THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
(From the Shorthand Notes of John Burke.)
CHAPTER I.
THE DEEDS OF THE FARM.
Sunday, June 13.
In three days it will be a year since Helen promised to marry me, and on that anniversary she will be my wife.
It is strange how exactly according to my plan things have come about—and how differently from all that I have dreamed.
She is the most beautiful woman in the world; she is to be my wife sooner than I dared to hope—and—I must be good to her. I must love her.
Did I ever doubt my love until she claimed it five days ago with such confidence in my loyalty? In that moment, as I went to her, as I took her in my arms, as I felt that she needed me and trusted me, with the suddenness of a revelation I knew—
It was hard to meet Ethel—and Milly and Mrs. Baker afterwards.
To-day, in preparing to move to our new home, I came across the rough notes I wrote last December, when the marvel of Helen's beauty was fresh to me. As I read the disjointed and half incredulous words I had set to paper, I found myself living over again those days of Faery and enchantment.
Custom has somewhat dulled the shock of her beauty; I have grown quickly used to her as the most radiantly lovely of created beings; my mind has been drawn to dwell upon moral problems and to sorrow at seeing her gradually become the victim of her beauty—her nature, once as fine as the outward form that clothes it, warped by constant adulation, envy and strife; until—
But it is a miracle! As unbelievable, as unthinkable as it was on the very first day when that glowing dream of loveliness made manifest floated toward me in the little room overlooking Union Square, and I was near swooning with pure delight of vision.
Beautiful; wonderful! She didn't love me then and she doesn't now; but the most marvellous woman in the world needs me—and I will not fail her.
I wish I could take her out of the city for a change of mental atmosphere. She shrinks from her father's suggestion of a summer on the farm. But in time her wholesome nature must reassert itself; she must become, if not again the fresh, light-hearted girl I knew a year ago, a sweet and gracious woman whose sufferings will have added pathos to her charm.
And even now she's not to be judged like other women; before the shining of her beauty, reproach falls powerless. It is my sacred task to guard her—to soothe her awakening from all that nightmare of inflated hopes and vain imaginings. Kitty Reid and—-yes, and little Ethel—will help me.
Kitty is a good fellow.
"Why, cert.," she said when I begged her last Wednesday to take care of Helen. "Married! Did you say married? Oh, Cadge, quit pegging shoes!"
Jumping up from the drawing table, Kitty left streams of India ink making her beastesses all tigers while she called to Miss Bryant, who was pounding viciously upon a typewriter:—
"Cadge, did you hear? Cadge! The Princess is going to be married. 'Course you remember, Mr. Burke, Cadge is going to be married herself Saturday."
"Don't be too sure of it," returned Miss Bryant, "and do let me finish this sentence. Ten to one Pros. or I'll be grabbed off for an assignment Saturday evening 'fore we can be married. But the Princess is different; she has leisure. Burke, shake!"
She sprang up to take my hand, her eyes shining with excitement.
Kitty hurried with me to the Nicaragua, where she pounced upon Helen, her red curls madly bobbing.
"What a bride you'll make!" she cried fondly. "Going to be married from the den, aren't you? Oh, I'm up to my eyes in weddings; Cadge simply won't attend to anything. But what have you been doing to yourself? Come here, Helen."
She pushed the proud, pale beauty into a chair, smothering her with kisses and the piles of cushions that seem to add bliss to women's joys and soften all their griefs.
"Tired, aren't you?" she purred. "Needed me. Now just you sit and talk with Mr. Burke and I'll pack up your brittle-brae in three no-times. Clesta,—where's that imp?"
She called to the little combination maid and model who had accompanied us.
"Clesta's afraid of you, Helen. 'Why'd ye fetch me 'long?' she whimpers. 'Miss Kitty, why'd ye fetch me 'long?' Huh, I 'member how you used to have his picture with yours in a white and gold frame!"
Helen scarcely replied to Kitty's raptures. She laid her head back half-protestingly among her cushions, showing her long, exquisite throat. For an instant she let her shadowy lashes droop over the everchanging lustre of her eyes. I couldn't help thinking of a great, glorious bird of heaven resting with broken wing.
"Poor little Princess!" said Kitty, who hardly comes to Helen's shoulder. Then we all laughed.
Kitty stayed at the Nicaragua that night, and when I came Thursday afternoon she stopped me outside the door, to say:—
"I wouldn't let Helen talk too much; she's nervous."
"Can you tell me what is the matter with her?" I asked. "I don't think she's well."
"Oh, nothing. You know—she's been worrying." Then loyal Kitty spoke purposely of commonplaces. "General must have danced her off her feet. Darmstetter's death upset her terribly, too. She never will speak of it. But she'll be as right as right with me. Bring her 'round as soon as the man comes for the trunks. You've only to head up a barrel of dishes, quick, 'fore Clesta gets in any fine work smashing 'em."
As I passed through the hall, littered with trunks and packing cases, to the dismantled parlour, Helen looked up from a mass of old letters and dance cards.
"I'm sorting my—souvenirs," she said.
The face she lifted was white, only the lips richly red, with a shade of fatigue under the haunting eyes. The graceful figure in its close-fitting dress looked a trifle less round than it had done earlier in the winter, and one fair arm, as it escaped from its flowing sleeve, was almost thin.
"Dear," I said wistfully, for something in her drooping attitude smote me to remorse and inspired me with tenderness; "will you really trust your life to me?"
She leaned towards me, and beauty breathed about her as a spell. I bent till my lips caressed her perfumed hair; and then—I saw among the rubbish on her desk something that made me interrupt the words we might have spoken.
"What's that?" I asked. "Not—pawn tickets?"
"For a necklace," she said; "and this—this must be my diamond—"
"Pawned and not paid for!"
She offered me the tickets, only half understanding, her great eyes as innocent as they were lovely.
"I had forgotten," she said. "I only found them when I came to—"
She brushed the rubbish of her winter's triumphs and disappointments to the floor, and turned from it with a little, disdainful movement.
"I had to pay the maids," she said simply.
"Nelly, why—why didn't you come to me sooner?"
With a bump against the door, Clesta sidled into the room awestruck and smutched, bearing a tray.
"Miss Kitty said," she stammered, "as how I should make tea." And as soon as she had found a resting place for her burden, the frightened girl made a dash for the door.
Before Helen had finished drinking, there was a stir in the hall, and then the sound of a familiar voice startled us.
"Wa-al, Helen 'Lizy," it said. "How ye do, John? Don't git up; I can set till ye're through."
And Mr. Winship himself stood before us, stoop-shouldered, roughly dressed from the cattle cars, his kindly old eyes twinkling, his good face all glorified by the honest love and pride shining through its plainness.
"Why, Father!" cried Helen with a start.
She looked at him with a nervous repugnance to his appearance, which she tried to subdue. He did not seem to notice it.
"Wa'n't lookin' for me yit-a-while, was ye?" he asked. "Kind o' thought I'd s'prise ye. Did s'prise the man down in the hall. Didn't want to let me in till I told him who I was. Little gal in the entry says ye're movin'; ye do look all tore up, for a fac'."
Mr. Winship has grown old within the year. His hair has whitened and his bushy eyebrows; but the grip of his hand, the sound of his homely speech, seemed to wake me from some ugly dream. Here we were together again in the wholesome daylight, Father Winship, little Helen 'Lizy and the Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well.
Mr. Winship sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fashion, he would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter.
She is the child of his old age; I think he must be long past sixty, and fast growing feeble. The instinct of father love has grown in him so refined that he sees the soul and not the envelope. Grand and beautiful as she is to others, to him she is still his little Nelly.
He would not even own that he thought her altered.
"I d'know," he said, a shade of anxiety blending with the old fond pride. "Fust-off, Sis didn't look jes' nat'ral, spite of all the picters she's sent us; but that was her long-tailed dress, mebbe. W'en she's a young one, Ma was all for tyin' back her ears and pinchin' her nose with a clo'espin—to make it straight or so'thin'; but I says to Ma, w'en Helen 'Lizy lef' home, 'don't ye be one mite afeard,' I says, 'but what them bright eyes'll outshine the peaked city gals.' Guess they have, sort o', eh, Sis; f'om what John's been writin'?"
"I don't know, Father."
"Don't ye—don't ye want t' hear 'bout the folks? Brought ye heaps o' messages. Frenchy, now—him that worked for us—druv over f'om the Merriam place to know 'f 'twas true that city folks made a catouse over ye. He'd heard the men readin' 'bout ye in the papers.
"'Wa-al,' I says to Frenchy, 'Helen 'Lizy was al'ays han'some.'
"'D'know 'bout zat,' says Frenchy, only he says it in his lingo, 'but she was one vair cute li'l gal.'
"'Han'some as a picter,' I tol' him; 'an' cutes' little tyke y'ever see.'"
"How is Mother?" asked Helen constrainedly.
"Ma's lottin' on havin' ye home; wants t' hear all 'bout the good times. School done? All packed and ready for a start, ain't ye? But ye don't seem to be feeling any too good. Don't New York agree with ye, Sissy? Been studying too hard?"
"She is a goot organism; New York agrees vit her," I said. "Wasn't that how poor old Darmstetter put it, Nelly? Mr. Winship, Nelly has overworked, but with your consent, she is about to let a tyrannical husband take care of her."
At my heedless mention of Darmstetter, Helen's white face grew whiter. Her trembling hand strayed, seeking support.
"Al'ays s'posed you'n' Sis'd be marryin' some day," said Mr. Winship, dubiously watching her, while he stroked his beard; "but seems mos's if ye'd better wait a spell, till Ma's chirked her up some. Han'some place here."
His eyes examined the luxurious, disordered room.
"These here things ain't yourn, Sis?"
"Not all of them."
"I ain't refusin' to let Sis marry, if ye're both sot on't," he conceded. Then he caught sight of the Van Nostrand painting, and his slow glance travelled from it to Helen. "That done for you, Sis? I never helt with bare necks. Yes, Sis can marry, if she says so, though Ma wants her home. But she ain't been writin' real cheerful. She—she's asked for money, that's the size on't. An' here ye are up in arms an' she nigh sick. I don't want nothing hid away f'om me; how come ye livin' in a place like this?"
He rose laboriously, surveying through the open doorway the beautiful hall and the dining-room; while I interposed some jesting talk on other matters, for I had hoped to get Helen out of the Nicaragua before her father's arrival, and still hoped to spare him knowledge of our worst troubles.
"If Sis has been buyin' all this here, I ain't denying that I'll feel the expense," he said, sticking to the subject; "but I guess we can manage."
Fumbling for his wallet, he drew some papers from it and handed them to Helen, adding:—
"There, Sis; there they are."
"Money, Father?" she asked with indifference. "I don't believe I need any."
"Don't ye? Ye wrote 'bout mortgagin'. I didn't want to do it, 'count o' Ma, partly; but we kep' worryin' an' worryin' 'bout ye. Ma couldn't sleep o' nights or eat her victuals; an fin'lly—'Ezry,' she says, 'we was possessed to let Helen 'Lizy, at her age, an' all the chick or child we got, go off alone to the city. Ezry,' she says, 'you go fetch her home. Like's not Tim can let ye have the money,' she says; 'his wife bein' an own cousin, right in the family, y'know.' So I've brought the deeds, Sis, an'—"
"What!" cried Helen, starting up. "The deeds of the farm? Let me see!"
She reached out a shaking hand for the papers.
"I'll pay you back!" she cried. "Why didn't you come sooner? How much can you get? How much money?"
"Not much more'n three thousan', I'm afeared, on a mortgage; cap'tal's kind o' skeery—but Tim—"
"Three thousand dollars!"
Laughing hysterically, she fell back in her chair.
"I had ought 'a come sooner; an' three thousan' ain't a gre't deal, I don't suppose, here in the city; but it's been spend, spend—not that I grutch it—an' things ain't so flourishin' as they was. I'm gittin' too old to manage, mebbe—"
"Mr. Winship," I said, "Nelly has told you the truth; she doesn't need money; she—"
"Three thousand will save me!" Helen cried. "I can pay a little to everybody. I can hold out, I can—"
"Please, Miss—the furniture—"
Behind Clesta appeared two men who gaped at Helen in momentary forgetfulness of their errand.
Helen's creditors have proved more than reasonable, with the exception of the furniture people; their demands were such that there seemed no alternative but to surrender the goods. As the men who came for them advanced into the room, stammering questions about the articles they were to remove, Helen struggled to her feet and started to meet them, then stopped, clutching at a table for support. Their eyes never left her face.
"Are they takin' your things, Sis?" asked Mr. Winship.
Her feverish glance answered him.
"What's to pay?" he inquired.
"Want to keep the stuff, Boss?" asked the head packer.
"Yes," I said, seeing her distress, and resolving desperately to find the means, somehow.
"It ain't none o' your look-out," interposed Mr. Winship. "Sis ain't a-goin' to be beholden to her husband, not till she's married. Ezry Winship al'ays has done for his own, an' he proposes to do, jes' as fur's he's able. Sis'll tell ye I hain't stented her—What's to pay?"
I couldn't see all his savings go for gauds!
"You may take the goods," I said to the men, with sudden revulsion of feeling. "There's no room for them," I added gruffly to Mr. Winship, "in our—the rooms—where we are to live."
"All right, Boss," said the head packer; "which gent speaks for the lady?"
"Father!" Helen gasped.
"What's to pay?" insisted Mr. Winship.
"Take the goods," I repeated.
"All right, Boss;" and the two men went about their work, still glancing at us with sidelong looks of curiosity.
Helen gazed at me with eyes that stabbed. Then slowly her glance dulled. She dropped on a packing box and sat silent—a bowed figure of despair—forgetting apparently that she was not alone.
Mr. Winship made no further attempt to interfere with events. He stood by Helen's side, puzzled and taciturn.
I, too, was silent, reproaching myself for the brutality of my action, unable to decide what I should have done or ought to do. Helen herself had suggested that we give up the furniture, and I had not mourned the necessity, for I hated the stuff, with its reminders of the General and the Whitney woman and Bellmer and the Earl and all those strange people that I used to see around her. But I might have known that she could not, all at once, wean herself from the trumpery.
A minute later Clesta ushered in the man who was to take the trunks, and when I had given him his directions, I asked:—
"Shall we go, Nelly?"
"If ye ain't reconciled to movin'—" Mr. Winship began.
But Helen answered neither of us. Her eyes were bent upon the floor, and a look, not now of resentment, but of—was it fear?—had slowly crept upon her face. Her hands were clenched.
Darmstetter! Instinct—or memory of my careless words spoken but a little earlier—told me the truth. The growing pallor of her cheek spoke her thought. How that tragedy haunts her! The face I looked upon was at the last almost ghastly.
"Nelly—" I said, very gently.
She looked around with the slow bewilderment that I once saw on the face of a sleep-walker. Her eyes saw through us, and past us, fixed upon some invisible horror. She was heedless of the familiar scene, the figures grouped about her. Then there came a sudden flush to her face, a quick recoil of terror; she shuddered as if waking from a nightmare.
"Why do we stay here?" she cried starting up with sudden, panic strength. "Let's get out of this horrible place! Let's go! Oh, let's go! Let's go!"
And so it was, in sorrow and with dark forebodings, that we left the gay rooms where Helen had so passionately enjoyed her little flight in the sunshine.
The drive through the streets was at first silent. Shutting her eyes, she leaned back in the carriage. Sometimes she shuddered convulsively.
"Where ye goin'?" Mr. Winship asked at last, peering out at the carriage window. Indeed the trip to Fourteenth Street seemed interminable to me, and I didn't wonder at his impatience.
The simple question broke down Helen's reserve.
"Anywhere!" she sobbed, breaking into violent, hysterical tears. "I didn't want to stay there! I didn't want the furniture! I didn't want it! I don't want money! Father, you needn't mortgage!"
"We'll talk 'bout that some other time," said Mr. Winship soothingly. "Nevermind now, Sissy."
"Ye'll take good care of Helen 'Lizy?" he said to Cadge and Kitty when we had half carried her up the long flights of stairs to the studio. He seemed to take no notice of the strange furnishings of the loft, but his furrowed brow smoothed itself as he looked into the hospitable faces of the two girls.
"Ye'll take good care of her?" he repeated simply. "I'm afeard my daughter ain't very well."
"We will; we will!" they assured him eagerly; and indeed it seemed that Helen had found her needed rest, for she bade us good night almost cheerfully.
CHAPTER II.
CADGE'S ASSIGNMENT.
"You say Winship is around at your place?" asked Judge Baker Friday morning. I had before told him about the approaching marriage. "The dear old boy! I am very glad."
"He wants to talk with you about a mortgage," I said bluntly. "Can you dissuade him? I think the situation in its main features is no secret to you."
The Judge frowned in surprise. "You don't mean that she—"
"Of course Helen has refused her father's offer. We have so arranged everything that no help from him is needed, but he may be rather obstinate, for I'm afraid she wrote to him, suggesting—I mean, she now regrets it," I added.
"Ah, those regrets! Those regrets!" He sat silent for a moment, thinking deeply. "That phase of an otherwise rosy situation is unfortunate. I will do my best with Winship, and you must explain to me your proposed arrangements; for I claim an uncle's privilege to be of use to Nelly, and she, with perhaps natural reticence, has acquainted me only partially with her affairs. I rejoice to hear that she now wishes to spare her father, but—you will pardon me, Burke?—she was hasty; she was hasty. It is easier to set forces of love or hate moving than to check them in motion. Sometimes I think, Burke, that people were in certain ways less reckless in the good old days when they had perpetually before their eyes the vision of a hair-trigger God, always cocked and ready to shoot if they crossed the line of duty. But Nelly is coming bravely through a severe test of character. May I offer you both my heartiest—"
It was just at that happy moment that the office boy announced Mr. Winship to share the Judge's kind wishes; and by good luck in came also Mrs. Baker, but a moment behind him.
"Why, Ezra!" she chirped in a flutter of amazed cordiality at sight of her husband's visitor. "You in New York? Why, for Nelly's wedding, of course! John Burke, why've you kept us in the dark these months and months? I'm—I'm really ashamed of you!"
Her plump gloved hands seized Mr. Winship's, while her small, swift, bird-like eyes looked reproach at me.
"Patience, Mrs. Baker; patience!" rejoined the Judge. "Is not an engaged man entitled to his secrets? Has it escaped your memory how, once upon a time, you and I—."
"There, now, Bake! Stop, can't you?" she interrupted with vehement good nature; and I ceased to intrude upon the three old friends.
That afternoon, when I sought Helen at the studio, I was more surprised than I should have been, and wonderfully relieved to discover the result of their conference.
Ignorant of any quarrel and overflowing with anxiety, Helen's father had unbosomed his anxieties about her health and accomplished what no diplomacy could have done. Mrs. Baker had flown with him to the studio, where, constrained by his presence, Helen had submitted to an incredible truce with her aunt.
"I told Tim'thy an' Frances we'd eat Sunday dinner with 'em," Mr. Winship told me; "an' they say you'n' Sis had ought to be married f'om their house. Good idee, seems to me, though Sis here don't take to it, somehow."
"Oh, I suppose I can endure Aunt Frank," said Helen, making savage dabs at Cadge's typewriter; "if you wish it—you and John."
She was making a great effort for her father's sake, and I could not exclaim against her chilly reception of the olive branch.
"It'll please Ma, w'en she comes to hear 'bout it; she thinks a sight of Frank Baker," urged Mr. Winship.
"'Fraid I'll have to tackle someb'dy else 'bout that money," he went on after a pause; "Tim'thy says he ain't got a cent loose, jest now. I did kind o' want to keep it quiet, keep it to the fambly like, but I can git it; I can git th' money; on'y it'll take time."
"Why, Father, I begged you not to try," said Helen impatiently. "I don't need money; ask John."
"W'at you've spent can't come on John," declared Mr. Winship; "I'll have to be inquirin' 'round. But I'm glad to see ye lookin' brighter'n you did yist'day, Sissy; Tim'thy's wife'll have an eye on ye. She's comin' here agin to-morrer, she says, to a weddin'. You didn't tell me 'bout any one gittin' married—not in sich a hurry, not to-morrer. W'ich gal is it?"
"Wouldn't think it was Cadge, would you?" laughed Kitty, staggering into the room under the weight of a big palm. "Next chum I have, it'll be in the contract that, in case of emergency, she helps run her own wedding. 'Course Helen's all right with me—or will be, once Caroline Bryant's disposed of."
In spite of the confusion of the wedding preparations, Helen did do credit to Kitty's nursing; and last evening, when there came the climax of all the bustle, she seemed stronger even than on Friday.
It was a night to remember!
The big Indians of the canvasses peeped grimly from ambushes of flowers and tall ferns, as the studio door opened and Kitty came running to meet me, her cheeks flushed and her curls in a hurricane.
"'Most time for the minister," she cried breathlessly, "and not a sign of Cadge! Not a sign! And I want to tell you—Helen's sorry we invited the General, but she won't come, so that's no matter; but the Bakers—do they like him?"
"Like the minister?"
"Like Ned Hynes?" panted Kitty. "When we asked 'em yesterday, I forgot, but he'll be here. Pros. and he belong to a downtown club—'At the Sign of the Skull and Crossbones'—or something—"
"Well?"
"Oh, it's all right, but I thought I'd tell you. If only Cadge'd come! That's what eating me!" Kitty groaned. "But do you see our Princess? All she needed was me to make her comfy. Shall I get you the least little bit of colour, out of a box, Helen? Or—no; you're too lovely. But come, you must have some roses."
As Helen joined us, very pale in her shimmering dress, with her hair like an aureole about her head, she looked a tall, white Grace, a swaying lily shining in the dusky place. Almost with the old reverence I whispered:—
"You are the most beautiful of woman!"
"Do I please you, Sir?" she said, smiling as she moved away again with Kitty. "Won't you see to Father? He's come without his necktie."
"Sho, Sis!" said Mr. Winship; "don't my beard hide it? Declare I clean forgot."
Soon Helen returned to pin a flower at my button-hole.
"Where can Cadge be?" she cried gaily; but her hands shook and she dropped the rose. "Do you suppose she's interviewing a lunatic asylum?"
What had changed her voice and burned fever spots in her cheeks? I wasn't so indifferent as I had seemed to Kitty's news. Had she told Helen, too, that Ned Hynes—what was he to my betrothed?
"Can't you rest somewhere and just show for the ceremony?" I said, "Nelly, you're not strong."
"There's not a place big enough for a mouse. But did you mean it? Do I really look well to-night? Am I just as beautiful as I was three-four months ago, or have I—"
"Oh, do slip out and 'phone the Star! I can feel my hair whitening," whispered Kitty, turning to me hastily, as a couple of women entered. "See, folks are beginning to come."
I went out into the warm and rainy night, but there was no Cadge at the Star office. By the time I had returned with this information, the eyry held a considerable gathering. Mrs. Baker had arrived, and her two daughters; but I had no time to wonder at Milly's coming, for behind me entered Mrs. Van Dam and then, among a group of strangers, I noticed Hynes.
Involuntarily, at sight of him, my eyes turned to Helen; but not a muscle of her face betrayed deeper feeling than polite pleasure as she helped Kitty receive the wedding guests, greeting the General cordially, Hynes with graciousness.
Kitty's welcome to Mrs. Van Dam would have been irresistibly funny, if I had had eyes to see the humour.
"Cadge promised to be home early," she sputtered, "but probably she's telling some one this minute: 'Oh, I'll be there in time; I don't need much—not much more than the programme.'
"Can't you guess where she is, Pros.?" she implored in an undertone, as her brother approached us. "If the minister gets here before Cadge does, I'll cut her off with a shilling."
"What an interesting place!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam, examining her surroundings through her quizzing glasses. "I've heard so much about your paintings, Miss Reid. And what an astonishing girl, this Miss Bryant! Where can she be? Helen, you sly girl, I hear news about you."
"Oh, very likely Miss Bryant is out of town," Reid answered for her with a quiet smile. "She'll show up after the paper goes to press, if not sooner."
"On her wedding day! The girl's a genius! And when may that be? When will the—ah—when will the paper go to press?"
"They take copy up to two o'clock for the second edition. But she maybe here at any moment."
The General stared at him with amazement.
"Oh, you don't know Cadge," sighed Kitty, "if you think she'd be jarred by her own wedding. But we must do something. Everybody's here and waiting. Sing, Helen, won't you? Oh, do sing."
Helen had not joined in the rapid conversation. Now she smiled assent with stately compliance. Undulating across the studio, she returned with a mandolin—not the one I remembered, but a pretty bit of workmanship in inlaid wood. Bending above this, she relieved the wait by merry, lilting tunes like the music of a bobolink, while Kitty fidgetted in and out, the puckers in her forehead every minute growing deeper.
While I listened to the gladsome music, my glance strayed to Milly, but she was almost hidden by the curtains of the tepee; and then to Ned, who sat with his face turned partly away from us. I noticed that he looked gaunt, and I found a bitter satisfaction in the thought that, perhaps, in Helen's "three-four months" he had not seen, until that night, either of the women with whose lives his own had been entangled.
"Just one more," begged Kitty, when Helen stopped. "You're my only hope; do sing, Helen."
Dropping the mandolin, Helen began without accompaniment "The King of Thule:"—
"'There stood the old carouser,
And drank the last life glow;
And hurled the hallowed goblet
Into the tide below.
"He saw it plunging and filling,
And sinking deep in the sea;
Then fell his eyelids forever,
And never more drank he!'"
It was the ballad she had sung at Christmas—in what different mood! Then her voice had been as carefree as a bird's carol, but now it lent to the limpid simplicity of the air a sobbing, shuddering sweetness—an almost weird intensity that strangely affected her listeners.
When she had finished, something like a gasp went through the room. With a heart-breaking coldness I felt that I was her only unmoved auditor, or—no; Ned seemed studying with weary disapproval the pattern of his shoes.
"Love and death; and at a wedding!" Mrs. Van Dam shivered. "Something more cheerful, Helen."
"Let's go—let's go and eat up Cadge's spread; that'd be cheerful," sniffed Kitty, her hot, nervous hand patting Helen's shoulder. "The Princess's tired. But we must do something."
"Eat the wedding supper before the wedding. Original, I must say!"
But the General willingly enough helped Kitty to marshal us into the crowded little dining-room; where Helen and I found ourselves beside Mr. Winship and Ethel. Her father accepted Helen's music with as little surprise as he had shown at her beauty.
"Comin' home pretty soon, ain't ye," he asked, "to give us some hymn tunes Sunday evenings? W'at'll I git for ye? Must be hungry after so much singing."
"I'm afraid I wasn't in voice to-night," said she rather wearily.
"Not in voice!" protested Ethel with shy enthusiasm; "why, Nelly, I never before heard even you sing like that; it was-it was-oh, it was wonderful!"
I dared not look at her, yet I saw every movement of the slight little figure—saw the blush of eagerness that mounted even to the blonde little curls about her forehead; and, retreating impatiently, I tried to follow Mr. Winship's example, as he waited on the company with a quaintly fine courtesy. Indeed, he made quite a conquest of the General, who presently, after chatting with him for some time with keen interest, asked abruptly:—
"Why haven't we had him here before? So interesting, such an original! Room here for you, Milly. Some salad, please, Mr. Hynes."
Hynes's pinched face took colour. With alacrity he obeyed the General's orders, fetching plates and glasses, and hovering about the group that included Milly and her mother, until Mrs. Baker's face began to wear a disturbed flush, though Milly's small, white features remained impassive.
I watched the little drama with dawning comprehension. Then Ned did not—Helen—it was really Ethel's sister with whom he longed to make peace, while I—Ethel—
Helen's voice roused me.
"Can't we go into the other room?" she asked. "I'm tired; can't we go and sit quietly together?"
With the fading of the glow and colour left by the music, she looked indeed tired, almost haggard. In spite of the regal self possession with which she rose, drawing Ethel with her, I knew in the face of Milly's triumph-yes, I had known before—why her restless spirit had spurred her on to such flights of folly; why she had—she brings no love to me; has she perhaps offered pity?
We turned together to the door, but there was a sound of hurrying feet, and Miss Bryant rushed before us, followed by a big bearded giant of a man.
"Forbear and eat no more till my necessities be served," she declaimed, advancing to the table. "Food has not passed my lips to-day; or—not much food."
"Cadge!" gasped Helen with a choking laugh, sinking again upon her chair.
Reid calmly extended a plate of salad to his betrothed, while Kitty groaned, scandalized:—
"You mustn't eat now! You mustn't! Where've you been? Look at the state you're in! Don't eat, Cadge; you must dress this minute!"
"Bridgeport," returned Miss Bryant, grinning benevolently on the wedding guests, her wet hair clinging about her face, her shirt waist dampened with the raindrops that trickled from her hatbrim. "Driving an antelope to a racing sulky. If I bear marks, y'ought to see the antelope; and the sulky! Seven column picture, Kitty; I've made a lay-out. You must get right at it—antelope kicking the atmosphere into small pieces—"
"Cadge," suggested Reid, mildly, "our train leaves at midnight."
"We'll make it; but this story must come out whether or not 'Mrs. Prosper K. Reid' does. Won't dress, but—say, just you show my wedding gown, Kitty; not for publication but as an evidence—more salad, Pros."
Kitty ran and brought a billowy mass of fleecy white stuff, and Cadge stood, devouring salad, over the dainty thing, gesticulating at it with her fork and explaining its beauties:—
"You can see for yourselves it's swell. Mrs. Edgar fitted me at the Star office, with furious mug-makers pounding on the door."
"With what?" gasped the General.
"Mug-makers; alleged artists; after an old photo. Anyhow, it's money in Mrs. Edgar's pocket. One of her biggest customers owes her a lot, she says, and she can't get a cent; needed cash to pay her rent; little boy ill, too. My, but I'm hungry! Can't I eat while I'm being married?"
I felt Helen start; I remembered that I had seen Mrs. Edgar's name among her bills. Poor girl!
And then the wedding; and the practical Cadge surprised us all.
All her soul was shining in her eyes as she said, "I will." She looked upon Pros. with the shy love of a girl who has loved but once. For a brief minute we saw the depth, the earnestness, the affection that in her seek so often the mask of frivolity, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than one tempest-tossed soul envied her peace, her love, her certitude.
The ceremony was short. The giant, who proved to be Big Tom, gave away the bride. As the couple rushed off for a brief honeymoon, the newly made Mrs. Reid—still with the shimmer of tears in her beautiful eyes—tried hard to resume her old manner.
"'Member, Kitty," she called back from the stairway in a voice that trembled, "you can't make that antelope cavort too lively. Brown'll send photographs in the morning."
Soon only Mr. Winship and I were left with Kitty and Helen and the painted Indians.
"What a Cadge!" said Helen languidly, as she walked with us to the door. "But she's the best girl in the world."
I believe she's pretty nearly right. I haven't always done Miss Bryant justice. My mind dwelt upon the lovely picture she had made of trust and happiness; and I wondered whether my own wife would show shining, happy eyes like hers when—In my restless dreams the vision of them lingered, grotesquely alternating with a swaying figure driving a shadowy antelope—a figure that was sometimes Helen's and sometimes little Ethel's—until I waked—
And thus began to-day—it has been the hardest day in a hard week.
It is three hours now, maybe, since we returned from Mrs. Baker's Sunday dinner. A love feast after a feud is trying, but Helen was brave. Mrs. Baker is too honest for diplomacy, and at first I watched Helen nervously, as she sat in the familiar library, a red spot in each cheek, pitting a quiet hauteur against the embarrassed chirpings of her aunt and Milly's sphynx-like silence.
But little by little the cordiality of the Judge and of his tactful sister, helped by Ethel's radiant delight and Mr. Winship's pleasure in the visit, gave another flavour to the dinner than that of the fatted calf, and warmed the atmosphere out of its chill reminiscence of the encounter with Hynes.
The children, too, were a resource, though for a minute Joy was a terror. Baker, junior, was offering me a kodak picture, when she came running up to look at it.
"You can have it," said Boy; "it's clearer than the one you liked the other day."
"Thath me!" cried Joy, with a fiendish hop and skip. "Me'n Efel on 'e thidewalk. Mither Burke, you like me'n Efel?"
"I like you very much."
"Efel too, or o'ny me? Mr. Burke, w'y you don't like Efel too?"
Like Ethel—the shy little wild flower! Like Ethel!
"Say, Mr. Burke," said Boy opportunely, "here's an envelope to put it in."
"W'at I like," Mr. Winship said, his frosty blue eyes twinkling with enjoyment, "is to see Sis here gittin' a good dose o' home folks; do her more good'n med'cine."
And almost he seemed right, for, as the minutes wore on, a brighter colour rose to Helen's cheeks, and the marvellous charm she knows so well how to use held us fascinated. She waged a war of jests with the Judge and fell back into her old caressing ways with Miss Baker. Ethel could scarcely contain her happiness, and even Milly showed signs of melting.
I brought Helen away as early as I could—as soon as we had completed plans for a quiet wedding next Wednesday.
"I hope you're proud of her, Ezra," declared Mrs. Baker as we took leave; "she told you she's refused a title? But there! All foreigners break their wives' hearts—Nelly's a sensible girl! You didn't expect, though, to find New York crazy over her?"
"Oh, I don't know; Helen 'Lizy's ma was a hansome girl; Sis here had ought to be satisfied if she wears a half as well."
"Come again thoon to thing to Joy," lisped the baby; "Joy loveth you tho muth."
Helen buried her face in the yellow curls, and when she turned away her eyes were wet.
I stayed at the studio only long enough to beg Kitty to see that her charge rests. Just as we were parting at the door, Helen turned full on me her great, lambent eyes.
"Do you love me?" she asked suddenly.
"Why, I loved you," I replied, "when you were a little freckled Nelly in pigtails."
And that, at least, is true! God help me to be kind to the most beautiful woman in the world!
CHAPTER III.
"P. P. C."
June 21, 19—.
Helen and I were to have been married just a year ago. To-day I have been going over her own story of her life—of her meeting with Darmstetter, of the blight he cast upon her, of her growth in loveliness, her brief fluttering in the sunshine, her failure, her supping with sorrow, her death.
I must bring to a close the record of this miracle.
This who was the most extraordinary woman that ever lived, was also little Nellie Winship. Again as I remember her as she was—a thing of such vital force that no man could be unmoved in her presence, of such supernal loveliness that words can never tell of it—again I feel that I must be in an ugly dream. But this bit of paper, blotted with tears and stained with wine and ashes, tells me that there was no mistake.
She had seemed in high spirits that Sunday at the Bakers', though she was tired when we returned to the studio. Mr. Winship and I made no stop. Pros. and Cadge were enjoying their brief honeymoon trip and so Kitty and Helen were left together.
Monday morning I went first to the rooms I had taken; Kitty was to be there later, arranging our little furniture. She was to live with us for a time and care for Nelly. But when I reached the office, there lay on my desk a telegram.
"Helen is ill; come," it read.
Cadge met me at the studio door, white-faced, strangely, silently gentle. From a tumbled heap among the cushions of the tepee came a voice like Kitty's, moaning. Cadge tried to speak, but could only point to the little bedroom.
There, in the straight white dress she wore at the wedding, Helen lay, as if sleeping, upon a couch. Floods of shining hair fell about her shoulders. In the white dignity of death her face was marvellous. All trace of stress and strain had left it, replaced by an enigmatic calm. She looked not merely beautiful, but Beauty's self vouchsafed to mortal eyes.
I do not know how long I gazed. Vaguely, between Kitty's sobs, I heard the ticking of a watch.
"For another woman of such loveliness," at length said a reverent voice behind me, "we must wait the final evolution of humanity."
Dr. Upton, one of Reid's friends whom I had seen at the wedding, had reached the house before me. He had been examining a glass, a spoon and some other objects so quietly that I had not heard. He said that Helen had been dead some hours.
Mechanically I listened, but it was not until afterward that I understood the full purport of his speech or of Kitty's story of the night and morning. Their words reached me as if spoken from some great distance by the people who live in dreams.
Kitty had come to us; she stood in the doorway, white and shaking.
"Helen—Helen's head ached," she sobbed, "and she begged me to brush her hair, but when I began, she said it hurt, and told me to stop; then she fell to writing. I coaxed her to come to bed, for I thought she was ill; but she called me 'Kathryn' and then I knew I couldn't manage her. Oh, I was wicked, wicked; but I was afraid of her, always—you know. So I—oh, how could I?—I fixed a screen against the light and lay down, meaning to try again in a few minutes; but the instant my head touched the pillow I must have dropped asleep. The last thing I said was: 'Shall I tell Morphy you're coming?' I was so tired that I don't know whether she answered. And this morning—oh, I can't believe it; Oh, Helen, Helen!"
"And this morning?" prompted Dr. Upton.
"This morning when—when I waked and saw her on the couch, I wondered why she hadn't come to bed; but I dropped a shawl over her and tiptoed out. It wasn't until half-past eight that I tried—oh, I can't! I can't! Don't ask me!"
Kitty's voice was lost in hysterical chokings.
Dr. Upton handed me Helen's visiting card. Below the name was scrawled: "P. P. C."
"It was found pinned to Miss Reid's bedspread," he said; "is that Miss Winship's handwriting?"
"Yes," I answered. The shaky letters were unrecognisable.
"Don't you see! To say farewell," wailed Kitty. "She's done it a hundred times when she started for school before I was up. Barnard is so far. Oh, I can't bear it! How could you, Helen?"
"Don't, Kitty," said Cadge, drawing her from the room.
The doctor motioned me to a table behind the screen of which Kitty had spoken. There Helen had sat, there lay her writing case, the key sealed in an envelope addressed to me. Picking up a slip of paper torn from a letter pad, he asked:—
"Is this also Miss Winship's writing?"
He held it out to me and I read the single line:—
"Don't tell Father."
Dazed, half-comprehending, I repeated: "Yes."
Upton had found nothing else, except Helen's watch, open beside the writing case, and a glass that still held a little sherry. At this he looked with sombre intelligence and set it carefully aside.
Nothing in the room had been disturbed. Helen's chair had the look of having been pushed from the table as she rose but a minute before. Near it on an easel stood the Van Nostrand picture, smiling—smiling, as if it had seen no tragedy. On the floor was a little ash as of charred paper.
In a few minutes Mrs. Reid and Kitty returned with Mr. Winship. Through the fog that enveloped me I saw with dull curiosity that they had told him something that he didn't understand.
He could not believe Helen dead, but knelt by her side and coaxed her to wake, rubbing her fair, slender hands between his leathery palms and calling her by every pet name of her childhood.
"It's on'y your ol' Dad, Sis," he crooned. "Jes' come to fetch ye t' yer Ma; that's all. I know yer tired—plum tired out; but Ma 'n' me'll take care on ye." It was pitiful to hear him.
He desisted at last and looked back at us with a mien of anger.
"Do suthin', some o' ye," he snarled, "'stid o' standin' round like gumps! Speak to me, Poppet; tell yer ol' Pap w'at ails ye. Fetch some hot water, you gals! Ain't ye got no sense? Rub her feet; an' her hands. Speak to me, Sissy—why don't ye?"
As the truth slowly won over him, he straightened himself, one hand still clasping Helen's cold one.
"It's sudden; sudden," he said. "Doctor, w'at ailed my little Nelly?"
Still numbly inquisitive, I waited. The old man couldn't see the truth, the horrible truth. What would the doctor say?
It was Cadge's voice that broke the silence; gentle, assured, yet with a note almost of defiance.
"We think—in fact, Helen overstudied," she said. "We've been much worried about her."
Dr. Upton turned abruptly. Cadge's irregular, mobile face for once was still, its quiet demand bent full upon him. His answering look refused her, but the effort was obvious with which he spoke to the broken man waiting his verdict.
"Miss Winship—your daughter—" he began.
The words died. Cadge's steady black eyes controlled him.
"Wa-al?"
The doctor bowed his head over Helen. I was listening again to her watch that ticked insistently. "Don't tell Father! Don't tell Father!" it said over and over, over and over, louder and louder, until the words echoed from every corner of the room.
They must hear! That was why she had left it!
"I ast ye w'at ailed my little girl."
"Cardiac asthenia—heart failure," said Dr. Upton, abruptly.
Kitty threw herself upon Cadge, kissing her convulsively, while Mr. Winship persisted:—
"Sis was first-rate yist'day; w'at fetched the attack on?"
As gently as Cadge herself, Dr. Upton answered:—
"Mr. Winship, your daughter wasn't so strong as she seemed. There was much in her condition to cause anxiety. I'll be back in an hour," he added, moving hastily, as Reid entered, toward the door.
Could I let him shoulder the responsibility of concealment? And if I refused? Publicity—an inquest? At last I was alive to the situation; in silent gratitude I wrung Upton's hand, but he took no notice of me. As he passed Reid he growled:—
"Your wife's a good woman to tie to, Pros. She's all right. Lucky she was telegraphed for."
Cadge had begun to talk in low tones to Mr. Winship. He did not seem to listen, but the quiet voice soothed him. Gradually his gray, set features relaxed, though he would not submit to be led from the bedside.
"Ma was right," he said at last, broken and querulous. "We'd never ought to have let her come to the city. Ye say she'll be famous? Sissy, my poor little Poppet, w'at good to ye is fame; w'at good is all your studyin'?"
* * * * *
I did not open Helen's writing case for weeks; not until after my return from the dreary journey West with Mr. Winship.
Stunned by the shock of her death, bearing not only my grief but the knowledge that her father and mother must hold me in part responsible for her fatal coming to New York, I could not face the secret of her choice of death rather than marriage with me.
It was a hot July night when I turned the key that guarded the secret.
I found the story of the Bacillus, the curse that killed Darmstetter, that killed Helen. With it was a letter that I have read a thousand times—this letter that I am now reading. The scent of roses still breathes from it. On the last page there are splashes of wine.
This is what it says:—
JOHN: I cannot bear it. Prof. Darmstetter gave me death when he gave me beauty.
I am not a coward; but what is left? I am tired, wretched; there is no place for me.
The Bacillus has defeated every wish it has aroused. It has refused me love, ambition, honest work. From men it has compelled fear; from women hate; it has cut me off from my kind.
You saw Ned smiling into Milly's pale eyes. I should not have cared, I who was to marry you, but—I love him; you know it—you have known it since my heart broke, since I tore it out and swore to reign, to dazzle, to be Queen of the world.
You know what came of my ambitions. The world treated my beauty as a menace; it struck me down. Then I asked to earn my bread; but without you I might have starved. You were my refuge—and you—you love a cripple!
Why didn't I guess? I would have been glad, for Ethel is a dear child, and I had given you sorrow enough. I did not love you; I do not think I have pretended to love you. But can no man help seeming to care for me—help caring while he is with me? Ned told me he did not love; but you, you I trusted; you would have married me, not letting me know—
Ethel limps, she is plain. Plain as I was when you adored my ugly face, my freckles. Does beauty kill love, or do men see beauty only where they love? Little brown partridges, little brown partridges—
The Bacillus is a cheat; every woman to her lover is the most beautiful!
Ethel's good. You would have found me conspicuous, an annoyance among people who shrink from the extraordinary. I have been fond of Ethel.
I was marrying you to get my debts paid—you knew that—but there was more. You must believe—you know there was more. I thought you loved me. Was that strange? How many times have you spoken to me of love? I wanted to show my gratitude, to make you happy, since happiness was not for me. I would have tried; I would have buried my own misery; buried everything but the sense of your goodness. I would have given you the co-operation of a clever woman. I would have given you the affection you know I have always felt. I would have worked, planned, compelled success for you.
But that's over. Ethel is a dear child. I will not stand between you and Ethel.
Don't pity me. I need no pity. I would endure yesterday and to-day a thousand times for the sake of the first hour of my beauty. Would I change now to be like Ethel, to be white putty like Milly—to have your love, or Ned's? Beauty—I can die with it sooner than drown it in tears.
Don't tell Father. He will suffer; but less than if I went home to eat my heart out in repinings, to grow old and ugly, cursing the world. I have lived too long. I am already less beautiful.
If I could destroy the secret! Death, leaving that behind, is crucifixion. But I was the first, I was the first! That dead face so gray and old—"Delilah!" it mows at me. I keep my promise! I haven't robbed you, you shall have your fame! I, too, I shall never be forgotten!
John, take the secret. Keep my word for me. If you doubt the discovery, try it on an enemy. If you think my sorrow could have been avoided, offer the Bacillus as a wedding gift to—.
Give Milly, who has Ned's love, my beauty? Would it turn him from her? If I thought it—But even for that, there shall be no other! It shall go first. Forever and forever my name, my face,—
"Delilah!" It grins, it gibbers. Wait for no tests. Print quick! To-morrow, to-day—it's almost day. Give him what he wants, John—"Delilah!"
Why do you come back, dead face, dead eyes? Haven't I promised? You shall have print, type, a million circulation! Go away, you're dead! What's fame to youth, health, life? It's you who rob and kill. I won't look—I won't! If I wake Kitty, could she help? I won't look, I'm going mad!
Gone! I must hurry. He might come back. Shall I leave the secret? It's life for life, we're even. If beauty were cheap, who'd care for it? It's death to be first, but afterwards—nothing! If I burned it—but no—I promised—.
Why not?
"Delilah!" Your health, dead eyes! I haf put t'e bacillus of perfect vine into t'e new grape juice, and I svear it's—Prosit, dead eyes!—here's a P.P.C.; quickest goodby—Poor Kitty! You'll be sorry for the most beautiful woman in the—
The Bacillus of Beauty has had its victim.
Why do I keep the wine-splashed, rose-breathing letter? Why read over and over the fragments of Helen's journal? Better remember my little school-mate as she was before the poison stung her. Might she, with time and contact with life, have reacted against the virus, or must such loveliness be fatal to what is best in woman? Who can answer? Helen is dead, Darmstetter is dead, and the Bacillus—
The Bacillus shall have no other victim.
We who were near to Helen have been slow to recover from the shock and the bitterness of her death. Her father and mother have nothing to hold them to life; they are uprooted. Ned has grieved for her with bitter self-reproach, though he is happy with Milly. Ethel and I—
But to-night I can think only of Helen.
THE END.