HAROLD.
Helen's attempts to interest her father in Harold were crowned with success almost beyond her hopes. Colonel Desmond, who was fond of children, had been already attracted by the boy's singularly handsome face, and having a certain turn for mechanics himself, he was disposed to be sympathetic over Harold's futile efforts to construct organs out of cardboard and to model engines from blocks of wood. More than this, it pleased the colonel to see his little daughter and her small friend together. They had, indeed, an excellent effect upon one another. Both naturally wilful and wayward with others, they seemed to have but one will when together. Harold, who was accustomed to be alternately teased and bullied by his sisters, to be wept over by his mother, and to be treated as a dangerous if beloved animal by his father, looked upon Helen as a superior being, on whose sympathy he could always count, who, in some curious way, understood that it was not the object of his life to outrage the feelings of those around him, and to whom he could safely confide his dearest and most secret projects without fear of ridicule. As for Helen, her feelings for her new friend partook of a motherly as well as of a sisterly character. Her added years and her larger experience, so far from giving her any desire to domineer over Harold, aroused in her heart a sort of tenderness for him, which his sister's treatment of him and the want of sympathy which he experienced at home tended to foster. With regard to Harold's talents Helen had no misgivings; and she was ready to listen patiently for hours whilst he unfolded his schemes to her, ascribing to her own dullness and want of comprehension the seeming vagueness of some of these schemes, promising eagerly to help him in the working out of certain dull yet necessary details of the sort which aspiring geniuses of all ages have been disposed to shirk.
It must not be supposed that this happy friendship was recognized at once by the children's respective belongings. Indeed, had it not been for the colonel's unwonted firmness, the probability is that Harold and Helen, after their first meeting, would have been kept resolutely apart.
"The colonel seems to have taken a fancy to Harold," said Mr. Bayden to his wife one day when Colonel Desmond and Helen had called and invited the boy to accompany them on some distant expedition.
"Such a pity that it was not Agatha!" sighed Mrs. Bayden, taking up a fresh stocking from her heaped-up basket.
Mrs. Bayden was not the only person who considered it a pity that the colonel's fancy had been taken by Harold.
"I could have endured Agatha, but why you choose to annoy me by having that rough boy continually here I cannot understand," observed Mrs. Desmond to her husband.
"My dear wife, why should Harold annoy you? He is scarcely ever in the house, and he can't do much harm in the garden."
"He is the most unsatisfactory of my sister's children. Everyone knows that he is a bad boy. Even Richard, who is a perfect idiot about his children, acknowledges that he can do nothing with Harold."
"All I can say is that Bayden is—well, I must not abuse your relations, Margaret. But, believe me, that boy has some good stuff in him. Besides, he is a fine, handsome little chap, and his resemblance to you is quite astonishing. Surely that ought to recommend him to me."
The colonel's speech, although exceedingly diplomatic, was justified by facts. Harold's face, notwithstanding its rounded outlines, did bear a resemblance to his aunt's. She smiled.
"You may say what you like, John, but I can't believe that Harold and Helen can be good companions for one another. If she had taken a fancy even to Grace I should have made no objection."
"Let the children be," returned the colonel a little testily. "Helen looks better already for young companionship, and we cannot force children's likes and dislikes any more than we can our own."
"That, I suppose, you learnt from Mary Macleod," said Mrs. Desmond, the smile fading from her face. "However, I shall say no more. If any harm comes of your foolish indulgence remember that I warned you."
The colonel did not reply. Why his wife had yielded so readily rather puzzled him. But Mrs. Desmond had her own reasons. Helen had long been a thorn in her side, and the pricking of this poor little thorn was fast becoming unendurable to her. She had resolved, therefore, that her stepdaughter must be sent away, and, like a wise woman, she was husbanding all her forces towards the gaining of this important end, and she was well aware that a little complaisance in an unimportant matter of this kind would make her future task easier.
Helen was even more surprised than her father to find that after her unlucky day at the Rectory no embargo was put upon her intercourse with Harold. How it came about neither they nor their elders exactly knew, but through the long June days the two children were constantly together, either working in a rough workshop which the colonel had extemporized for them in an outbuilding, or rambling about the country in search of flowers and butterflies. Notwithstanding Mrs. Desmond's determination about Helen's future, it is scarcely likely that she could have witnessed her stepdaughter leading a life so opposed to her own preconceived notions without remonstrance had she not been really suffering from the effects of her long anxiety in the spring, and disposed for the first time in her life to let things take their course.
It was a very happy time for Helen, the happiest, perhaps, that she had ever known. In the old days, when all her desires were gratified, her waywardness and wilfulness had thrown a cloud over everything. Now she was honestly trying to do what was right and to keep her temper under due control, whilst healthy, sympathetic companionship kept her mind occupied and prevented her from dwelling upon morbid fancies.
"If only mamma would like me a little," she used to think sometimes as she went off to bed chilled by Mrs. Desmond's frigid good-night, but full of happy plans for the morrow. But even of gaining "mamma's liking" Helen did not altogether despair. She meant to be so good, so obedient, she felt quite sure that she must win her stepmother at last.
"What is it that you wish for most in all the world?" she asked Harold suddenly one evening.
Mrs. Desmond had kept her room all day, and Helen and Harold, having drunk tea in the school-room, with the colonel as their guest, were sitting under an apple-tree in the orchard. The setting sun flooded the fair June landscape, and threw a glory round their young heads, showing to their half-bewildered childish eyes strange visions and "lights that never were on sea or land."
"What do I wish for most!" repeated Harold. "To do something great, I think. What is the good of living if one is only to be just like everyone else. I should like people to point me out as I went by, and to say, 'That is Harold Bayden. He did—' I wonder what I should like them to say, there are so many things it would be nice to be famous for."
"I don't think that I should care to be famous," said Helen gravely. "I should like everyone to like me. It is dreadful not to be liked."
"You can't expect everyone to like you. It is much better to have one or two people who like you very much."
"Yes. But people don't like me. I don't know why it is."
"Oh, Helen! doesn't your father like you? And I think that you are awfully jolly."
"Of course my father likes me, because he is my father. But you know that Grace and Agatha can't bear me. Perhaps you wouldn't like me, Harold, if you knew how wicked I have been."
"Nonsense, Helen!"
"It isn't nonsense, Harold. Shall I tell you? I hardly like to speak of it. It makes me shudder when I think of what might have been."
"Helen, what on earth do you mean?"
Harold's big eyes were fixed in amazement on his companion's face. She went on speaking more to herself than to him.
"And yet it is true, quite true, though I can scarcely believe it sometimes. And when you say that I am so much nicer and jollier than Grace and Agatha I feel like a hypocrite."
"Helen!"
"They never did what I have done. Just think, Harold, I was so angry and so wicked one day that I tried to run away. Father followed me and brought me back, and he didn't scold me a bit, but he was so sorry that he cried—actually cried. Did you know that a man could cry?"
"I am not sure," said Harold meditatively. Mr. Bayden's manner when he was unduly annoyed by parochial matters, or provoked by his son's iniquities, was often suggestive of tears, consequently the idea of a man's crying presented nothing very tragic to Harold's imagination. Besides, he was a little puzzled by the intensity of Helen's manner, and scarcely understood her.
"I don't see that there was anything very wicked in running away. Of course you would have gone back. What else could you have done? And I daresay you were provoked." Harold spoke soothingly. He knew what it was to be provoked himself, and had had his own dreams of running away to sea, dreams which, it must be allowed, had never shaped themselves very distinctly in his brain. Still, in virtue of them he could sympathize most fully with Helen in her small escapade.
"Yes; but, Harold, you don't understand," she went on. "It was coming out after me on that bitter night that nearly killed my father. Just think: if—if he had died I should have killed him." Helen's voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands.
"Don't, Helen," said Harold after a moment's perplexed pause. "You didn't, you see. It is all right. Very likely your father would have been ill anyway. And besides—"
"No, Harold, it is no good saying those things," burst out Helen. "As long as I live I shall always see father lying on his bed, too feeble almost to speak, and I shall have the feeling that it was for me. I try to forget it, but it always comes back. I should like to be able to do something very hard for him or for—mamma, just to prove how sorry I am."
"Did he really look as if he were going to die?" asked Harold rather irrelevantly.
Helen nodded. To speak the words again hurt her.
"I wonder what dying is like?" went on Harold.
Suddenly, and almost as he spoke, the sun dropped behind a bank of red clouds. A little breeze sprang up and murmured in the trees overhead.
Helen shuddered and drew closer to her companion.
"It must be very awful," he went on. "And to think that the world will go on just the same when we are gone. The sun will shine and the birds will sing, and we shall be lying in the dreadful cold earth. It is horrible."
"I used to think just like that once, Harold," whispered Helen half-shyly. "I was dreadfully afraid of all sorts of things. I used to think after I had been naughty that perhaps I should go to sleep and wake up in hell. One day I told Cousin Mary—you don't know Cousin Mary, do you? It is so easy to talk to her; one can tell her anything. She thinks that dying will be only like going to sleep in the dark. We shall be a little frightened, perhaps, but we shall know all the time that nothing bad can really happen to us. And if any pain comes to us afterwards it will be quite different from the pain that we suffer now—pain that will never make us impatient or angry, because we shall be able then to understand that it is bringing us nearer to God and heaven. Cousin Mary says that is the end of all pain, only we are not able to understand it quite now."
"Cousin Mary must say very odd things," observed Harold, who had been trying to fathom Helen's meaning, and who felt hopelessly puzzled. "Mother says that she is odd, and father says that some of her notions are not—I forget the word; but they never ask her to stay with us. Is she really very nice?"
"Very," answered Helen emphatically.
There was a pause. Both children were busy with their own thoughts. They made a striking picture as they sat close together beneath the gnarled apple-tree, the dying sunset lights lingering on their fair young heads—a picture that was not without its pathos, because life must pass that way, life—and death.
"I expect that it is getting late, and I ought to be going home," said Harold after a few minutes, wearying of silence, and beginning to feel that even Agatha's teasing would have a refreshingly every-day sound after such serious thoughts.
Helen rose rather reluctantly.
"Very well," she said. "Let us go in and say good-night to father, and afterwards I will walk with you as far as the gate."
"And I say, Helen, you won't forget to cut out those wheels for me to-morrow morning, will you? They must match exactly, remember. And if you could pull out and stretch that wire——"
"I sha'n't forget, Harold. You needn't fear. But, by the way, you never told me about Jim Hunt."
"I heard father saying that he was very ill indeed. Mother stopped him from saying more when she saw that I was there. I was thinking about him just now. I used to hate him sometimes when he sat in the choir and screamed in my ear. But I'm sorry for him now. I wish I hadn't hated him. Father spoke as if he thought he was going to die."
"Couldn't we do something for him?" suggested practical Helen.
"I have sixpence," returned Harold, "if that would do."
Helen shook her head.
"You can't give people money when they are ill. I'll tell you what I might do. I'll ask father if I may gather some strawberries and take them to a sick boy in the village. If you come to-morrow morning directly your lessons are over we might take them together."
"It won't do for Agatha to know. I should never hear the end of it. And, besides, she hates poor people."
"No one need know. Father never asks any questions. He will just say, 'Do as you like.' He is sure to say nothing."
Harold was silent for a moment. A little struggle was going on his mind. He knew that his mother would have disapproved of the project, and that he was never allowed to go near any cottage where sickness was. But he was sorry for Jim Hunt, who had done him many a rough kindness, kindnesses which Harold was conscious of having often ill requited, and he really longed to do the village lad this small service.
"Don't you care to come, Harold?" asked Helen in surprised tones. She was a little annoyed that her plan had not immediately approved itself to Harold, never guessing the reason for his hesitation. "I can go by myself if you are afraid of Agatha."
"I am not afraid of Agatha, and of course I will go too. The strawberries won't be my present, but I will tell Jim that I will give him the engine I am making now when it is finished. And I say, Helen, we might call it 'Jim,' mightn't we? I daresay that would please him."
"I'm sure it would. Then it is settled. I shall be waiting for you in the orchard to-morrow. If we walk fast across the fields we can stay a little while with Jim and get back in plenty of time for lunch."
No hitch occurred in the projected arrangements. Mrs. Desmond still kept her room on the following day. Colonel Desmond gladly complied with his little daughter's request, and Helen, basket in hand, was awaiting Harold in the orchard some time before the appointed hour, which, however, passed without bringing him. At last she saw him running across the grass.
"How late you are! I began to think you weren't coming," she cried.
Harold's face was flushed, and did not wear its best expression.
"I came as soon as I could," he said. "Of course, as I was in a hurry everything went wrong. I hate Latin. Why need one learn what one doesn't like? And Agatha—"
"Never mind Agatha," interrupted Helen soothingly. "You have come; that is the great thing. Let us start at once. We can talk as we go."
"How fast you are walking!" said Harold presently, a little note of fretfulness in his voice as, beneath a blazing noonday sun, Helen half-ran across the fields, her companion toiling after her.
"Because we must make haste," returned Helen rather sharply, looking round at Harold. Then she stopped short suddenly. "What is the matter?" she asked in altered tones. "Aren't you well? Let me go alone, and you can wait in the shade till I come back."
"Nonsense, Helen!" said Harold, still fretfully. "I am quite well, only I am hot, and you will walk so fast."
Helen did not reply. She altered her pace and began to talk on other subjects; but Harold was singularly quiet and unresponsive.
In a few minutes the children arrived at a stile, and, leaving the fields, passed into a narrow lane, from which, by a plank that crossed a black, festering ditch, they reached a group of low thatched houses, very picturesque in appearance, but telling a tale of age and decay. Towards one of these, rather larger than the rest, and separated from the road by a strip of garden, Harold now led the way, closely followed by Helen. Harold knocked at the door, and a gruff voice cried "Come in!" Harold walked in boldly; Helen followed timidly. These scenes were new to her, and she felt terribly shy.
The Hunt family was seated at dinner. The father, in his rough working clothes, had already pushed an almost untasted plate of food away from him, but several flaxen heads were busy over the table, whilst Mrs. Hunt, a hard-featured woman, was bustling about and speaking in a sharp, high-pitched key.
"Lor'! be it you, Master Harold?" cried the man, whilst the woman dropped a saucepan lid in her astonishment.
"I—we came to ask about Jim," said Harold.
"Well, he bean't no better as I can see," returned the man. "You can tell the parson so."
"I didn't come from my father, I came for myself," said Harold stoutly; "and please we should like to see Jim if we may."
Husband and wife exchanged glances.
"Won't the young lady sit down?" asked Mrs. Hunt, after an instant's pause, dusting a chair for Helen with her apron.
"No, thank you," replied Helen, "we only came to see Jim, and we haven't much time."
"Let 'em go, then, if they wull," observed the man, answering his wife's unspoken question.
"He won't know you," said Mrs. Hunt, whose eyes were fixed on Helen's basket; "and it's no good giving him things he can't swallow. But if Master Harold and the young lady like to go upstairs they're welcome. He's lying in the room right atop of the stairs. You'll find the door open to keep the room cool."
The visitors needed no second bidding. Stumbling up the dark rotten staircase they soon found themselves in the room where, on a rough bed, Jim, with wide open, blank eyes, lay tossing and tumbling. The atmosphere here was less oppressive than that below, and through the tiny window a little breeze came, and the sunlight made one golden patch upon the rough, dirty floor.
