Sir Henry lived in cheerful apartments, dined at a tolerable table-d'hôte, sipped a petit vin de Bordeaux that always agreed with him, smoked good cigars, and frequented a social circle, not very distinguished, nor indeed very respectable, but in which, with his fatal facility of getting into mischief, he found himself always amused.
When his letters were written and posted, he felt without a care in the world for the rest of the day, and positively looked younger and fresher in his exile than at any time during the last five years, though there was an execution in the house at Blackgrove, and he had not a shilling to his name.
Helen, on the contrary, found herself beset with every kind of annoyance and difficulty, from the black looks of a principal creditor to the loud reproaches of a discharged scullery-maid. Her father indeed wrote her full and explicit directions what to do in the present crisis; but even to a girl of her force of character, many of the details she had to carry out were painful and embarrassing in the extreme. On her shoulders fell the burden of settling with the servants, the land-steward, the very gamekeepers and watchers on the estate. She advertised the stock and farming implements; she sent the horses and carriages to Tattersalls'; she negotiated the rescue of her sisters' pianoforte out of the general smash. It had been arranged that those young ladies should pay a visit to their aunt, and Helen packed up their things, and started them, nothing loath, by the railway, and furnished them with money for their journey. Her purse was nearly empty when she returned from the station, and, sitting down to rest after her labours, in the dreary waste of a dismantled home, she realised, for the first time, the loneliness and misery of her position.
She had borne up bravely while there was necessity for action, while her assumed cheerfulness and composure implied a tacit protest against the abuse poured on her father; but in the solitude of the big drawing-room, with the carpets up, and the furniture "put away," she fairly broke down, leaning her head against the chimney-piece, and crying like a child.
She never saw the Midcombe fly toiling up the avenue; she never heard it grinding round to the door; she was thinking rather bitterly that her young life's happiness had been sacrificed through no fault of hers; that she had been misunderstood; ill-treated; that even her father, whom she loved so dearly, had placed her in a position of humiliation and distress; that everybody was against her, and she had not a friend in the world, when a light step, the rustle of a dress, and a well-known voice, caused her to start and look up. The next moment, with a little faint cry, that showed how stout-hearted Helen had been tried, she was in the embrace of Mrs. Lascelles, with her head on that lady's shoulder, who did not refrain from shedding a few tears for company.
"My dear, you mustn't stay here another instant," exclaimed the latter. "Where are your things? Where is your maid? I've kept the fly, and you're to come back with me by the five o'clock train. Your father says so. I've got his letter here. No. Where have I put it? Don't explain, dear; I know everything. He told me all about it from the first, and I should have been down sooner but for those abominable excursion trains. Ring the bell. Send for all the servants there are left, and tell them to get your boxes ready immediately! You're to pay me a nice long visit, my precious! And, oh! Helen, I've got so much to tell you!"
The girl was already smiling through her tears. Even in the midst of ruin it seemed no small consolation to have such a friend as this; and there was a hearty brightness about Mrs. Lascelles, not to be damped by the despondency of the most hopeless companion.
"How good of you to come!" she said. "How like you, and how unlike anybody else! I've had a deal of trouble here, but it's all over at last. I've managed everything for him the best way I could, and now I must go to poor papa, and take care of him in that miserable little French town."
"Poor papa, indeed!" echoed the other. "I've no patience with him! But, however, it's no use talking about that to you. Only, my dear, don't distress yourself unnecessarily about poor papa. He'll do very well, and there's no occasion for you to go abroad at all. We shall have him back in a week. Friends have turned up in the most unaccountable manner. How shall I ever tell you all about it? In the first place, Helen dear, I'm going to be married!"
"You!" exclaimed Helen, in accents of undisguised astonishment; adding after a moment's pause, as good manners required, "I'm sure I wish you joy!"