Franklin Kane

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

'That's just it,' Miss Buchanan acquiesced; and she went on after a moment, 'I'm willing to call Helen a decorative idler if we are talking of purely economic weights and measures; thank goodness there are other standards, and we are not likely to see them eliminated from civilised society for many a generation. For many a generation, I trust, there'll be people in the world who don't earn their keep, as one may say, and yet who are more worth while keeping than most of the people who do. To my mind Helen is such a person. I'd like to tell you a little about her life, Mr. Kane.'

'I should be very much obliged if you would,' Franklin murmured, his thin little face taking on an expression of most intense concentration. 'It would be a great privilege. You know what I feel about Miss Helen.'

'Yes; it's because I know what you feel about her that I want to tell you,' said Miss Grizel. 'Not that it's anything startling, or anything you wouldn't have supposed for yourself; but it illustrates my point, I think, very well, my point that Helen is the type of person we can't afford to let go under. Has Helen ever spoken to you about her mother?'

'Never,' said Franklin, his intent face expressing an almost ritualistic receptivity.

'Well, she's a poor creature,' said Miss Buchanan, 'a poor, rubbishy creature; the most selfish and reckless woman I know. I warned my brother how it would turn out from the first; but he was infatuated and had his way, and a wretched way it turned out. She made him miserable, and she made the children miserable, and she nearly ruined him with her extravagance; he and I together managed to put things straight, and see to it that Nigel should come into a property not too much encumbered and that Helen should inherit a little sum, enough to keep her going—a little more it was, as a matter of fact, than what I'll be able to leave her. Well, when my brother died, she was of age and she came into her modest fortune; for a young girl, with me to back her up, it wasn't bad. She had hardly seen her mother for three years—they'd always been at daggers drawn—when one day, up in Scotland, when she was with her brother—it was before Nigel married—who should appear but Daisy. She had travelled up there in desperate haste to throw herself on her children's mercy. She was in terrible straits. She had got into debt—cards and racing—and she was frightfully involved with some horror of a man. Her honour was wrecked unless she could pay her debts and extricate herself. Well, she found no mercy in Nigel; he refused to give her a farthing. It was Helen who stripped herself of every penny she possessed and saved her. I don't know whether she touched Helen's pity, or whether it was mere family pride; the thought of the horror of a man was probably a strong motive too. All Helen ever said about it to me was, "How could I bear to see her like that?" So, she ruined herself. Of course after that it was more than ever necessary that she should marry. I hadn't begun to save for her, and there was nothing else for her to look to. Of course I expected her to marry at once; she was altogether the most charming girl of her day. But there is the trouble; she never did. She refused two most brilliant offers, one after the other, and hosts of minor ones. There was some streak of girlish romance in her, I suppose. I wish I could have been more on the spot and put on pressure. But it was difficult to be on the spot. Helen never told me about her offers until long after; and pressure with her wouldn't come to much. Of course I didn't respect her the less for her foolishness. But, dear me, dear me,' said Miss Buchanan, turning her eyes on the fire, 'what a pity it has all been, what a pity it is, to see her wasted.'

Franklin listened to this strange tale, dealing with matters to him particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him was the thought of Helen in it all. This oppressed him very much.

Miss Buchanan continued to look into the fire for a little while after she had finished her story, and then, bringing her eyes back to Franklin's countenance, she looked at him keenly and steadily. 'And now, Mr. Kane,' she said, 'you are perhaps asking yourself why I tell you all this?'

Franklin was not asking it at all, and he answered with earnest sincerity: 'Why, no; I think I ought to be told. I want to be told everything about my friends that I may hear. I'm glad to know this, because it makes me feel more than ever what a fine woman Miss Helen is, and I'm sorry, because she's wasted, as you say. I only wish,' said Franklin, and the intensity of cogitation deepened on his face, 'I only wish that one could think out some plan to give her a chance.'

'I wish one could,' said Miss Buchanan. And without any change of voice she added: 'I want you to marry her, Mr. Kane.'

Franklin sat perfectly still and turned his eyes on her with no apparent altering of expression, unless the arrested stillness of his look was alteration. His eyes and Miss Buchanan's plunged deep into each other's, held each other's for a long time. Then, slowly, deeply, Franklin flushed.