CHAPTER XV.—THE RETURN HOME.
And with a fixed eye scann’d
Her father’s face.
He gaz’d on her, and she on him; ‘twas strange
How like they looked! the expression was the same—
Serenely savage, with a little change
In the large dark eye’s mutual darted flame:
For she, too, was as one who could avenge—
If cause should be—a lioness though tame.
Her father’s blood, before her father’s face
Boil’d up, and prov’d her truly of his race.
—Byron.
A child was born.
In sobbing anguish, in cowering shame, in comparative privation, a little weeping, helpless, weak boy was ushered into life.
Oh! had that proud woman, the parent of the young mother, been present in that close chamber, where lay fainting the “flower of her flock,” her heartless pride must have received a blow which could scarcely have failed to prove beneficial to her humanity! It must surely have roused up some of those better feelings of womanly nature, of which none of the sex are wholly divested, unless they are lost indeed.
Upon a poorly furnished but clean bed lay stretched Helen Grahame, attended only by her ministering angel, Lotte Clinton.
The sudden and wholly unexpected interview with Lester Vane, the subsequent flight, with all its attendant anxieties, and apprehensions, and fatigues, all combined to do their work upon her weak frame.
At the expiration of three weeks, she was, however, so far recovered as to move about again; while Lotte was ill enough—although she would not acknowledge so much—to take her place in the bed Helen had quitted.
She had been Helen’s gentle nurse; and had attended her with patient, unwearying assiduity.
It was during this period that Helen’s little store of money was, for the first time, broken in upon.. Before the birth of the child, Lotte had been enabled to earn enough to support both—but to save nothing. When the time came that her whole attention was absorbed by Helen’s helpless prostration, her labours with her needle were necessarily stopped; but now that Helen had strength to get about again, and the money-hoard was growing very low, it became necessary that she should once more return to her close application in the task of bread-winning.
Was there not another claim, too, now upon her exertion? The little healthy, bright-eyed boy—of whom, unconsciously, she grew so fond, and who was caressed and fondled by its young mother with such passionate devotion that she had no eyes or thought for aught else—seemed to call upon her to redouble her efforts, that he might be spared the fatal consequences of wasting privation.
One night she quietly explained to Helen their position and the necessity there would be for her to again apply to the persons who had last employed her, to furnish her with work.
“I will be careful,” she said, “to avoid the chances of our residence being discovered; but we are not fairies, you know, Helen—we must eat and drink, and pay our way.”
Helen turned her large, dark, eyes upon her face, and fixed them there; she did not reply, for she had made a discovery.
“I shall be sure to obtain as much as I can do,” continued Lotte, thoughtfully, “enough, I am convinced, by sitting close to my work, to support us all, comfortably. You can devote your time to dear little Hugh, so as to keep him smiling and well, and I can do the rest—all the rest.”
The child was sleeping, and previous to Lotte’s commencement of the conversation, Helen was sitting abstracted in deep reflection upon the past. From this she was roused by Lotte’s remarks, and now she sat and gazed in painful wonder upon her face.
It was pinched, haggard and wan; it was as different from that round, sweet, pleasant countenance, she had looked upon with a satisfied assurance that its owner was entitled to her fullest confidence, when first alone with her in her own neat little chamber, as could be conceived.
Lotte’s once well-rounded form was wasted, too; her dress sat loosely upon her, and her white hands looked long and bony.
The words she uttered rang in Helen’s ears. “By sitting close to my work, I can support us all comfortably.” She, weak, wasted, and ill, to devote herself to such a task!
The whole of Lotte’s past services and exertions, and her own unconscious selfishness, suddenly flashed through Helen’s brain. She now arrived at a more clear and complete appreciation of what Lotte had really done for her, what she had sacrificed and what she had suffered.
Then came the question as to motive.
Helen rapidly retraced the events of her past acquaintance with her young companion, and endeavoured in such prospects of the future as might have presented themselves to her, to find an incentive for such tender devotion as she had evinced towards her, from first to last; but she could discover nothing which detracted from her pure womanly sympathy, her unselfish disinterestedness.
How Helen’s heart warmed to her, as she reached the only conclusion it was possible to form.
And Lotte looked so attenuated, so strengthless, so much as though she had overtaxed her powers, and was gradually sinking into the arms of death, that, as Helen gazed upon her, her eyes filled with tears, which shut her out from her sight.
Then she rose up, and moved towards her hastily; she flung her arms about her, and wept passionately upon her neck; making Lotte both surprised and alarmed.
“What have I said?” she ejaculated, quickly; “oh! nothing I hope to pain you, Helen.”
Helen drove back her tears. She raised up her head, seized Lotte’s hands, and kissed them ardently.
“I am pained, dearest Lotte,” she exclaimed, with quivering earnestness, but striving to speak collectedly, “because now I see that while you have been my constant, generous disinterested friend; faithful, self-sacrificing, and unwearied in your kind, very kind services to me, I have been altogether selfish, exacting and inconsiderate——”
“Nay, do not say so,” interposed Lotte.
“My sweet friend, who can judge so well as I?” continued Helen. “What am I to you that you should have done all this for me?”
“I have told you,”—again interrupted Lotte, but Helen would not let her finish.
“Let me speak, Lotte, darling,” she exclaimed; “it is all unnecessary for you to say one word; you cannot weaken the fullness of my conviction nor deter me from a purpose I have determined upon executing. I shall not tell you what that purpose is, beyond that it embraces nothing your pure nature would shrink from. I am resolved to act now. Hitherto, you have done all. I shall do my part in future; it is time. How often, Lotte dear, have I not quietly submitted to your counsel, and acted as you have wished. Henceforward for a time, at least, you must obey me. You must submit for a few days not to think of needlework, but to lay quiet and still in bed, and let me wait upon you.”
“I could not—oh, I could not!” murmured Lotte, touched by this acknowledgment.
But Helen kissed her and silenced her and would not hear her objections, and threatened to do all kind of desperate things unless she assented to her request. Lotte, alternately coaxed and menaced, obeyed, though she was restive and uncomfortable under the knowledge that their store was growing hourly less, while Helen had really no notion of the value of money or its want.
Unable to remain long in bed under such circumstances, Lotte struggled through two days; on the third, she persisted in getting up, declaring she was quite strong, and fit now to undertake anything.
The rest had certainly done her previously exhausted frame good, and Helen could not help perceiving its effects upon her face, and her manner, so she made no great objection to her rising; but that same evening, about six o’clock, she startled Lotte by appearing before her, dressed as when first they met in Hyde Park.
Lotte was dancing the infant in her arms. Helen took it abruptly from her, kissed it passionately many times, and then placed it again in Lotte’s arms.
The latter, overwhelmed with surprise, exclaimed, in a tone of the greatest astonishment—
“Where are you going, Helen? In Heaven’s name, do not be guilty of any rash or unadvised step. Oh! I should break my heart if, out of any mistaken feeling of commiseration or tenderness for me, you should come to harm!”
“Do not fear for me, dear, dear Lotte,” returned Helen, earnestly. “The worst that could have fallen upon me has come to pass, and fate will not persecute me further. I shall return to you and my poor cherub there very soon, be assured.”
“But in pity tell me whither you are going?” cried Lotte, in tears. She had some frightful forebodings.
“To my father’s house!” cried Helen, with a bright eye, and compressed lip.
Before Lotte could recover from the bewilderment into which this announcement flung her, she heard the outer door slam sharply, and she knew that Helen was on her way to fulfil her purpose.
She pressed the little babe to her bosom, and sat down to think about her position, her brother, and, perhaps, Mark Wilton.
While these thoughts were yet passing through Lotte’s brain, Helen Grahame stood before the house from which, in such shame and anguish, she had fled.
She grew sick and faint, and, for a moment, her strength and courage failed her; but she remembered her little child and Lotte’s wan face and thin figure; then her arm was nerved, and she knocked boldly, as of old, at the door.
The porter opened it, but, when he saw who it was who claimed admission, he drew back with an exclamation of surprise. Helen heeded it not, nor did she utter a word to him, but passed through the hall with a proud air, as she had been wont to display when at home, and no shadow rested upon her fair name. As she ascended the staircase, she encountered Whelks, who, upon thus suddenly coming face to face with her, all but fainted. Her step, dignified as it was, made scarcely a sound, and her face, so white and delicate, convinced him that he was confronted by Helen’s apparition.
She fastened her brilliant black eye upon him, and haughtily inquired where the family were.
“In the dinin’ room, Miss,” he gasped.
“At dinner?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss,” he replied, not yet certain that he was not holding converse with a real ghost. “They are all at dinner.”
“My maid, Chayter—where is she?” demanded Helen, in the same imperious tone.
“She ’ave left, Miss,” responded Whelks, with a gulp. “She ’ave gone directly after you—some time ago, Miss.” He knew not how to express himself in his excitement.
“And Miss Evangeline’s maid?” exclaimed Helen, in a tone of inquiry.
“Oh, her, Miss; she—she are in Miss Evangeline’s room, Miss, upstairs.”
“Enough,” returned Helen, in the same cold, haughty voice, and added, sternly—“Mention not my arrival to any one. I will announce myself.”
She passed him, and proceeded direct to her sister’s room.
Within it was seated the young maid who attended Evangeline. She had taken the opportunity, while the family were at dinner, to place herself very close to the light of a lamp and read over—slowly and earnestly—a letter addressed to her by one George Jenkins, wherein he had made statements which made her eyes glitter, and her lips to pucker into a small circle. She laid her letter in her lap to revel in one enchanting sentence, when she became conscious of the presence of some one in the room standing in front of her.
With a slight scream she leaped up, and, crumpling her letter in her hand, crammed it into her pocket, and, with scarlet face and trembling limbs, saw that the eldest Miss Grahame, or her wraith, stood before her.
She was about to make a very lively demonstration, but Helen checked her.
“Be not alarmed,” she said, hastily; “make no noise; do as I direct you, for I shall need your assistance.”
“You are really and truly Miss Grahame come home again?” asked the girl, her eyes almost starting out of their sockets.
Helen almost smiled as she answered in the affirmative, for the features of the inquirer betrayed so singular an expression.
The girl clapped her hands.
“Oh, how happy you will make Miss Eva!” she exclaimed; “she has done nothing but weep and sigh for you since you have been away.”
Helen felt a rush of tears to her eyes, but she made no remark in answer to this observation; she however put some questions to the girl respecting her own room, and finding that it remained precisely as she left it, she went to it, followed by the maid.
In a desk belonging to her—and which in her illness she had hidden, for it contained many of Hugh’s letters—was a store of money, sums the balances of many quarters’ allowances, hoarded under the impression that one day they would collectively be sufficient to buy some coveted jewelled trinket which would exceed in price an amount her father would be likely to approach in the purchase of a gift for her. The gold was needed for a very different purpose now.
She discovered the desk precisely as she had left it, and she made herself at once mistress of what she came to obtain. She went to her wardrobe. Her dresses hung there as she had left them, and after surveying them for a minute, she turned to Evangeline’s maid, and said abruptly—
“Assist me to dress.”
Having selected her most elegant and becoming apparel, she proceeded to make her toilet, and quickly appeared in full evening dress. When the girl had almost completed attiring her, Helen said to her—
“Ascertain whether dinner is over, but not a word that I am here.”
The girl, with an air of mystery stamped on her features, proceeded on tip-toe to the dining-room, and having conferred with the butler, returned, and said—
“Dessert is on the table, Miss.”
“That is well,” muttered Helen, “I will face them now.”
There was a strange expression upon her features. There was no humility: her eye, her brow, her lips were all defiant. Having obtained what she came for, her object in facing her relatives was not altogether clear, even to herself. It was an impulse she could not resist. She knew how little real affection she had experienced from her parents and her sister Margaret; they were all too proud to be fond, and she could not endure the sting of their accusing thoughts or remarks. She had no intention to let them know the truth even now, but at the same time, she wished them to feel that she had acted in a spirit of independent self-will, and that her course in future would be governed by the same influence.
She remembered what she had written in the note she had left behind upon her dressing table, addressed to her mother, when she fled. Its contents she determined to make the ground-work of her action.
It happened that Mr. Grahame had guests that day. There were two very high, very proud, very rich members of the aristocracy, a kinsman of his wife’s, from the north, infinitely more proud than rich, and the young Duke of St. Allborne, who had recently exhibited symptoms of being entangled in the meshes which Margaret Grahame had, with cold calculation and no mean skill, contrived to wind about him.
Helen, perhaps, would have shrunk from encountering this assemblage, had she known that her relatives were not dining en famille. It had not occurred to her to put the question, and she proceeded to the dining-room, expecting only to meet her parents, her brother, and her sisters.
The conversation at the table, when she entered the dining-room, was as animated and lively as might be expected. Mr. Grahame was endeavouring to forget that he stood upon a volcano, which roared, and seethed, and bubbled beneath his feet. He was engaged discussing a political question with his two aristocratic friends. Mrs. Grahame was occupied with her kinsman, and Margaret exclusively with the Duke, alternately flattering him and deferring with the profoundest attention and deference to his observations, so that he felt quite sure that if she did not possess the beauty of many he had seen, she had wonderful discrimination. Malcolm was silently drinking to Lotte, pledging her mentally every time the bottle came round, and Evangeline, still and retiring as ever, was thinking about her sister Helen, and perhaps the young pleasant-faced gentleman, who had lost a sister, too.
The door flew open widely.
“Miss Grahame!” shouted the butler, with extended orbs and inflated nostrils.
Helen, full dressed, pale as marble, but stately as a queen, walked up the room to an unoccupied seat upon the right hand of her mother. She made a slight inclination of her head to those present, and then seated herself, with a self-possession, considering the events which had happened, quite startling.
“Miss Grahame!” was involuntarily repeated by every one present, and naturally all eyes rested upon her.
A strange and, as it were, a solemn stillness followed her appearance.
Her face was so white, so transparent and colourless; her eyes shone with such unearthly brilliancy; her hair lay so black and glossy upon her brow, contrasting powerfully with her snowy temples; she sat so erect, and gazed around her with so haughty and defiant a mien—that if not deemed a phantom by those who were strangers to her, they, at least, suspected that she had risen from a bed of sickness; and, in a fit of temporary derangement, had decked herself out in ball attire and presented herself, thus suddenly and unexpectedly, before them.
The eyes of the guests next sought the face of Mr. Grahame, to learn what effect this apparition had upon him. .
His face had become as white as that of his own child.
He could have screamed with horror when he saw her bend her full dark eye on his, and slowly and calmly seat herself before him.
A thousand thoughts passed through his already tortured mind. Whither had she been?—whence had she come?—and in that dread interval what had happened? How had she come back?—and for why did she now appear, and thus?
She was his own child—there could be no doubt about that; but oh! so changed, so dreadfully changed—a spectral shadow only of her former self was she now!
What was he to do? What could he do? He dare not, for very pride sake, hazard a scene. But how receive her? what could he say? She anticipated him.
In a firm, clear voice, she exclaimed, addressing herself to him—
“I was unaware that you were honoured with the presence of guests, sir, or I should have not joined the circle until you assembled in the drawing-room. I hope they and you will accept my apologies for presenting myself here, either too soon or too late.”
“For coming here at all,” thought Grahame, with an inward groan.
Mrs. Grahame seemed to contract—to shrivel into a thin, old woman—while Margaret let her eyes close, and her brow fall. She sealed her lips, too, and sat like a granite figure, and became almost of the same hue.
Malcolm looked at his sister, and drank another glass of port.
“It appears to me,” he thought, “that by-and-bye there will be a serious disturbance in this house.”
Of all, Evangeline alone recognised her sister as her sister. Retiring by nature, she may have been, but she was bold in this. She rose from her seat, and passing with more display than she was in the habit of making behind those who sat between her and Helen, she heeded not her father’s stern look or her mother’s stony aspect, but she caught her sister’s hands, and pressed them. She bent over, and kissed her cold, cold forehead.
“Welcome home, Helen, dearest!” she said with passionate tenderness; but there her speech left her, and tears thronged into her eyes.
Helen could not now articulate a word, if her life had depended on it. She squeezed Evangeline’s hands, and oh! how she longed to kiss her, but she felt she dare not.
At a glance from Helen, Eva resumed her seat.
The little incident of which Evangeline had been the heroine seemed to assure the guests that they had surmised wrongly, and the two aristocrats at once bent over to Mr. Grahame, and requested, to his dismay, to be introduced to his eldest daughter.
The Duke of St. Allborne sprang to his feet, and cried, with some vivacity—
“Pawmit me, Lindsay and Elsingham, to have that honaw. I have had the vewy gweat playshaw of enjoying the agweeable society of Miss Gwahame on vawious occasions, always with incweasing delight; and in dwawing you together, I feel convinced I shall be confawing on you both a happiness of which at pwesent you have no notion.”
But Mr. Grahame, in a voice scarcely articulate, thanked him, declined his services, and took the office upon himself. He went through the ceremony of introduction with frigid formality, and Helen supported it with a grace and dignity which elevated her in the estimation of the gentlemen to whom she was introduced, although they had yet a misgiving respecting her, from the continued cold silence towards her of every member of her family, save Evangeline.
The Duke began to engage her in conversation, made some remarks respecting the delicate health her appearance betrayed, and was in full career to forget Margaret entirely in his increasing admiration of Helen’s beauty, when once more the door of the room was flung wide, and the butler announced, “The Honorable Lester Vane.”
Helen set her teeth together hard; she drew her form proudly erect, and sat more like a queen than ever.
“Youaw man should have announced the ‘late Honawable Lestaw Vane,’ I think, Gwahame,” exclaimed the young Duke, with a slight laugh.
“I beg your pardon, my lord duke,” returned Vane, calmly, suffering his gaze to wander slowly round the table; “Mr. Grahame was conscious that I should be unable to join until this hour, and kindly consented to waive——”
His eye fell upon Helen Grahame, and he paused.
His face betrayed an aspect of intense amazement; then his eye ran rapidly round upon the countenances of all there. Another instant, and he had recovered his self-possession. He went on speaking.
“To waive the usual observances in my favour, and admit me at any hour I might be able to reach here.”
A few words of vapid nothings, and Lester seated himself before his wine, that he might more quietly and coolly examine the vision before him, and learn, if possible, the cause of her being here, where, after his interview with her at the humble lodgings, he least of all expected to meet her.
He had been soundly thrashed by Bantom; but, though he was confined for a week to his chamber, he had got over it; without, however, as yet discovering the individual who had subjected him to the outrage.
Once his eyes and Helen’s met; but there was an expression in her bright orbs which he could not bear unmoved, and he looked away from her.
Suddenly Mrs. Grahame rose from her seat, and prepared to quit the room. The gentlemen rose up too.
The mother seemed to shrink and totter as she passed the child, at whom only she had looked once since she entered, but to whom she had not uttered a word. Margaret would have haughtily, though hastily, followed her, but that Helen, with an imperial bearing, stood before her, and compelled her to halt while she took her place, as the eldest daughter, next to her mother.
The incident was but momentary, and might have been considered accidental, but for the decisive action and even grand bearing of Helen, whiter still from the insult her sister Margaret would have publicly forced upon her. Every one observed it, and the sympathy of the guests at least was with her.
They passed out of the room. Mrs. Grahame hurrying to her own chamber, and fastening herself within, as if in fear that Helen should seek her there. Margaret copied her example, but Helen went only where she wished to go—to Evangeline’s room—to have a few loving words with her youngest sister, before she took her leave of her home for ever.
She had attained her object—if any she had—and she intended to leave as abruptly as she had entered, caring not to see one of her relatives, save Evangeline, more.
When the door closed, one of the distinguished guests, a peer and a bachelor, known to be enormously wealthy, turned to his half distracted host and said—
“Grahame, your eldest daughter is the most lovely woman I ever beheld; she has the dignity of an empress and the form of a goddess; Cleopatra herself could not have been more grandly beautiful.”
Mr. Grahame bowed, distressed beyond measure. He knew not how to answer.
“Gentlemen,” the peer added, addressing the guests, “pray honour my toast with bumpers—Miss Grahame!” He drained his glass to the dregs, so did all but Grahame. The wine tasted like molten lead in his mouth; he put down his glass scarcely touched.
“Upon my life,” exclaimed the young Duke, with his vacant laugh—“I do believe you aw smitten with Miss Gwahame’s chawms, Elsingham.”
“I accept your tribute to my taste,” he answered, with a seriousness of tone, which there was no mistaking; “a man honoured with the hand of one so beautiful ought to wish for no greater exaltation on earth. Were Miss Grahame heart-free, and would she condescend to turn her eyes upon one who would offer her a waning life’s devotion, I think, upon my faith, your Grace would have good reason to find your suggestion not very wide of the truth.”
The Duke laughed loudly, and was echoed by one or two others. Lester Vane sat grimly silent; so did Grahame. The latter suddenly rose up, and bade his son Malcolm do the honours of the table for him, during a short absence.
He had caught at a straw. He had been long drowning, and everything resembling a straw, approaching the vortex in which he was slowly and surely revolving, he clutched at.
His daughter Helen might yet be a peeress, the idol of a nobleman of vast wealth. She might now be the means of plucking him from destruction, even while the destroying waters were bubbling on his lips.
Helen and Evangeline had but interchanged a few hurried words, when their father suddenly stood before them.
They both rose.
“Helen,” he exclaimed, sternly and coldly, “attend me to my library.”
Not a word more. He made a gesture which was so imperious in character, that she could not but involuntarily obey it, and she went in the direction in which he pointed.
He followed her, and when they were within the room, he locked the door. Evangeline crept after them. She stood at the library door in silence but in tears.