the persons,building or re-building, had come to an end of their money and werescamping their work.

  Lucy, from the other side of the panels, had often heard Helena singingwhile she dressed, or chattering to the housemaid. She listened now in ananguish, her mind haunted alternately by the recollection of the scene inthe drawing-room, and the story told by Geoffrey French, and by herrising dread and misgiving as to Helena's personal stake in it. She hadobserved much during the preceding weeks. But her natural timidity andhesitancy had forbidden her so far to draw hasty deductions. Andnow--perforce!--she drew them.

  The sounds in the next room seemed to communicate their rhythm of pain toLucy's own heart. She could not bear it after a while. She noiselesslyopened her own door, and went to Helena's. To her scarcely audible knockthere was no answer. After an interval she knocked again--a pause. Thenthere were movements inside, and Helena's muffled voice through the door.

  "Please, Lucy, go to sleep! I am all right."

  "I can't sleep. Won't you let me in?"

  Helena seemed to consider. But after an interval which seemedinterminable to Lucy Friend, the key was slowly turned and thedoor yielded.

  Helena was standing inside, but there was so little light in the roomthat Lucy could only see her dimly. The moon was full outside, but thecurtains had been drawn across the open window, and only a few faint rayscame through. As Mrs. Friend entered Helena turned from her, and gropingher way back to the bed, threw herself upon it, face downwards. It wasevidently the attitude from which she had risen.

  Lucy Friend followed her, trembling, and sat down beside her. Helena wasstill fully dressed, except for her hair, which had escaped from combsand hairpins. As her eyes grew used to the darkness, Lucy could see itlying, a dim mass on the white pillow, also a limp hand upturned. Sheseized the hand and cherished it in hers.

  "You are so cold, dear! Mayn't I cover you up and help you into bed?"

  No answer. She found a light eiderdown that had been thrown aside, andcovered the prone figure, gently chafing the cold hands and feet. Afterwhat seemed a long time, Helena, who had been quite still, said in avoice she had to stoop to hear:

  "I suppose you heard me crying. Please, Lucy, go back to bed. I won't cryany more."

  "Dear--mayn't I stay?"

  "Well, then--you must come and lie beside me. I am a brute to keepyou awake."

  "Won't you undress?"

  "Please let me be! I'll try and go to sleep."

  Lucy slipped her own slight form under the wide eiderdown. There was along silence, at the end of which Helena said:

  "I'm only--sorry--it's all come to an end--here."

  But with the words the girl's self-control again failed her. A deep sobshook her from head to foot. Lucy with the tears on her own cheeks, hungover her, soothing and murmuring to her as a mother might have done. Butthe sob had no successor, and presently Helena said faintly--"Good-night,Lucy. I'm warm now. I'm going to sleep."

  Lucy listened for the first long breaths of sleep, and seemed to hearthem, just as the dawn was showing itself, and the dawn-wind was pushingat the curtains. But she herself did not sleep. This young creature lyingbeside her, with her full passionate life, seemed to have absolutelyabsorbed her own. She felt and saw with Helena. Through the night,visions came and went--of "Cousin Philip,"--the handsome, melancholy,courteous man, and of all his winning ways with the girl under his care,when once she had dropped her first foolish quarrel with him, and made itpossible for him to show without reserve the natural sweetness andchivalry of his character. Buntingford and Helena riding, theirwell-matched figures disappearing under the trees, the sun glancing fromthe glossy coats of their horses; Helena, drawing in some nook of thepark, her face flushed with the effort to satisfy her teacher, andBuntingford bending over her; or again, Helena dancing, in pale green andapple-blossom, while Buntingford leaned against the wall, watching herwith folded arms, and eyes that smiled over her conquests.

  It all grew clear to Lucy--Helena's gradual capture, and the innocence,the unconsciousness, of her captor. Her own shrewdness, nevertheless, putthe same question as Buntingford's conscience. Could he ever have beenquite sure of his freedom? Yet he had taken the risks of a free man. Butshe could not, she did not blame him. She could only ask herself thebreathless question that French had already asked:

  "How far has it gone with her? How deep is the wound?"