CHAPTER V.
For Georgy was coming next day, and in spite of my unhappiness on Helen's account I woke up the following morning with my pulses all astir with joy. It would be something for me to have her here, away from her mother, who always frowned upon me—away from Jack, whose claim upon her time and attention made mine appear presumptuous and intrusive—away from Harry Dart, with his teasing jokes, his wholesale contempt for any weakness or romantic feeling. I had never declared to myself that I was in love with Georgina, nor had I formed my wishes to my own heart in distinct thoughts. Still, young although I was, I should hardly dare to write down here how far above every other idea and object on earth Georgina appeared to me. I never thought of her then, I never looked upon her, without the blood thickening around my heart as if I stood face to[page 206] face with Fate: my every impulse toward the future was blended with my desire to be something to her. I had not dared to dream then that she could be anything to me.
Before I was out of bed that morning, Frederick, Mr. Raymond's valet, came to me with the request that I should go to his master's room before I went down stairs. It was in the wing, and the third chamber of a handsome suite comprising study, dressing-room and bedroom. It was hung and curtained with red; a wood-fire was burning on the hearth; the chairs were covered with red; even the silken coverlet of the bed was red, and the only place where living, brilliant color was not seemed to be the pale shrunken face on the pillow, a little paler and more delicate than usual: the hands, too, clutching each other on the red blanket, had a look of languor and waste.
"Good-morning, Floyd," Mr. Raymond said, and then dismissed Frederick.
"But you ought not to talk, sir," expostulated the valet, "until you have had your breakfast."
The sick man made a gesture for him to leave the room, watched him go out, and then fastened his piercing black eyes on me and looked at me long and fixedly. "You saw me yesterday?" said he at last, breaking the silence.
I nodded, finding it a difficult task to speak.
"Are you a babbling child?" said he with considerable force and earnestness, "or have you enough of a man's knowledge to have learned to respect the infirmities of other men?"
"I tell no one's secrets, sir: they are not mine to tell."
He quite broke down, and lay there before me strangling with sobs and cries. "Should Mr. Floyd know," he murmured, "should Mr. Floyd even guess, that I am the wretched wreck of a man that I am, he would not let Helen stay with me another moment. He would extenuate, he would pity, nothing: he does not know what it is for a man like me, once proud, witty, gay, to bear seclusion and depression and decay. I long at times for some of the inspiration of my youth: it comes with a terrible penalty."
I could believe it, for his face expressed such abasement and despair as I had never dreamed of.
"I know," he continued, his voice broken and husky, "that I shadow Helen's life. I know that if I had died last night she would be a luckier girl to-day than she is now. But I sha'n't last long, Floyd. Put your finger on my pulse."
I did so, and was obliged to grope for the uncertain, slow beating at his wrist. It seemed as if so little life was there it might easily flicker and go out at any moment.
"I may die at any time," said he, putting my unspoken thought into words. "Dr. Sharpe tells me not to count on the morrow. What cruelty it would be, then, to deprive me of my grandchild! What could I do without her? What would become of me, living alone, with no company but the gibbering shapes mocking at me out of the corners?" He cowered all in a heap and looked up at me with clasped hands. "Let her stay," he went on imploringly. "It is only for a little while, and then everything will be hers—this house and these grounds, my house in New York and blocks of stores, all my pictures, my statues, my books. Why, I tell you, Floyd, I am worth more than a million of dollars in invested property that brings me in a return of ten per cent. It is all for her. I save half my income every year to buy new mortgages and stocks, that she may be the richer. I think," he exclaimed with a sudden burst of feeling, "that such wealth as I shall give her might atone for a great deal. Remember, Floyd, it is only a little while that I shall burden her: let her stay."
He was pleading with me as if I were the arbiter of his fate. He had grasped my arm, and his glittering eyes were fastened on me with the intensity of despair in their expression.
"Why, Mr. Raymond," said I gently, "I have nothing to do with Helen's going or staying. If you fear that I shall inform Mr. Floyd about what—what[page 207] happened yesterday, you do me injustice. I shall tell him nothing. I have no right to say a word about anything that takes place in your house."
"You are a good boy," said Mr. Raymond, with an expression of relief relaxing his convulsed features. "I do not wonder that James loves you as his own son—that it is the wish of his heart that you should grow up with Helen, learn to love her, and marry her at last."
I listened doubtfully: it did not occur to me that his words had any foundation in fact; yet, all the same, the newly-suggested idea burdened me. "I think you are mistaken," said I gently. "Nothing of that kind could ever possibly happen."
"Not for years—not until I am dead," returned Mr. Raymond peevishly. "It was nothing—nothing at all. All that occurred I will tell you, since I was foolish enough to speak of it in the first instance. James said he wanted Helen to be much with you. 'You know how those childish intimacies end,' I replied to him—'in deep attachment and desire for marriage.'—'I ask nothing better for Helen,' James exclaimed. 'She will grow up like other girls, and love, and finally become a wife; and if she became Floyd's wife I should have no fears for her.'" Mr. Raymond's eyes met mine. "You will never tell Mr. Floyd I spoke of this to you," he said under his breath. "I am not quite myself this morning, or I should not have suggested a thought of it to you."
I was very sure that I should never mention it, for I found the idea of my marrying Helen so painfully irksome that it went with me all the day, casting a shadow across our intercourse. I told myself over and over that the idea was absurd—that such a thing could never, never come to pass. She was so mere a child. I studied her face with its baby contours, where nothing showed the dawn of womanhood yet except the great melancholy eyes; I took her hand in mine, where it lay like a snowflake on my brown palm; and I laughed aloud at the grotesqueness of the fancy that I should ever put a ring on that childish finger.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked me wonderingly.
"To think," I rejoined, "how funny it is to remember one day you will be grown up and have rings upon your fingers."
"Is that funny?" she asked. "Of course, if I live I shall grow up and be a woman. My mamma was married when she was only seventeen, and in seven years I shall be seventeen." I dropped her hand as if it had stung me. "I have all mamma's rings," she went on: "I have a drawerful of trinkets that mamma used to wear. When Georgy Lenox comes I shall give her a locket and a chain that are so very, very pretty they will be just right for her. Tell me more about her, Floyd."
It was easy enough for me to grow eloquent in talking of Georgina, and Helen was as anxious to hear as I to tell. The little girl had had few friends of her own sex and age: every summer had brought the New York and Boston Raymonds to The Headlands, and when the neighboring watering-place was in its season numerous flounced and gloved little misses had been introduced to the shy, quaint child, who felt strange and dreary among them all. In fact, the little heiress's position, so unique in every respect, had isolated her from the joys of commonplace childhood, and she found more companionship in her dumb pets, in the sumptuous silence of the blossoming gardens, in the voices of the shore, than among girls of her own age with their chatter about their teachers or governesses, their dancing-steps and their games. Nevertheless, she was both ardent and affectionate, and ready to love all the world; and no sooner had Georgy appeared than she lavished upon her all the passion of girlish fondness for her own sex which had hitherto lain dormant within her. Georgy had always been used to adulation and to lead others by her capricious will and her radiant smile, and within a day after her coming had established almost a dangerous supremacy over the child. It was at once fascinating and disappointing to be under the same roof with Georgy: every[page 208] morning when I awoke it seemed a miracle of happiness that I had but to dress and go out of my room to have a chance of meeting her, of perpetually recurring smiles and conversation such as I had never enjoyed before at Belfield. But the reality never bore out the promise of my vague but delicious reveries. Mr. Raymond at once took an active, almost virulent, dislike to his young guest, and pointed out her faults to me with clear and concise words, each one of which pierced me like a rapier; and the certainty of his condemnation gave me a keen, and at times almost inspired, vision for her weaknesses.
Nothing could exceed her rapture at being in the beautiful house which she had so long wished to see, and which she loudly asserted a thousand times surpassed all her expectations. And she fitted admirably into her costly surroundings: the sheen of her golden hair made the dark velvet cushionings and hangings a more beautiful background than before; she gave expression to the stately, silent rooms; and what had at first been almost, despite its luxury, a desert to me, became a fairy land. Little Helen was so burdened with possessions that it was a pleasure for her to give them away. Still, I wished that Georgy had not been so willing to accept all that the lavish generosity of the child prompted her to offer. But Georgy was no Spartan: she wanted everything that could minister to her comfort. She was a natural gourmand, hungry for sweets and fruits all day long: she coveted ornaments, and found Helen's drawer of trinkets almost too small for her; she liked velvets and furs, silks and plushes, and wore the child's clothes until Mr. Raymond sent his housekeeper to Boston to purchase her a complete outfit of her own. But all these faults I could have pardoned in Georgy, and ascribed them to her faulty education and false influences at home, had she been grateful to little Helen.
"She hates Helen for being luckier than herself," Mr. Raymond affirmed: "she would do her a mischief if she could."
I could not believe that, yet I could see that she loved to torture the child, whose acute sensibilities made her suffer from the slightest coldness or suspicion.
"If you really loved me, Helen," Georgy would say, "you would do this for me;" and sometimes the task would be to slight or openly disobey Mr. Raymond, to outrage me or to make one of the dumb, loving pets which filled the place suffer. And if at sight of the child's tears I remonstrated, I was punished as it was easy enough for Georgy Lenox to punish me.
She would melt Helen too by drawing a picture of her own poverty and state of dreary unhappiness beside the good fortune of the heiress, until the little girl would search through the house to find another present for her, which she besought her beautiful goddess almost on her knees to accept. All these traits, which showed that Georgina was far from perfect, caused me a misery proportionate to my longing to have her all that was lovely and excellent. It is indeed unfair to write of faults which are so easy to portray, and to say nothing of the beauty of feature and charm of manner, which might have been enough to persuade any one who looked into her face that she was one of God's own angels. What does beauty mean if it be not the blossoming of inner perfection into outward loveliness? And Georgina Lenox was beautiful to every eye. Let every one who reads my story know and feel that she had the beauty which can stir the coldest blood—the eyes whose look of entreaty could melt the most implacable resolution—the smile which could lure, the voice which could make every man follow.